I entered the hospital ward where Uncle Antonio lay, disguised in a mask. The mask wasn’t for Antonio.
Grandma didn’t know that I had tracked down which country he was flown to. Since I was already in New York for business, I thought it necessary to pay him a visit.
Standing beside his bed, I took in his pathetic state. He had grown painfully thin, his eyes sunken and glassy. staring up as if begging for death. His mouth was twisted to the side, the telltale sign of a stroke. His entire left side, arm, leg, and even part of his face, was paralyzed. It was only a matter of time before the rest of his body followed.
I pulled up a chair beside him. “It’s me, Gleb.”
His body twitched violently in fear, his fingers weakly clutching the bedsheet. “Gleb…” he managed, his voice thick and slurred.
I leaned in. “You’re paying the price for touching my woman.”
His breath hitched, then came a wet, rasping laugh. “You’re… a wicked soul, Gleb. You chose a fucking Italian over me?” His words were barely understandable, slurred by his half-dead mouth.
“She’s my wife,” I said coldly. “I don’t care what nationality she is. You should have respected that.”
I sat back, crossing one ankle over my knee. “I’m not here for small talk, Uncle. I need you to call your sons, Yegor and Arseny. One of them put his hands on my wife. If I hadn’t already taken you down and put the rest of the family on edge, I would have killed them both.”
Antonio’s chest rose and fell in short, panicked bursts.
“I’ll let this go. Once. But if either of your sons touches my wife again, I won’t stop at their tongues. I’ll make sure you outlive them. Just long enough to understand what real suffering means.”
His body jerked violently at my words. “Don’t you dare… touch my sons!”
I stood, adjusting my cuffs. “Then call them to order.” Without another word, I walked out.
Anna hadn’t followed me to New York as originally planned. Instead, she stayed behind with Grandma to my surprise. Before we left, the two of them had spoken briefly, and Anna had assured me she would be fine.
I had expected Grandma’s hatred for Anna to be unbearable. But she had been strangely calm. Civil, even. Why?
Perhaps because Anna looks like Anastasia.
I should have been relieved that Grandma hadn’t torn her apart. Instead, I felt uneasy. Grandma never forgot her grudges. And if she was suddenly treating Anna like family, then she had a reason.
My grandfather had once told me stories about Grandma and her stepsister. How they had been inseparable, best friends who attended the same school, wore matching outfits, and even married on the same day. Their bond was so deep that some even whispered that they were more than sisters.
But then her stepsister died giving birth.
It destroyed her. She drowned herself in alcohol, spiraling so far that she needed therapy just to function again. But she took in her goddaughter, her late sister’s daughter, and vowed to raise her like her own.
Then at the age of seven, the Italians took her away too. The same day they took her husband.
Grandma had never recovered. How could she?
I still remembered waking up as a boy to the sound of her sobs. She cried every single night for two years until she nearly went blind.
***
I left New York three weeks later. The business deals had gone smoothly, better than I expected. Unlike what I’d heard, they didn’t treat me like an outsider. Not openly. Not to my face.
But respect and tolerance weren’t the same thing. I saw it in their eyes, the way they weighed my presence, measured my worth. To them, I was just another Russian brute with money. But that was fine. Let them think that. Let them underestimate me.
But instead of going straight home, I drove to the cemetery.
The air smelled of damp earth and old stone. A soft wind whispered through the graveyard, stirring the dead leaves at my feet. It had rained earlier. The headstones were slick with water, reflecting the gray sky above. I stood there, staring at their names, feeling nothing and everything all at once.”
There were two graves that stood out from the rest, marked by expensive black marble. I had paid for these spots myself, the final resting place of the only two women I had ever loved.
As I did every year, I placed a bouquet of white lilies on their graves and knelt before them.
In the earlier years, I would stay here for hours, letting the rain drench me, letting my tears fall freely.
But now?
Now, I just stared at the names carved into the stone, my eyes blank. The pain was still there, my throat raw from sobbing. Now, I just knelt. Silent. Empty. As if grief itself has abandoned me.
Maybe when I got my revenge, I would feel something again.
After a few minutes, I stood, turned away from the graves, and walked back to my car.
The moment I stepped inside the mansion, I heard music.
Loud, pulsing music. A party? Here?
I frowned. No one had told me about this.
Shaking off my irritation, I went to the master bedroom, dropped my bag, showered, and changed. Then I sat on the edge of the bed and called Anna.
No answer.
I called again.
Still nothing.
A strange feeling settled in my gut.
Could she be in the ballroom? With my family?
I stood and walked out of the room, heading toward the source of the noise. The closer I got, the louder the music became, pounding against my skull.
Then I saw her.
My wife. Dancing.
Careless.
Like she had no weight on her shoulders, no reason to be afraid.
It had only been three weeks. What the hell changed?
Then I saw him.
Arseny.
His hand on her waist. His fingers grazing her wrist. My pulse slammed through me, hot and violent. My hands clenched into fists before I even realized I was moving.”
Rage flashed white-hot through my body.
Did I not warn their father?
Did I not make myself clear?
I didn’t even realize my fists had clenched until I felt my nails digging into my palms.
Arseny’s hand on Anna. His body too close to hers.
Mine.
He was begging for death.
I moved swiftly across the ballroom, closing the distance between us.
The moment Anna saw me, she jerked away from him, like a woman caught doing something wrong.
She froze the moment she saw me. Her breath caught, her body stiffening, just for a second. Then she moved. Rushed into my arms. Wrapped herself around me like a lifeline.
“Gleb,” she whispered, voice unsteady. “Please… don’t do anything stupid. It was just a harmless dance.”
I stiffened. My voice was ice. “Did you forget what I did to your dance tutor?”
Her body tensed. “I… I didn’t know you’d be back today.”
“No one lays a fucking hand on you. I don’t care if I’m across the world or standing in the same room. The next man who tries? He loses that hand.”
She exhaled, her breath shaky. “I’ll remember that. But please, don’t do anything stupid.”
Arseny thinks a dance is harmless. He’ll soon learn nothing he does is harmless, not when it involves my wife.
I grabbed her wrist. “Come with me.”
She didn’t resist as I led her out of the ballroom.
The moment we stepped inside our bedroom, she turned to face me. “I was scared when I saw you.”
I crossed my arms. “And yet, you were dancing.”
She shrugged. “I have only one week left here, so…”
“So what?”
“You’re mine, Anna. I won’t touch you. But God help anyone else who tries.”
I stared at her, my expression unreadable.
“You left me alone for three weeks,” she said, voice sharp. “What did you expect? That I’d just sit in my room like a good little wife? No. I drank. I danced. I let myself forget for a while. Because why the hell not?”
“I called you every morning and every night. I texted too, but you never answered! I thought maybe… maybe you found my calls strange, so I stopped. Considering the nature of our marriage, I figured reaching out every day might be awkward.”
I took a shaky breath before continuing. “And I couldn’t just send someone to check on you. This is my family’s mansion, one of the most secure places in the world. If I put a spy here, Grandma would know instantly.”
She frowned. “I didn’t see any calls. No texts either. Are you sure you were calling the right number?”
To prove my point, I pulled out my phone and dialed her line. Silence. Her phone didn’t ring.
She crossed her arms. “I told you. You don’t even have my number.”
I turned my phone screen toward her. “This is your number, isn’t it?”
She hesitated, then took out her phone and called me. My phone remained silent.
My brows drew together. “You have a different number now?”
Her face paled. “No… I didn’t change my line.”
Something flickered in her expression, an unease that mirrored my own. I took her phone from her hands, pulled out the SIM card, and inspected it.
“This isn’t yours.” My voice came out sharper than I intended. “Someone switched your SIM, Anna.”
She blinked, then exhaled shakily. “But… why?”
My jaw tightened. I already knew the answer.
“You stayed back. Why?” I asked, switching the subject.
She hesitated before answering. “Grandma said that if I stayed, she’d allow us to return to your house. Instead of one month, she’d give us a whole year to work things out.”
My eyes narrowed. “And you believed her?”
She swallowed hard. “She told me she doesn’t hate me as much as I thought. That I remind her of her goddaughter. And… she said she genuinely wants me to give the family a grandson. That if I do, they’ll start valuing me.”
I scoffed. “And you didn’t think to tell me this?”
She shrugged. “I didn’t see a need to. Besides, you said I might be a distraction on your trip.”
“Might.” I emphasized the word. “That means I wasn’t sure. But one thing I am sure of? Grandma is cunning. That woman didn’t bring our family to the top of the bratva by being sentimental. She’s a master manipulator, Anna. You let her deceive you.”
Her lips parted slightly. “I know she might have a hidden agenda,” she admitted, voice tight. “But what choice did I have, Gleb? She gave me a year instead of a month. Even if she’s lying, at least I bought myself time.”
I exhaled, rubbing a hand down my face. “I’m saying she has a sinister reason for keeping you here. And I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s the one who changed your SIM so we couldn’t communicate.”
Anna’s breath hitched. “But… why? Why would she or anyone even do this?”
I exhaled sharply, my jaw tightening. “What do you think? The same people who want to control your every move.”
I clenched her phone in my fist. “They wanted you isolated. And they wanted me in the dark.”
Her fingers trembled as she reached for her phone. “Oh my God… they could’ve read my messages. Seen everything.”
“Not could have. Did,” I corrected darkly. “The only question is, what else did they do?”
She swayed slightly, and I instinctively reached out, guiding her to sit down. I remained standing, watching her closely.
Then she whispered something I didn’t expect.
“By this time next week, I’ll be gone,” she whispered, as if saying it aloud would make it real. “
“I should be relieved,” she muttered. “In a week, I’ll be free. No more threats. No more orders. No more… you.”
A small, broken smile played on her lips. “These past few months with you… they’ve been filled with both pain and happiness. And I wonder what awaits me in Italy.”
The raw emotion in her voice cut deeper than I wanted to admit.
“Since when have you been this comfortable around my family?” I asked, steering the conversation away.
She exhaled. “I only talk to Arseny. He and Yegor apologized a week after you left. I refused to forgive Yegor. I just can’t, not after what he did. But Arseny… I still talk to him.”
Her eyes flickered with something unreadable. “And tonight was the first time we ever danced.”
“I’ll be leaving for Italy next Sunday,” she added. “There’s no point causing more trouble with your family… not when I won’t be here anymore.”
She dropped her gaze, tears slipping silently down her cheeks.
I stepped forward, wanting to wipe them away, but she held up a hand. “Don’t,” she whispered. “Please don’t.”
I clenched my fists. Bold of her to think I would ever let her go.
She thought I was hurting her intentionally. That I was indifferent. That I would actually let this marriage dissolve.
She didn’t know the truth.
Didn’t know that I was merely keeping a long-standing promise, one that would soon come to an end. And once it did, I would claim her fully.
I would make her first kiss unforgettable. I would make her first time remarkable.
Because she was mine. She had always been mine.
I knew it the moment I saw her step out of that limousine, fresh off the plane from Italy. Even though she was in a wheelchair, it didn’t change what I felt.
She was beautiful, in a way that stole breath. Naïve, but not in a way that made her foolish. Clumsy, yes, but that was what I loved most about her.
I didn’t care what disability she had.
She. Was. Mine.
I had to tell myself I hated her, if only because of her parents. Her mother had killed my mother. Her father had slaughtered my family, men, women, children. He even killed a little girl once. Anastasia.
I could never forget.
When Anna first arrived, I lashed out at her. Again and again. But now… I was learning to manage my rage. My hatred. My pain.
And once this was over, I would keep her. Forever.
Because there was one thing I knew for certain.
She would never leave my sight.
And anyone who dared look at her with lust, anyone who dared to touch what was mine, would die screaming.
Yegor and Arseny? They thought they could touch her and walk away?
They have no idea what I have planned.
They won’t get the chance to regret it.
