Savina I was promised to the older Sokolov brother first. The arranged marriage contract said his name—Dimitri Sokolov. He’s the cruel one, the boy who made my life miserable. He knows exactly how to push my buttons because he’s been doing it for years. Marrying him isn’t for power or protection. It’s punishment. But when the alliance unexpectedly shifts in our families, so does my fate. The papers are rewritten, and suddenly I’m meant to marry his brother instead. I thought I was free. But the man I was never supposed to fall in love with refuses to let me go. His stare still pins me in place. His voice still sends chills down my spine. He says the contract changed, but he didn’t. He tells me that I’ll always be his and that he’ll never let me go. And I don’t know which terrifies me the past I’m trying to escape from or the future he’s determined to steal back. Dimitri Savina Cipriano was mine first. The contract proved it. But then my father wrenched her from my hands, insisting I remain his pawn. When he handed Savina to my brother instead, the world I thought I controlled shattered. Something inside me broke with it, every certainty splintering into chaos. My brother can play the hero all he wants, but he didn’t earn her. I did. I’ve been obsessed with her for years, my devotion so violent it would scare her if she knew the depth of it. They think changing a name on paper changes destiny. It doesn’t. I won’t pretend I don’t see the way she still reacts to me; the shiver that runs through her and the way her pulse races the second I’m near, betraying herself in ways she can’t hide. I ruined her once, tore at her soul with my cruelty because I didn’t know how to want her without destroying her. I made mistakes I’ll never forgive myself for, but I refuse to watch her walk down the aisle to my brother. And if I have to become the villain again to stop this wedding, I will. She was promised to me first. She’s mine. And I’ll scorch the entire earth around us just to make sure she never forgets it.