I overheard my father and uncles debating which of the four rival mafia heirs I’d be arranged to marry. I didn’t care—until he walked in. Dmitri Volkov. My greatest tormentor. The heir of our enemy. Now the ruthless boss of the most feared Bratva in the city. He didn’t ask. He declared: “I’ll marry her.” Naturally, I refused. I thought that was the end—Until an invitation arrived. Dmitri’s wedding. Finally, I thought, he was moving on. I walked into the church smiling. I didn’t realize I was walking straight into a trap. Straight into my own wedding. At the altar, his lips curled into that cruel, mocking smirk: “Didn’t you promise to marry me at twenty-five, sweetheart? Or did you think I’d let you forget?” That night, he didn’t even stay home. When he returned with hickeys and slid his ring back on, I asked who she was. His answer cut me to pieces: “Seraphina—slim, graceful, desired… everything you’ll never be.” And that was only the beginning of my hell. Because Dmitri’s punishments were never random—they were an obsession. Every cruel word, every calculated humiliation was his twisted way of branding me as his. When my asthma attack struck, he stood there watching, stealing my inhaler with a sneer: “Gasp for me, Penelope. Maybe death will finally make you mine the way I want. Maybe then you’ll understand you don’t get to leave me." He spat that a “fat, useless wife” like me didn’t deserve to carry his child. He wanted me broken. Dependent. His. Until the day I fought back. I slammed divorce papers onto his desk and walked out of his life—Bleeding, shattered, but finally free. Now? The cold, unfeeling psychopath is tearing the world apart to find me. Begging. Groveling. Obsessed more than ever. He’s kissed my feet before a crowd, vowing: “Penelope, I was wrong. I’ll spend the rest of my life making it up to you.” But I’m no longer the girl he broke. And forgiveness? He’ll have to earn it the same way he made me suffer. “Anything, sweetheart,” he swore. I smiled. “Perfect. Because I want you to suffer the way I did—slowly, painfully. Forgiveness will come the day you take your last breath… with my heel on your throat.”

When ruthless 30-year-old mafia boss Dmitri Volkov is given an ultimatum—produce an heir before his thirty-first birthday or lose his position at the head of the Bratva—marrying Penelope was supposed to be a business transaction. Cold. Strategic. Disposable. He never expected her quiet defiancé to crawl under his skin. He never expected to want her. And he definitely never expected her to vanish before he could understand why she’d left. Until one night, by mistake, she dialed him instead of her father. Her voice was trembling, exhausted. “Dad, my babies were born, but I don’t have money to buy them formula.” For a heartbeat, there was silence. Then his voice—low, sharp, almost shaking. “You were pregnant? Stay right there.” Minutes later, the ground trembled with the roar of helicopter blades. He was coming. She thought he hated her. He thought he didn’t need her. But obsession has always been stronger than hate—and Dmitri Volkov never lets go of what’s his.

Penelope raised her son alone, carrying a secret she swore would never surface again. The child’s father—Dmitri Volkov—had vanished years ago, believing her dead, leaving behind only scars and a love that curdled into hate. She rebuilt her life in Greece, convincing herself she no longer needed the man who broke her. Until she heard he was getting married. She should have stayed away. Instead, she returned—to his country, to his world, to the one place she was never meant to exist again. At the wedding, her son tugged at her hand and whispered, “Mommy… who is that uncle?” Penelope didn’t look at the groom when she answered. “He’s no one important.” But the moment Dmitri’s eyes found her, everything shattered. He stared at her like a ghost risen from the grave. Like a woman stolen from him by fate itself. She looked too much like his late wife—too much like a wound that never healed—and Dmitri Volkov was not a man who let mysteries walk away. He refused to let her leave. Three months. That was the contract. A forced marriage dressed up as protection, possession disguised as curiosity. In public, he treated her like an inconvenience. In private, he burned with a possessiveness that made her breath hitch and her fear blur with longing. He snapped at other men for touching her. Shielded her with silent violence. And adored her son with a tenderness that terrified her more than his cruelty ever could. Yet Dmitri remained cold—distant—haunted by secrets he refused to explain. Until the night everything broke. Penelope—his wife. And the woman everyone whispered was his mistress. Both kidnapped. One choice. And Dmitri Volkov chose… the other woman. The betrayal shattered Penelope beyond repair. But Dmitri would soon learn the truth too late: Some sins demand a price paid in blood.