Page 55 of Darkest Oblivion
Dmitri’s control extended even here, isolating me, caging me in a crowd.
I scanned the club—women in tight dresses clung to men, their laughter forced, their eyes vacant.
No groups of female friends, just women tethered to their captors, likely kidnapped like me, their wills broken.
Was this my future, a life of submission, my identity erased?
My chest tightened, not from asthma but from despair.
“We meet again, whale,” a voice sneered, dripping with malice.
I turned, my heart lurching.
Antonio Bellanti sat at the bar, his hoodie shadowing his face, his dark eyes glinting with cruelty.
My ex-fiancé—the man who’d humiliated me at the altar with his body-shaming jeers:Paraded up here like a pig in lace. Even the gown can’t hide it. Your belly looks swollen.
His words had cut deep, a prelude to the cruelty I would later face from Dmitri. And now here, in Dmitri’s territory.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” I snapped, my voice shaking, his presence a violation.
Italy was vast, yet he’d found me in this mafia stronghold.
He took a sip of his wine, his gaze fixed ahead, casual but menacing.
“You really thought I wouldn’t find you?” he taunted, his voice low, dripping with contempt. “I still wonder what Dmitri sees in a fat bitch like you—why he’d marry you in public, no less. My family’s bounty is on your head, Penelope. Sooner or later, you’ll be dragged back to my father’s estate... and when that day comes, you’ll be mine. My slave.”
My fist clenched around the glass, anger coursing through me.
His betrayal—three years of lies, using me as nothing more than a pawn for his family’s ambitions—crashed over me.
I pushed to my feet, ready to walk away. But Antonio only downed the last of his wine and leaned closer, his breath sharp with liquor. “I can help you out,” he murmured, his voice slick, serpent-like. “If you help me.”
Chapter 15
PENELOPE
Antonio’s words hung in the air like poison, his hoodie casting shadows over his cruel smirk.
“We’ve heard the whispers—Dmitri forced you into marriage,” Antonio said, his tone low, taunting. “The first time he’s broken the traditions of his precious territory. Men are questioning him. His loyalists are thinning. He’s already on trial, Penelope—one wrong verdict, and everything he’s built for decades will be stripped from him.”
He pulled out a sleek device, no bigger than a coin, holding it between two fingers like an offering. “Plant this on his phone. Magnetic, invisible—just stick it to the metal. We’ll handle the rest. Do this, and you’ll be on a plane back to New York, to your mourning parents still searching for you.”
My heart lurched. Mama. Papa. Their faces flashed in my mind.
They didn’t know. They hadn’t heard about Dmitri’s public marriage? They should have guessed he whisked me away like a prize, yet still they searched.
My twenty-fifth birthday—a milestone they once prepared for—was now nothing but a fading memory.
“And you think I’ll trust you?” I asked, my voice sharp, my eyes narrowing at the man who’d once betrayed me at the altar.
Antonio let a tiny metallic device clink onto the bar, followed by a folded slip of paper. Both glinted under Lupo Nero’s pulsing blue lights—like promises laced with poison.
He straightened, tugging the hood of his sweatshirt into place, his voice slicing low and cruel. “I’ll be counting on you, whale.”
He slipped into the crowd, his figure swallowed by the pulsing techno and haze of smoke.
I glanced around, my heart racing, knowing Giovanni’s eyes were on me from somewhere in the club’s shadows.
