Page 2 of Darkest Oblivion
This is my future? Being dragged to his hometown in Italy? Becoming his prisoner?
“Antonio Bellanti, do you take Penelope Marco to be your lawfully wedded wife, to have and to hold, in sickness and in health, until death do you part?”
Antonio’s smirk widened, and he tilted his head toward me, his eyes gleaming with cruelty.
“Oh, I take her, Father,” he said darkly, his tone venomous enough to make the front pews stir. “I’ll take her in sickness, in weakness, in shame. I’ll take her bloated body, her pig snorts when she cries, her useless tears. And I’ll hold her—” his lips twisted into a vicious grin, “—by the throat, until death does us part.”
A ripple of uneasy murmurs spread through the crowd. The priest paled, fumbling over his book.
My hands trembled, my lungs tightening with the familiar ache of asthma, though I clutched my inhaler in my pocket like a lifeline.
I was stepping into a life with a man who despised me, who’d used me to infiltrate my family’s empire.
From the corner of my eye, I saw my father’s smile falter, his proud expression stiffening into something harder. Marco Romano wasn’t a man easily shaken, but his jaw clenched tight enough to crack bone. A vein ticked at his temple, the kind of silent fury that usually preceded blood.
Isabella—my mother—gasped, her hand flying to her chest, her pearls trembling against her fingers. “Madonna santa...” she whispered, horror flooding her face. Her eyes darted between Antonio and me, as if begging me to deny what he’d just said, to insist it was some cruel joke.
My uncles, Rocco and Carlo, stiffened in unison, the air around them turning predatory. Wolves, ready to rip out a throat.
Rocco leaned forward, his dark eyes narrowing on Antonio, a muscle feathering in his jaw. His hand twitched once, hovering dangerously close to the holster beneath his suit jacket.
Carlo’s lips pressed into a knife-thin line, his shoulders squaring, gaze sharp enough to cut. His fingers tapped once against the armrest, a silent countdown to violence.
The very man they had trusted, the man they had welcomed like blood, had just spat venom on their niece in front of everyone.
And I... I stood frozen, my hands trembling in Antonio’s grip, shame and betrayal clawing at my throat.
The priest’s voice broke through again, formal and resonant. “If anyone here has just cause why these two should not be joined in holy matrimony, speak now or forever hold your peace.”
Silence fell, heavy and oppressive, the crowd’s eyes darting nervously.
I scanned the faces, desperate for someone to see my pain.
Tears pricked my eyes as I turned back to Antonio, his smirk a promise of torment. “Nobody will save you from me, Penelope,” he whispered, his breath hot against my ear. “The contract’s already signed. The Romanos handed you over the second they put ink to paper.”
His grin widened, evil and triumphant. “My family may not be as powerful as yours in New York, but in Italy? You’re nothing but mine. And once I drag you there, no one—not even your precious father—will take you back.”
A loud gasp erupted from the crowd, and my head snapped up.
In the center of the pews, a hand rose, powerful and commanding, adorned with intricate tattoos—snakes and daggers coiling up a muscular forearm, a silver ring glinting on the thumb.
People craned their necks, murmurs stirring. The sheer weight of that single hand lifted high seemed to drag the oxygen out of the church.
Then, as if pulled by some invisible gravity, the rows shifted. Men shuffled back, women clutched their pearls and slid aside. One by one, the bodies between me and him moved—parting without being asked, without daring to resist.
And through that opening, I finally saw him.
The figure who made my heart stop.
Dmitri Volkov.
Not the boy who once shared lemonade with me on my porch when I was fifteen. Not the boy who’d smirked when he caught me spying on him from my bedroom window.
No—this was someone else entirely.
The sweet boy was long dead.
In his place stood a man carved from shadows and violence, a mafia king whose name alone made men twice his age tremble.
