Page 39 of Darkest Oblivion
The estate’s grandeur pressed down on me as we descended into the garage.
A black Rolls-Royce gleamed under the fluorescent lights.
Giovanni stood waiting at the driver’s door, his weathered face smug, his suit sharp enough to cut.
He opened the back door with a crisp bow.
Dmitri gestured me inside, his palm grazing my back.
Revulsion shot through me—followed, shamefully, by a flicker of unwanted heat. I bit the inside of my cheek until I tasted copper.
We slid into the leather seats, the air thick with the scent of polished wood, cologne, and new car.
Giovanni started the engine, and the tinted partition rose with a soft hum, sealing me in with Dmitri. The car purred to life, Lake Como’s waters flashing in shards of silver as we sped toward the ball.
Dmitri’s knee brushed mine.
His scent wrapped around me. He stared straight ahead, jaw carved from stone, hands resting on his thighs.
Then, flat and cold, he spoke. “I need a child.”
The words detonated inside me.
My breath caught, ears ringing.
Seraphina’s name echoed in memory and bile rose in my throat. Images of her perfection, the hickeys on his throat, his taunts, seared through me.
“Good for you,” I snapped, rage drowning fear. “Tell Seraphina—‘slim, graceful, everything I’ll never be’—to carry your child. Doesn’t sound that hard.”
His response was calm, colder than ice. “You’re right. It isn’t. There are hundreds of women who would carry my child. But tradition demands it be my wife.”
I scoffed, my pulse thundering. “Then maybe you should’ve married Seraphina. Spare us both the humiliation.”
His head snapped toward me, eyes flashing with fury.
In a blur, his hand closed around my jaw, his grip iron, fingers digging into my skin until pain shot through my cheekbones.
His breath hit my lips, hot and dangerous.
“Do not say her name again,” he growled, his voice guttural, vibrating through me like a threat made flesh.
My nails dug into my palms, but I forced the words out through clenched teeth. “You started it—when you compared me to her. I’m heavy, she’s slim, isn’t that what you said?”
The car fell silent, tension coiling like a snake, his grip unrelenting.
My body felt small, inadequate under his gaze, yet I refused to cower, my eyes locked on his, defiance burning.
He released me at last, shifting his thigh and staring straight ahead as though I no longer existed.
My jaw throbbed, but I pressed on, desperate for answers.
“Dmitri,” I said quietly, eyes fixed on him. “You owe me the truth. Ten years ago, you left without a word—no goodbye, no word. One day you were there, the next you were gone, and all I had were rumors—Rumors of blood and power and terrible things tied to your name in Italy.”
He stayed silent, his face a mask carved from stone.
“But I remember you before all this.” I swallowed hard, my voice breaking, “the boy who bought me gelato after my recital because I couldn’t stop crying. The boy who spent an hour sewing a ribbon into my hair when I ruined it, just to make me laugh again. The boy who swore the world could be ours when I was fifteen and you were nineteen.”
I drew a shaky breath, my chest heavy. “Don’t tell me none of that lingers in you. Our love may have been naïve, but it was real. I still feel it—God help me, I do. And all you’ve given me in return is hatred.”
