CHAPTER 1

NIKOLAI VOLKOV

The church reeked of sin to me.

It wasn't worse than mine. Not because of what I've already done—but because of what I'm about to do.

The silence inside was dense, almost suffocating. I stood by the door for a few seconds, taking a deep breath before going in.

I'm in a real mess.

Sir, you must come in. The bride is arriving.

I clenched my jaw, feeling the irritation simmering.

"I'm in no hurry to marry a deformed woman," I replied finally, walking down the hallway.

At the altar, even the priest avoided my gaze. The pews were almost empty. Only sixteen witnesses. Sixteen accomplices in my social assassination.

Of all of them, the sharpest gaze belonged to my father.

Ivan Arkady Volkov. The Old Bear. The man who molded me with fire and iron, whose laws I carry tattooed on my skin and soul. In his eyes there was only one word: disappointment.

It was out of respect for him—and for the tradition that keeps us chained to the Bratva—that I was still there. The last thread preventing me from setting that entire church on fire.

I didn't hold his gaze for very long.

My focus immediately fell on the three figures seated in the front row.

Elizabeth Harrington, with her usual plastic smile. Richard, the old man, with the eyes of a jailer—the man who handed his own daughter over to a wolf out of pure ambition. And Victoria. The architect of this trap. Her thin smile was pure poison, injected straight into the vein.

"Poisonous snake..." I murmured to myself.

A cursed trinity.

And then, at the end of the corridor that led to my own personal hell, there she was.

Angeline Harrington.

The property lay beneath a white veil so dense it seemed to want to devour it. What should have symbolized purity, to me, was nothing more than the cloth that wraps damaged merchandise.

My fate had been tied to that scar, and I didn't know what I despised more: the family that imposed this on me or the pathetic reflection of who I was becoming.

The priest began the ceremony:

We are gathered here today to celebrate the sacred union…

"Skip the theatrics, Father," I interrupted impatiently. "Go straight to the vows. No one here came here for faith."

A few murmurs spread through the room. The priest fell silent for a moment. The bride's shoulders trembled slightly beneath her veil.

Then, a soft voice escaped from beneath the fabric:

Yes... please, let's go ahead.

The calmness of that sentence disconcerted me for a second. More resignation than fear.

I ignored it.

Embarrassed, the priest sped up the rite. My vows came out lifeless, mechanical, as if someone else were speaking for me.

The moment everyone had been waiting for in tense silence had arrived.

— You can lift the bride's veil.

I took a step forward. I raised my hands and grasped the thin fabric, lifting it.

The scar was the first thing I saw.

An irregular, pinkish line ran from her right temple to the corner of her mouth. A mark of violence etched into her pale skin. My brain, intoxicated by rage, registered only this: failure. Deformity. Imposed bride.

I didn't see the dull green of her teary eyes. I didn't notice the subtle tremor of her lower lip. I only saw the imperfection that sealed my defeat.

I lowered the veil with a brusque gesture, cutting off the scene. The sight turned my stomach.

The priest, flustered, concluded:

— By the power vested in me… I now pronounce you husband and wife.

The words fell dry, like stones into an empty well.

Husband and wife.

Jailer and prisoner.

We had barely crossed the church threshold when Richard approached, smiling, his hand outstretched.

Congratulations, Nikolai. May it be a union…

"Keep your lies to yourself, Richard," I cut in, glaring at his hand as if it were trash. "And get out of my sight before I show you who I really am."

His smile froze.

I walked past him without saying anything more, focused on the car that would take me to the Harrington mansion. Where, finally, I would begin to dismantle their fraud.

It was only a matter of time