The thought made my stomach twist violently.
Vanya had said Dmitri mourned me.
He’d said it so casually, like it was a fact everyone knew.
That meant Dmitri had grieved. Carried guilt like a second skin. Lived with a hole he couldn’t explain.
Yet he couldn’t remember why.
I didn’t know whether to hate him for believing the lies or pity him for being so thoroughly erased.
The thought clawed at me like a blade pressed to bone. Every memory of Dmitri, every stolen moment, had been rewritten. Not only by Seraphina, but by everyone who had silently allowed it to happen.
My mind flickered to Ruslan Baranov. The Greek legend who had taken me in, nurtured me, kept me safe in that sun-drenched villa for five years without ever asking for a thing in return.
If I could reach him, if I could send a word across the miles... he would come.
He would tear through walls, bodies, and fire just to get me back. But how? I had nothing. No passport, no money, no clothes beyond these black silk pajamas that felt both soft and absurdly inadequate.
Crossing borders barefoot, penniless, hunted by people with infinite resources—it was a fantasy. A beautiful, impossible dream. And even if I made it to Greece, explaining this nightmare would take more time than I had, and more energy than I could summon in my blood-soaked, bruised state.
Footsteps echoed from the right corridor—measured, deliberate, familiar.
I turned.
Giovanni.
The sight of him stole the air from my lungs. Almost the same: tall, broad-shouldered, dark hair swept back, sharp jaw shadowed with a day’s stubble.
Radiant in that effortless way mafia men sometimes are—someone who commands attention without trying. Yet it wasn’t his posture, or even the elegance of his tailored black shirt, open at the collar with sleeves rolled to the elbows, that froze me. No. It was the thick platinum band on his left ring finger.
Married?
“Giovanni,” I said softly as he reached the balcony.
He stopped, eyes widening fractionally—recognition, followed instantly by caution.
“It’s me,” I pressed, voice trembling with a mix of desperation and resolve. “Penelope. I was never dead.”
He glanced over his shoulder, then back at me. His voice dropped, a low, warning murmur. “Don’t say that name here. Not out loud.”
“Why?” I stepped closer, refusing to let the gap between us feel like safety. “Seraphina already told me. She wiped Dmitri’s memory. Vanya’s too. They think Penelope Volkov died in New Jersey years ago. But you...” My eyes searched his face, desperate. “Your memory wasn’t wiped. You know the truth. So why haven’t you told Dmitri? Why didn’t you look for me? Where were you when we were taken twelve months ago?”
Giovanni exhaled through his nose, a long, weary sound that seemed to carry the weight of every secret he’d held.
He leaned against the railing beside me, forearms braced on the iron, gaze fixed on the empty living room below.
“Sadly, Penelope,” he said quietly, almost to himself, “we lost the war before it even started.”
I stared at him, a flicker of fear and disbelief warring with hope. “What does that mean?”
He didn’t answer immediately. Fingers drummed once against the cold metal railing, then stilled.
The silence stretched, oppressive, filled with all the things neither of us wanted to say.
“Ricci Ferraro sold us out,” he said at last.
The words landed heavy, deliberate, each one a strike against the fragile bubble of relief I’d been holding onto. “All of us. He gave the Albanians the keys to our security system—codes, blind spots, guard rotations. They walked right in. Took everyone in the mansion that night. Ricci did it to get Bianca back. His bride. He thought if he handed us over, they’d release her from whatever hell they’d put her in.”