Page 43 of Vow to Claim You

He looks at me as though he’s reading between the words. “Someone’s life.” It’s a statement rather than a question.

Nikos exhales smoke. “Chiara. Serena’s cousin.”

“And my ex,” I finish, because the room can’t function on half-truths.

“The girl you—” He stops himself before he finishes. He knows what I had with her. He’s one of the few who does. I kept the people who knew about Chiara to a very short list, but he’s on it.

Briefly, I tell him what happened. The betrayal. Domenico. The execution I performed last night with my own hand because I didn’t want Nikos to carry it. The rule that blood answers blood, which I helped write, which is currently aimed at a woman who has never raised a gun in her life, and which Hyun-seok is well aware of.

“A marriage to pull her under the protection of The Gods and keep her breathing,” I lay out.

Hyun-seok’s gaze shifts to Nikos. “Marriage is sacred in this society.”

“I know.” Nikos nods. “There is no clean exit.”

“There’s only one,” Hyun-seok states.

“Death,” I finish.

A long silence sits between us, weighted with the cost of what I’m asking. Hyun-seok looks down. He’s already running it: logistics, optics, the consequences for his own house in Seoul. The man can calculate war while looking like he’s enjoying a glass of wine.

“I’ll do it for you, brother. You saved my life,” he recalls, looking me in the eye.

Seoul. The alley behind the Hongdae safehouse. Hyun-seok took the first bullet square in the side, the kind meant to keep a man on the ground until the second one finished the job. I dragged him out by the collar of his suit while my men returned fire, blood slicking my hands, lungs burning, the smell of cordite thick enough to taste. Two of my men told me to leave him. Said I should save myself because he might not survive the extraction. I told them he didn’t get to die on concrete like an animal.

He woke up two days later in a hospital bed and looked at me like I’d put the world back together for him. I told him not to make it sentimental.

He never has. He’s also never forgotten.

There’s a softness in Hyun-seok’s eyes for a fraction of a second, then it’s gone, replaced by the steady black calm I’ve always known.

“I don’t keep score,” I tell him.

“I do,” he says, and there’s no room for argument. “I’ll do it. For you. And for her, too,” he adds. “She’s done nothing. Her brother’s sins aren’t hers. A life is a life. I wasn’t raised to let the wrong people die when I can keep them breathing.”

That’s the part of him most people miss. They see the warmth and assume softness. They’re wrong. Hyun-seok is steel wrapped in a smile, and the smile is what makes him deadly. He’ll be good to her. As good as a man in our world can be to a woman who didn’t choose him.

“Thank you.” It scrapes coming out. I don’t say it often, and he knows it.

“So it will be arranged.” Nikos sets the cigar in the dish. “Quietly. Council will be informed shortly.”

Hyun-seok straightens his cuffs as if to pretend it didn’t rearrange his whole life, head tilting. “When do I meet my wife?”

Nikos leans back in his chair, his head canting to one side. “Now.”

Hyun-seok and I turn to him at the same moment. His brow knits, the first visible crack in his composure since he walked in.

“There’s no time to waste.” Nikos folds his hands. “Domenico’s execution won’t stay quiet for long. The longer Chiara remains unclaimed, the closer she gets to becoming a liability.”

He fixes me with a look I’ve seen across Council tables for years. The one that means “don’t make me explain my reasoning to you, of all people.”

“We brought her here last night. Quietly. She’s been secured.”

Secured. The word sits wrong in my chest, as though she’s contraband.

Nikos lifts his hand a fraction. Remo, who’s been standing near the door like a shadow with bones, nods and steps out.

The minutes that follow are the longest of the morning. Nikos casually bounces in his chair. Hyun-seok stares out the window in silence. I don’t move. I simply wait. When the door finally opens, I rise instinctively, my gaze snapping to the doorway. Chiara stands there.