Page 7 of Mafia King’s Dangerous Vow

Not because she’s shy.

Because looking at me would make this real.

I understand that impulse better than she knows.

I was prepared for obligation. For politics. For a beautiful stranger I’d marry out of duty and keep at a careful distance.

I was not prepared for her.

She gets closer, and the details sharpen with painful clarity. Pale gray eyes, darker at the rim, shadowed with strain. A full mouth pressed tight against emotion. A faint tremor in the hand holding the bouquet.

Almost nobody in this cathedral would notice it.

I do.

The fact that I notice it at all is the first warning sign. And suddenly this stops feeling strategic.

This woman is about to become my responsibility in front of God and every violent man in this room. Mine to protect.

The thought arrives, involuntary and inconvenient. Not possession. Protection.

I don’t want this complication. Don’t want this responsibility. Don’t want to care what happens to someone again.

Then her eyes finally lift and collide with mine.

She looks terrified.

All I can think is that I’m the last door closing—the man waiting at the end of the aisle, the one she can’t turn back from.

I already know I’m going to spend the rest of this marriage making sure she never regrets it.

3

NO ONE WARNED ME HE’D SOUND LIKE THAT. (TAMARA)

“Don’t stumble.”

My father’s voice cuts through the organ music, low and sharp against my ear as we walk down the aisle. His grip on my arm is bruising. A hold that says “you belong to me” even as he’s about to hand me over to another man.

I almost laugh.

I’ve walked rooms in six-inch heels. Balanced on scaffolding while installing lighting in Manhattan penthouses. I don’t stumble.

But today isn’t about dignity. It’s about obedience.

The cathedral stretches endlessly ahead—gold icons pressing in from every wall, candles throwing heat I can feel from ten feet away, incense sitting thick at the back of my throat. A beautiful, airless trap. Rows of faces turn as I pass, bratva royalty watching this grotesque performance unfold.

A business deal wrapped in white lace and holy vows.

The dress rustles around my legs with every step, too tight through the ribs after a rushed alteration by a Russian woman who wouldn’t look me in the eye.

At the end of the aisle, waiting beneath the cathedral lights, stands Aleksander Sokolov.

And suddenly it’s harder to breathe.

He’s taller than I expected. Broad shoulders stretching dark wool. Dark hair cropped brutally short. Sharp cheekbones. Hard mouth. The kind of face that belongs on a wanted poster and a cologne advertisement simultaneously.

But it’s his eyes that stop me.