Mag-log inLUNA POVMy fork hit the porcelain plate with a loud clatter.The sharp sound echoed across the long mahogany table, but it didn't even slow him down. The heavy thud of his boots just kept moving against the hardwood floor.He was leaving. After hiding from me for three entire months, he had sat at my table, eaten his food in absolute silence, and was now just walking away again.I sat there for a few seconds, staring at his empty chair. My chest rose and fell. The suffocating weight of the last four months—the weeks of cold isolation before the fire, the agonizing night he left for Italy, the sheer terror in that drawing-room—boiled up into my throat all at once.Something inside me finally snapped.I pushed my chair back. The wood scraped harshly against the floor."Killian."My voice came out sharp, cutting through the quiet dining room.His boots stopped. He froze in the archway, but he didn't turn around. His broad back just faced me, completely unmoving.I took a shaky step towa
LUNA POVThe house was quiet as I walked down the curved staircase.For the first two months after the hospital, I had eaten every meal in my bedroom. But lately, the walls had started to feel too close. I had been pushing myself to go down to the formal dining room for dinner, trying to build a normal routine. I usually ate alone, accompanied only by the soft ticking of the grandfather clock in the hallway.I turned the corner and stepped through the archway.My foot froze an inch above the hardwood floor.Sitting at the far end of the long mahogany table, staring down at a glass of water, was Killian.My heart instantly slammed against my ribs. A sudden spike of panic shot through my veins, urging me to turn around and run back upstairs. It had been exactly three months since I last saw his face.I gripped the doorframe.He didn't look up. He had to know I was standing there—his instincts were too sharp to miss someone walking into the room—but he kept his gaze glued to the table.H
The heavy, sickening crack of a neck snapping echoed over the roar of the underground crowd.Killian didn't step back. He stood over the massive Russian fighter, his chest heaving, sweat and blood dripping from his dark hair. The man at his feet twitched once, and then his body went completely slack against the chain-link floor.It was a death match. The only kind of fight Killian had sought out for the past three months. No referees, no bells, no submissions. Only one man walked out of the cage alive.The crowd screamed, a chaotic mix of money exchanging hands and raw, bloodthirsty adrenaline, but Killian didn't hear any of it. He looked down at his taped knuckles. They were split open, the white fabric soaked in dark crimson. The sharp, biting physical pain burned through his nerves. It was the only thing that managed to temporarily quiet the deafening noise in his head.Killian ducked through the metal doors of the cage and walked down the damp concrete corridor toward the locker r
3 MONTHS LATERLUNA POVThe morning sunlight spilled across the hardwood floor, warm and blindingly bright.I stood by the massive floor-to-ceiling window in my bedroom, resting my forehead against the smooth glass. Outside, the sprawling garden was covered in vibrant yellow and white roses. The stone pathways wrapped around a small fountain, the light catching the water as it flowed.It was a peaceful place. It was nothing like the dark, isolated Bratva fortress we used to live in. When I was discharged from the hospital three months ago, they didn’t take me back to that imposing estate with its high concrete walls. They brought me here. A house with open skies, massive windows, and quiet, sunlit corridors.I lifted my right hand, letting the sunlight hit my skin.The heavy plaster casts had cut off my wrists a few weeks ago. I slowly traced the tip of my finger over the thick, raised scar running across my forearm.My breath hitched. A sudden, sharp phantom pain shot through my nerv
The room was dimly lit. Luna was lying in the center of the hospital bed, hooked up to IV lines and a heart monitor. Her face was pale, heavily bruised, and covered in small bandages. Both of her hands and wrists were heavily wrapped in thick white casts.Killian’s chest tightened. He took a slow, gentle step forward.Luna’s heavy eyelids fluttered open. Her dull green eyes shifted, locking onto his tall, dark frame standing at the foot of her bed.Killian opened his mouth to speak. To tell her she was safe. To beg for her forgiveness.But the moment her eyes met his, her pupils dilated in pure, absolute terror.The heart monitor beside her bed spiked violently, the steady beeping turning into a rapid, frantic screech. Luna pushed herself backward against the pillows, ignoring the broken ribs and the fractured wrists.A raw, blood-curdling scream tore out of her throat.Killian froze. The air completely left his lungs."No!" Luna shrieked, thrashing wildly against the sheets, her terr
Killian stood frozen in the middle of the bright, sterile hallway. The adrenaline that had carried him out of the estate suddenly vanished, leaving behind a crushing, suffocating emptiness.He slowly looked down at his hands.They were coated in dark, drying crimson. Her blood.He stumbled backward, his spine hitting the cold concrete wall. He slowly slid down until he was sitting on the floor.What have I done?The horrific revelations from the drawing-room crashed over him again, heavier and more violent this time. He stared at his blood-stained hands, his chest violently heaving.She was already shattered long before she arrived in Russia. A traumatized child who had watched her mother die. A silent ghost whose voice was stolen by her own father's hands. And instead of offering her safety, Killian had dragged a pure, defenseless soul into a freezing dungeon.Starvation. Isolation in the dark. Treating her worse than a slave.He had tainted a saint.He thought he was a king executin
The darkness had a taste. Wet stone and rust and the copper tang of my own blood drying in sticky trails down my arms. I hung from the wall with my knees barely touching the cold floor, my wrists screaming where the iron cuffs had bitten through skin hours ago. Days ago. I couldn't tell anymore. Tim
I looked up through tears and saw him running toward us, his face a mask of shock and rage and something that might have been fear."NO! LUNA!"Dario Vitiello rushed forward, hands raised, looking at the carnage around him. At his dead guards. At Moretti screaming on the floor. At his daughter being
The women returned to help me into the dress.It took twenty minutes. The gown was a construction of Italian silk and French lace and boning that required architectural precision to assemble. They laced the corset so tight I could barely expand my lungs. The skirt was so heavy with beading and layer
The morning began with hands that weren't mine pulling me from sleep.I opened my eyes to find three women already in my room, moving with efficient silence. One carried a garment bag. One held a case of cosmetics that looked more like surgical instruments. The third was setting up lights around my







