"Do you ,Raven Moreno, take Kairus Vasiliev as your lawfully wedded husband? "
My lips part.
Not out of love.
Not out of choice.
But because I have no one left to say my name except a man like him.
"I do."
The words barely escape me, like a whisper begging not to be real. My voice sounds foreign beneath the weight of my own betrayal. My fingers tremble, but I keep them laced with his—cold and unyielding like the barrel of a loaded gun pressed against my fate.
Kairus doesn't flinch.
Of course he doesn't.
His gloved hand tightens around mine, like he owns me now. And maybe he does.
He stands like god in a tailored black suit, white hair swept back, a scar running across his chest just beneath the shirt's opening, teasing the secrets underneath. Eyes as blue as Arctic ice—empty, calculating, and yet staring at me like I'm the only color he's ever seen. He never touched me, never looked at me like a husband should. But I could feel it—the obsession burning in his silence, in the way his eyes followed my every move like I was his favorite prey.
And I know better.
Monsters don't fall in love.
They claim. They conquer. They cage.
And tonight, I've stepped right into his arms—and into his prison.
---
They say marriage is supposed to come with love.
Mine came with a contract.
And a body count.
Three weeks ago, I was just another underground fighter clawing my way out of the gutter. My knuckles were bloodied, my pride bruised, but my debt was still buried under a name that no longer breathes.
My brother.
He died with a smile. He left with a debt.
And he didn't tell me who he owed.
I found out in a letter. Hand-delivered.
Signed with a black wax seal and a serpent's eye.
Kairus Vasiliev.
Russian mafia. The man they whisper about in blood-soaked corners. The one who doesn't blink before pulling a trigger. The one who doesn't feel. The one who doesn't fall.
I should've run the moment his men appeared at my door.
But I didn't.
Because you don't run from a ghost with power.
You kneel.
---
"Marry me," he said two nights ago, voice calm like a storm waiting to break.
"And the debt?" I asked.
"Forgiven. In full."
His eyes never left mine. His lips never twitched. And yet I felt it—this hunger underneath his calm. Like he wanted me not just as payment... but as possession.
I signed the contract with a hand that wouldn't stop shaking.
Not because I feared the unknown.
But because something told me—
He already owned me long before this.
---
Now, as the priest speaks blessings neither of us believes in, he said nothing. Not a smile. Not a vow.
Just slipped the ring onto my finger with fingers that felt too cold for someone so alive.
I knew nothing about him—except that he was dangerous. And powerful. And… watching me like he saw something I didn't.
Something wasn't right. I could feel it in the way he gripped my hand too tightly.
He didn't just want me. He needed me.
And I didn't know why.
But I would find out.
Even if it destroyed me.