Page 69 of Vow to Corrupt You
I swallow hard as his hand cups my face with a force that feels both possessive and desperate. His eyes are dark, dangerous, and deadly, yet filled with a twisted affection only he understands.
“You can try to run, but you will never escape. You’re mine.” His fingers brush my lower lip, sending chills down my back. “There’s no place in this world where I won’t find you. There is no sanctuary you can hide in. It would always be a game of cat and mouse, and believe me, I always catch my prey.”
Dread crawls under my skin as his words sink in. His obsession, his control, and dominion… it’s like a cage without bars, inescapable.
Chapter 36
Serena
My heartbeat pulses in my throat as Nikos leads me into one of the rooms at Olympus, every move feeling like a step into a hell I can’t escape. The room is vast, with mirrors covering every wall, stretching high, reflecting an endless sheet of glass, twisting and warping my image into a distorted version of myself. The reflections multiply, surrounding me with a dozen versions of who I am. But it’s a throne made of gold at the end of the hall that catches my attention. It stands there alone like a regal altar designed only for him. It’s beautiful, in a way, but also laced with something dark, something that makes my skin crawl.
“What is this room?” I turn to Nikos.
“I designed it to remind me that I’m the one on the throne. No one else. As the head of the Mafia, the leader of this society, my own empire,” he says, looking into my eyes with such coldness that it freezes my body, “I have to do things others wouldn’t dare to. And sometimes, I come here to remind myself of who I really am. If I want to be the king, I have to know it’s a lonely place. I can count on no one but myself.” He brushes my cheek with his gloved hand, murmuring darkly, “It is lonely on the throne, wicked one. I must remember that.”
A chill runs down my spine as I feel the weight of his gaze, as if he’s waiting for me to understand something I’m not sure I want to. “Why did you bring me here?”
His lips twist into something that resembles a smile. “I wanted you to sit on that throne next to me one day. I wanted you to become my queen.” The dangerous smirk on his face fades, replaced by a colder, harder look. “But today…” His voice hardens, features darkening. “Today, you betrayed me. You showed me that I can’t trust you, that I will always be alone on that throne.”
He says it with towering wrath and hatred, which normally would scare me to death, but today, something in me has changed. Perhaps it’s because I know this is my life now, a life I can’t escape, so instead, I must embrace it. Or maybe because I looked death in its eyes, and it wasn’t so scary.
“What about me?” I look at him, the words breaking out of me before I can stop them. “What about me, Nikos? Can I trust you?”
His head cocks slightly as if he’s surprised by the confrontation. Suppose this is not how he assumed this conversation would go.
“Have you thought of me?” I continue, letting the frustration that’s been building for days out. “Have you wondered, for one second, that I live every day in fear that one day you might even kill me?”
“Why would I do that?” His tone is as numb as his expression.
I swallow hard, my voice trembling despite myself. “Because I heard the rumors. I heard the whispers about you… about how you’re obsessed with breaking innocence. How you… kill your prey once you’ve shattered them.”
A flicker of anger crosses his face, but it’s gone in an instant, replaced by something more dangerous. He steps closer, his gaze burning into mine. “Rumors,” he says sharply. “That’s all they are. People whisper things about me because they’re scared. Because some of them hate me. But none of them know me.” He hovers over me, radiating tension like heat. “How disappointing you actually believed the rumors of the frightened to death or filled with hatred people.”
“But you vowed to break me,” I shriek. “You vowed to corrupt my innocence. To mold me to fit your own darkness. And after we had sex… after you fucked me last time, you’ve become so cold, so distant toward me. So tell me, Nikos, tell me I had any reason not to believe these things said about you while you pushed me away the moment you got what you wanted!” I break. I shout and cry, unleashing all the emotions I caged inside for far too long.
“You think I’ve changed because of that?” His gaze sharpens like the edge of a knife we’re balancing on. “I changed because I heard your conversation with Salvatore. I heard you say you wouldn’t have married a monster like me.”
I freeze. For a moment, I don’t know what he’s talking about. Then it hits me—the conversation I had with Salvatore the other day, except… this wasn’t the whole part. This isn’t what I said.
“Since you were eavesdropping on our private conversation, did you happen to hear what I said after that? Did you hear the full sentence?” I challenge him. I can’t believe this is what hurt him, that this is what caused all the misunderstanding between us. Does it mean he actually has feelings?
He angles his head, furrowing his brows as if trying to understand. “Full sentence?”
I nod, my brows raising slightly. “I said I wouldn’t have married that monster, as Salvatore keeps calling you—which you’re not—but that was before I got to know you. I defended you, Nikos,” I add with bitterness, the anger rising as I think about how he keeps stalking me, listening to my conversations, not even fully, and then letting it create a rift between us. As if our marriage wasn’t hard enough already. “I said I see good in you. Perhaps if you weren’t so obsessively possessive, if you hadn’t treated me like a plaything, like some object to be controlled, if you could’ve trusted me, at least a little, maybe things would’ve been different now.”
His hands turn into fists, jaw tightening, “Perhaps if you could’ve trusted me, if you hadn’t listened to the rumors and made-up stories in your head, things would’ve been different now.”
His words are like a slap to my face. Suppose he’s right, and we’re both to blame. We’re both broken creatures, unable to handle their own demons. I couldn’t trust him. I didn’t know how because I couldn’t believe he might actually, in his own twisted way, care for me. I couldn’t trust him because after my mother abandoned me like I meant nothing, I didn’t know how to trust.
I mean, if the person who’s supposed to love you unconditionally leaves you without batting an eye like you meant nothing, how are you supposed to feel? I remember my heart breaking in two, then in four, in eight until it was broken into millions of pieces—pieces I could never glue back together. I remember watching my mother walking away from us, leaving me shattered in the middle of the street, and she didn’t even look back. Ever since that day, I have been lost and damaged. I didn’t want to believe Nikos could care about me because I was scared. I tried to protect myself from enduring this pain again, as I was sure I wouldn’t have enough strength to go through such heartbreak again.
The heartbreak of losing the person you love.
I guess I am as broken as he is, just on a different level, a different kind. I just didn’t want to admit it. I kept masking my pain, my fractures, and scars, but the truth is… I am no different than he is. We’re both damaged beyond repair, each in their own way.
“I wanted to break you,” Nikos’s murmur snaps me back from my thoughts, “so you could embrace the darkness before it drowns you. It’s the only way to survive in this world.” He moves behind me, his presence looming. Our reflections stare back at us from the mirrors, twisted and warped. He wraps his hand around my throat, his fingers tightening just enough to remind me of his power and dominance. His breath is hot against my ear, and when he speaks, it’s a growl that sends shivers down my spine. “You have to reign the darkness… or it will reign over you.” His grip tightens, and I can’t breathe. His eyes lock onto mine in the reflection, and I see the madness there—the darkness he’s so willing to share. “You still don’t understand, wicked one. I want to own you like you’re my possession because I’m one twisted bastard. I want to fuck you like you’re my plaything because that’s the only way I know how to love—broken, damaged, and consumed by darkness. You don’t want to know how far I’ll go to make you mine,” his lips brush against my ear. “But I’ve made you my queen. I’ll give you anything you want. I’ll bring the world to its knees for you. I want you to become so powerful no one will dare to hurt you. I want you to be my ride or die in the most twisted kind of way, something only we would understand and have.”
He turns me around and kisses me hard, letting me breathe his air. His hands pull me against him, possessive like he owns me and desperate like he needs me, his anger and lust blending.
