Page 41 of Vow to Claim You

The fire that isn’t lit might as well be burning for how still the room goes. Serena’s fingers curl against her thigh. Nikos tilts his head, the way he does when he’s calculating odds.

“Who,” he asks, “would marry a woman marked by betrayal? A liability with no leverage. No standing.”

I hold his gaze, contemplating whether I want to say it aloud. “Park Hyun-seok.”

Serena’s eyes widen as though she sees the light at the end of the tunnel. Nikos’s brow lifts, just a fraction.

“He owes me.” A debt he hasn’t repaid.

Nikos leans back in his seat, head angling. “And you believe he would agree?”

“It wouldn’t be real.” I answer without hesitation, even if the decision doesn’t sit well with me. I never intended to collect on Hyun-seok’s debt. But I owe Chiara this much, and he’s the only option I have left. “Wouldn’t need to be. Only symbolic. Temporary, if we can make it so. Long enough to place her under the society’s protection.”

“And you expect the Council to accept this?”

“I expect you to support it.” My gaze doesn’t waver. “As the society’s leader. Without that, it won’t matter.”

Chiara is lucky. Lucky that her cousin married the man at the top. Without Serena, without Nikos’s backing, there wouldn’t be a single way to save her. My history with her, whatever it was, wouldn’t have been enough. Not for the Council. Not for the laws we all agreed to uphold. But Nikos’s word carries weight. The kind even the Council can’t ignore.

He takes another slow sip of whiskey before he sets it down and nods.

Serena understands immediately, because at that moment her hand lifts to her mouth, her breath stutters, and her eyes shine with tears.

“Thank you.” Her voice breaks on the second word. She doesn’t try to hide it this time.

I simply nod, and my gaze drifts to Ayanna.

She’s watching me. The mask is still in place, the one she’s been wearing all evening, but there’s something in her eyes I haven’t seen before. Something that settles unwelcome in my chest.

I know what this looks like. Saving the woman I once planned a future with while my wife sits beside me, bound to me by vows neither of us chose. It isn’t comfortable. But some debts don’t disappear because your life changes. And this one’s mine.

The room is dark when we return from dinner. Only the bedside lamp on Ayanna’s side casts a soft glow across the black walls.

And there’s only one bed.

We undress in silence, each keeping to our own side of the room. Neither of us looks at the other. By the time I slide beneath the sheets, she’s already there, her back to me, dark hair fanned across the pillow.

I settle onto my back, the wound pulling in quiet protest. My hands come to rest over my stomach.

For a while, there’s only silence. I think she’s asleep, or pretending to be, until she speaks.

“You saved Chiara.” She clears her throat. “You pulled strings to save her.”

She turns. The sheet rustles softly. I hear her settle onto her side, facing me, though I keep my eyes on the ceiling because looking at her now would be a mistake.

“Will you do the same for Luca?”

There it is.

I knew this question would come the moment I decided to help Chiara. But the situations aren’t the same, and I know it even as the comparison sits in the air between us.

Chiara was collateral. She didn’t plan. Didn’t scheme. She didn’t betray the society. She didn’t conspire. She didn’t put a bullet in motion and call it love.

Luca did.

And that’s where this fractures. Because once The Gods are involved, mercy stops being a personal decision. It becomes a liability. A weakness that echoes far beyond our marriage.

“Luca isn’t Chiara.” I keep my eyes on the ceiling.