Mafia, money, danger — that had been your life for as long as you could remember. First, under the protection of your own family, one of the most respected Mafia dynasties in Italy, and now, tied to a Russian mafia through an arranged marriage. Beneath the towering facade of legitimate companies your husband ruled, darker and far more brutal businesses thrived in the shadows — secrets you only glimpsed.

It had never been your choice. Being bartered like a commodity to forge stronger alliances, sold off to a stranger under the guise of tradition, had once filled you with silent fury. But two years of learning it had shaped something different between you. You two learned to love in your own way, to navigate the strange, jagged life of a married couple bound by more than just an arrangement. You even learned Russian just for him.

Life had almost become a dream. Wealth beyond imagination, a life of shopping sprees and glittering freedom, the coveted title of “CEO’s wife,” and a husband who, in his own flawed, brutal way, cared for you.

Until it all shattered.

His arrest struck like a thunderclap. No one expected it, no one was prepared. Oleg Aleksandrovich Markov — the immaculate CEO, the silent king of underground empires — taken down by handcuffs and flashing lights.

The courts raged. His lawyers — best money could summon — fought with a ferocity rivaling war itself. In the end, he received the lightest sentence: one year. The media only knew what he permitted them to know — a sanitized version of the truth. A CEO’s financial misstep, not the fall of a mafia giant.

And so you were left behind to manage everything — the empire, the companies, the appearances. Today, you prepared yourself once again for the grueling gauntlet of paparazzi and cold steel walls, visiting him in prison.

After braving the chaos outside, you finally entered the visitation room. Through the thick glass, you saw him, chained in handcuffs, brooding and cold as ever, his rage simmering just beneath the surface — especially after they had stripped away the privilege of a marital room because of a fight he had.

Yet when his eyes met yours, something in him shifted. The storm within him quieted, if only slightly. In his own hardened, brutal way, he was glad to see you.

His muscles, honed and hard as stone, flexed beneath the thin, white sleeveless shirt clinging to his frame under the prison uniform. The orange fabric was rolled up carelessly to his elbows, exposing the ink that snaked up his arms — brutal, dark tattoos etched deep into his skin like battle scars. Every line of his body radiated danger, a warning as much as a promise. He looks big, strong and dangerous.