Vow of Deception (Deception Trilogy, #1)

by Rina Kent

I took a life. My demons finally won.

“You ended a life.” His calm yet threatening tone stops me in my tracks. I shake my head violently. “I d-didn’t want to.” “It still happened.” “No, please…don’t…” “Die for your sins.” He yanks his hand free and I stumble backward and down the cliff.

😱😱😱😱

I sweep her hair away from her face and brush my lips over her forehead. “I’ll find you again.” People say death is the end. For me, it’s only the beginning.

Don’t tell me that slimy asshole called the police and the media because of me? I only kicked him. Okay, maybe I clawed at his face and punched him, too, but that was in self-defense. He’s the one who called me into his office and was feeling me up where he wasn’t supposed to be touching.

The force is so strong that I’m momentarily suspended mid-air, before a bulky man with scary features says with a Russian accent, “Got her, Boss.”

How do you know my name? I want to ask that, but it’d be useless. He seems like the type of man who knows everything he needs to. “What offer?” His lips graze the shell of my ear as he murmurs, “Be my wife.”

😱😱😱😱

“My wife passed away a few weeks ago, and there’s no one who can perform her duties anymore, so you will be her replacement.” “Oh.” I don’t mean to say that out loud, but it escapes from me anyway.

I’m staring at a dark-haired, clean, and well-groomed version of myself. I barely remember the last time I was as clean as she is, but I do remember my reflection in the mirror at the hospital a few weeks ago, and I definitely looked like this woman, only with blonde hair.

I won’t be Winter Cavanaugh anymore. My thoughts are reinforced when the Russian says, “From now on, you’re Lia Volkov. Wife of Adrian Volkov.”

😱

her. Why don’t you wish for it?” “No, Adrian! We can’t meet our doppelgängers. The first one who sees the other will die,” she whispered the last words with a spooked tone. The first one who sees the other will die. That’s exactly what happened. Lia saw this homeless thing and just disappeared as if she’d never existed. When you don’t believe in something and it ends up happening, you blame that something because you can’t simply start believing in what you never have. This woman is that something.

😱😱😱

Winter is no longer Winter. She’s Lia. She took my wife’s life, and her punishment is spending the rest of her existence being Lia’s replacement. I’ll bring my Lia out of this woman, even if it’s the last thing I do.

Crazyyyy

Adrian seems more and more like a sociopath, so I doubt he cares who might suffer because of his demands. As long as he gets what he wants, to hell with everyone else.

When Adrian gives me another piece of the sandwich, I chew, letting the spicy taste explode in my mouth. It’s rich and exquisite and might very well be the most delicious meal I’ve had in…ever.

“Slow down, Jeremy,” Adrian says from beside me, but I’m hearing him as if I’m underwater. The boy, Jeremy, lifts his head and stops mid-run. His huge gray eyes meet mine and they widen even more as he whispers, “Mommy…?”

Adrian grabs a beige towel, runs it under the sink, and presses it to my palm. He releases a breath when the blood doesn’t soak it for long. As if he’s worried about me. As if my well-being means shit in his agenda. Why is he acting like this? I just can’t understand why he’s not the callous devil he should be.

I try to look away, but I’m unable to stop staring at his firm ass and long legs. I’ve never witnessed such a perfect physique before, but it’s not only about that. It’s the way he carries himself and the sheer confidence he exudes, even while naked. It’s a vulnerable position for most people, but Adrian’s acting as if he’s dressed in a sharp suit. It takes a lot of mental discipline to give off such a vibe.

“Jeremy!” I call his name, but he’s already running out of the dining room. I ignore my breakfast and stand up to follow him. I don’t care if he’s not my child, the pain in his face was so raw. No kid deserves to feel strong emotions like that. I know better than anyone, considering my own childhood.

He tugs on my arm and I gasp when I’m forced to meet his gaze as he says, “You have me to answer to first.”

bargain, “But I didn’t mean it.” “I don’t care. You defy me, you’re punished. It’s as simple as that.” “I won’t do it again. I promise.” “Unless you know your punishment, you’ll continue to do it.”

But in that display of authority, as calm and commanding as it is, he shows me a part of him I haven’t witnessed before. Control. He thrives on it. In fact, he’s punishing me to ensure that I don’t challenge it—or him. And with each slap against my ass, he’s etching it into my whole being.

He caresses the broken skin, but it’s far from a doting gesture. It’s deceptive, secretly coarse and callous. “Hide all you like, but I’ll eventually bring you out.” Good luck finding what’s not there in the first place. Adrian Volkov might have thought he hit the jackpot by finding his dead wife’s lookalike, but what he doesn’t know is that he fell upon a shell. And inside this shell, there’s nothing for him to bring out.

However, it’s not like I had a choice. It was either become a mafia man’s wife or rot in jail. Though, the more time I spend in Adrian’s company, the more seriously I entertain the jail idea.

“Are you sad that I left before, Jeremy?” “No.” His lips tremble around the word as he grabs a soldier in each hand. “I was, though.” My own voice shakes as I see my daughter through his innocent eyes. “I missed you so much that I couldn’t survive in the world without you. It became so bleak and boring. All I wanted to do was to find you.” “Then why didn’t you?” he whispers, peeking at me from beneath his lashes. “Because I have to live for both of us. I couldn’t die, baby.” “You were going to die?” His voice holds so much fear, I internally kick myself in the butt for it.

🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹

“Absolutely not.” I meant it as a lie, but the words come from my mouth like the truest thing I’ve ever said. Before I can think on that, Jeremy lunges at me in a tight hug. His arms wrap around my waist with a force that pushes me down on my butt. I can feel him sniffle against my chest. “I m-missed you, Mommy. Please don’t leave me.” “Never.” The words escape my mouth with so much conviction that it leaves me breathless. I hug him close and kiss the top of his head, taking my time to smell him. He’s like a little marshmallow, soft and beautiful. “Don’t become a ghost either,” he whimpers. “A ghost?” He nods in my chest without lifting his head. “You were a ghost the other day. I don’t like Ghost Mommy. She was scary.”

Ghost mommy??

While he’s been acceptant of my way of doing things, his recent suspicions of me are troublesome. Now, I have to prove my loyalty all over again, but I can’t be obvious about it, because that will raise his alarms even more.

provoke him, especially when it comes to her. The reason I want to shoot her between the eyes isn’t due to her being a woman, or because she’s been actively trying to eliminate my spies from V Corp, the brotherhood’s legitimate front in which she’s the executive director. It’s because she meddled in something she shouldn’t have. She’s the reason I lost Lia, and I won’t stop until I know why. As Sergei talks about our recent clash with the Irish and a possible truce with their new younger leader, I keep staring at the empty chair on his left. Vladimir’s.

I stride to Jeremy’s room, and when I open the door, the sight before me leaves me open-mouthed. Lia is sleeping on my son’s bed, holding him to her chest. His tiny fingers are wrapped around her waist and a small smile grazes his sleepy face. The room is all sorts of chaotic, as if an army of children played here. His toy soldiers are scattered on the floor, surrounded by a dozen drawings and colorful scarfs.

“Are you going to visit Mrs. Volkov, sir?” Ogla asks. I give her a quizzical glance. “Not this one. The other one.” Her voice lowers. “Something weird happened to her and it needs your attention.”

😱😱😱😱

An overpowering giddiness takes hold of me whenever he calls me Mommy. I certainly don’t deserve it, but it’s the best thing that’s happened to me since I stepped into Lia’s shoes. With Jeremy’s attachment to me, I can pretend my existence actually has a purpose, after all. The classical music is louder now,

😍😍😍😍

He’s like a dark lord sitting on his throne. A devil. A monster. A villain. The innate need to run that I’ve felt ever since I stepped foot in this house—hell, since I first met him—strikes me again.

sharp tang on my tongue. “You don’t seem to grasp the situation, so let me explain it to you for the last time, Lia. You’re my wife, my property, my thing. That means you walk the line I trace and make the decisions I allow. If I say you leave your will at the door, you do. If I say you will walk blindly into a well, you will. In my house, my word is law and my decisions are final. If you feel the need to defy me, by all means, do. I’ll enjoy every second of whipping you into submission.”

“You just get to fuck me; you don’t get to tell me how I react to it.” My silence is my only defense mechanism against him, my last piece of armor, and if I let him take that, too, then I’m well and truly screwed. My identity will be erased and I’ll merely be a washed-out version of his wife.

to my knees. As I do so, I notice a shadow of disappointment and something else crossing his face. Fuck him. He won’t break me. My name is Winter Cavanaugh. I’m not Lia Volkov and I’m no way in hell this madman’s wife.

“I was generous enough to give you two chances, but you chose poorly. As I already mentioned, defying me will only result in breaking the stubbornness out of you. Challenging me is like swimming against the tides, you’ll eventually tire and will be swept away by the current. Understand this, I make the challenges, not the other way around. It’s time you learn that.”

“You’re a masochist to my sadism, Lia.”

My heart aches and my thighs clench. I think I’m broken. Because right now, I’m having thoughts I shouldn’t, under any circumstances, entertain for this man. Thoughts that will end in my ruin.

Holy shit. I know he thinks he’s looking at his wife, and not me, but how lucky can a woman be to have a man look at her that way? Like he’ll destroy the world as long as she stays safe?

🤭🤭🤭🤭

Don’t go. I scream in my head. She’s not me. Don’t go to her.

tear cascades down my cheek, and I have no clue why or who’s the ‘she’ I internally told him not to go to.

“Don’t you feel bad about him not being around more?” I ask. “No.” “Why not?” “Because Papa stayed with me when you were a ghost, Mommy.”

scowl at his picture at the top of the page. He’s standing at some grand opening, wearing a tux and holding oversized scissors to cut a red ribbon. The asshole is too good-looking for his own good. He could be a bit shorter or have a beer belly. Hell, he could at least not be tatted. But no, he has to tick the boxes on all accounts.

“The big deal is that no one looks at you the way I do. No one gets a glimpse at what’s mine.” There it is. The sense of ownership. The subtle obsession that he doesn’t show openly but can be felt, nonetheless.

“Once a week and I’ll judge whether or not it’s reasonable.” I squeal. “Yes!” In my delight that I won one against the devil himself, I catch myself on the verge of hugging him before I remember who he is.

So she stands up, grabs him by the hand, and drags him to the seat beside her. Yan’s alert gaze meets mine through the window, and I’m about ready to go out there and beat him to a pulp. I know it’s not his fault, that she did it, but my brain can’t look past her hand on his. Her hand is on his.

knees. Her cheeks are red, her lips pursed, accentuating the cut from when she bit them to the point of drawing blood. That will change. Sooner or later, that habit will disappear. Sooner or later, she’ll be completely mine. Literally. Figuratively. In every sense of the word.

The worst part is that I look forward to nighttime now. I look forward to all the things he’ll do to me in the confinements of the bedroom’s walls. Sometimes, I lie in still in the

morning and feel like a slut for taking another woman’s role and orgasming on the bed she slept in for years. I feel like an imposter and a horrible human being.

I tell myself to hate it, to loathe it, to rebel against it, but what’s the point? I may muffle my orgasms and turn away from him, but he’s a constant that’s impossible to get rid of. He might have confiscated me from the streets, but he didn’t force me to enjoy his ministrations. That was all on me. I chose to enjoy his brutality, his touch, and even crave it after a single taste.

I’ve been trying my damnedest to not make mistakes so that I’ll be rewarded and can ask for alcohol. However, my mouth usually gets me in trouble, because I can’t stand Adrian’s tyranny, so I end up being punished every night. Or maybe you want to be punished every night. I shove that idea in the black box at the back of my mind.

🤭🤭🤭

“He barely sees you, even though you mostly work from home.” “We see each other fine.” “Have you ever read him a bedtime story?” “He outgrew those.” “He’s only five, Adrian. He didn’t outgrow bedtime stories. Besides, he misses you.” “How would you know that?” “Every time we do something, he never fails to mention when he did it with you or what you told him about it. He’s looking at you all the time; why don’t you look at him?” My voice chokes and I try to clear my throat.