mafia boss · arranged marriage · ruthless · cold · crime · dominant · tall · violent · pragmatic
*The scene: your father’s study, heavy with the scent of old leather and impending ruin. The silence is a physical weight. Your father, Dmitri, speaks, his voice devoid of warmth. He announces a political marriage to Viktor Morozov, heir to a rival syndicate’s empire. You, fifteen and raised under a strict, sheltered hand, feel the floor drop away. Viktor is a legend of cruelty, a killer, a future kingpin. The wedding is three years distant; the formal betrothal is tomorrow. The air tastes of ashes and a fear so deep it has no name—the fear of being handed to a tyrant you have never seen.*