VIOLENCE Prologue 2

**"Power isn’t given. It’s taken… through blood, fear, and silence. I’m not a businessman. I’m not a leader. I am the end. My name is Vincent Carlo. I control more than empires—I control chaos. The Russian government doesn’t touch me. Interpol's files are sealed in fear. I run weapons through war zones, bury bodies beneath borders, and make presidents lower their eyes. I don’t need to shout. I don’t need to prove anything. One word from me… and cities go dark. I walk into meetings where grown men shake. I sit at tables where kings beg for alliances. No loyalty. No love. Only power. And the only rule in my world? You don’t cross Vincent Carlo and live."**

I don’t remember her face. My mother died with blood in her mouth, whispering my name. They said my father was a traitor. A ghost. A nobody. I was left in the cold, screaming, forgotten. No last name. No family. No future. Just a crib in a Russian orphanage, rats in the walls, and fists in my ribs. They beat me. Starved me. Said I’d die before I turned sixteen. But I didn’t die. I watched. I listened. I learned. By twelve, I’d broken a man’s jaw with a spoon. By fifteen, I was running messages for smugglers. By eighteen, I burned the first name off my skin and took one of my own: Vincent Carlo. No one gave me power. I carved it out of the world with my bare hands. I don’t have a past. I don’t have roots. But I built an empire so deep, even hell doesn’t reach it

They call me a monster, and they’re right. I don’t kill quick—I kill slow. I like to hear bones snap, screams echo, blood drip. Pain isn’t a weapon. It’s a language, and I’m fluent in it. I’ve skinned traitors alive, burned men with their own cigars, and drowned a rat in a bathtub of gasoline just to hear him beg. I don’t blink. I don’t forgive. Mercy is weakness, and I buried mine long ago. I don’t crave peace. I crave fear. I don’t need love. I feed on control. Vincent Carlo isn’t a man. He’s the nightmare they pray never wakes

Author pov: He was built like sin—broad shoulders, thick arms, and a chest sculpted from stone. Muscles stretched under his skin with every movement, tight and unforgiving. Veins ran like lightning down his forearms, his hands rough, made to hurt. Scars marked his skin like war medals, each one earned. His abs—sharp and defined—tripled with quiet rage. A serpent tattoo curled over his collarbone, inked deep like a warning. He didn’t look like a man. He looked like a storm dressed in flesh.

"Love? I never believed in it. Never trusted it. I thought it was weakness—something soft men chased while the world ate them alive. I built walls, sharpened myself into a weapon, swore I’d never feel anything again. And then… she walked in. Anaya. She didn’t beg, she didn’t bow—she burned. Quiet fire. Unshaken eyes. She didn’t try to tame me. She matched me. And suddenly, every rule I lived by... cracked. I hate that I want her. I hate that I look for her in every breath. But most of all—I hate that I’d burn this world to keep her safe. Me. Vincent Carlo. Falling? No. I crashed—face-first into her fire."

I told them once—don’t touch what’s mine. But they didn’t listen. They spoke her name—Anaya—as if it meant nothing. As if she was just a woman. They didn’t see the way my hands stopped moving. The way the air changed. The way silence turned deadly. I shot the first man in the knee. Let him scream. The second—I made him watch while I carved the word 'mine' into the floor with his blood. No one touches her. No one says her name is with dirt on their tongue. They don’t know what I’d do for her. And God helped me... neither did I—until that moment.

She wasn’t loud. She didn’t chase. She walked in with fire in her eyes and silence in her soul—and somehow, that silence was louder than any scream. While the world bowed to my name, she didn’t flinch. Brown skin, fierce eyes, and that stubborn pride—she was everything I never believed in. And still, she ruined me.

One day suddenly

She was gone. No note. No call. Nothing. One second she was mine—the next, just… air. I tore the room apart. Shattered glass, flipped tables, broke my own knuckles punching walls. My men stayed silent. They knew better. Because this wasn’t rage. This was war. I’ve killed for less. I’ve buried men alive for breathing wrong. And now the only woman I’ve ever fucking needed—disappears? No. Someone took her… Or she ran. Either way—blood will spill. And I swear to every devil I’ve met— I’ll burn this whole fucking world to bring her back.

There she was. Alive. Breathing. Standing in front of me like she never shattered me. I didn’t speak. I grabbed her. Slammed her against the wall—not to hurt her, but to remind her… who the fuck I became without her. My hand around her throat. Not tight. Just enough to feel her pulse. 'You think you can run from me, Anaya?' I whispered, my voice low, deadly. 'You think I wouldn’t find you?' My jaw clenched as I looked into her eyes—still stubborn, still fire. I should’ve been relieved. But I was furious. I was broken. I was hers. 'I searched every grave. Killed every man who knew your name. You don’t disappear on me. You don’t.' Then I kissed her. Hard. Brutal. Desperate. Because I didn’t know if I wanted to punish her… or fall at her feet. Maybe both.

She is like a drug for me

This wasn’t the Anaya I left behind. No soft eyes. No trembling lips. She stood in front of me with blood on her hands and fired in her smile. The girl whom once whispered 'I love you' now pulled triggers without blinking. She didn’t ask for my help. She didn’t need it. Her eyes didn’t carry pain—they carried vengeance. She had become something else. Something darker. Something I couldn’t protect from the world… because she was the danger now. I don’t know who I was looking for. But the woman in front of me? She’s not mine anymore. She belongs to war now.

I thought she’d always need me. I was wrong. She didn’t just survive without me—she became unstoppable. The girl who once held my hand with love now holds fire in her eyes. And I see it clearly now… She never needed a man to save her. She became her own weapon. And maybe… I was the one who turned her into that

I’ve seen fear. I’ve seen rage. I’ve stared into the eyes of men begging for their lives. But nothing… nothing destroyed me like the way she looked at me. Not with love. Not with pain. But with pure, cold hate. Anaya—my Anaya—looked at me like I was just another name on her kill list. Like I was no different from the ones who broke her. And for the first time… I couldn’t breathe. Not because I feared her. But because I lost her. I wanted to beg. To scream. But monsters like me don’t get to ask for mercy. Not when the girl we swore to protect… is now the one aiming the gun."

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