The Spine and the Serpent: Wife. Weapon. Witness.
Ilias Z

He underestimated her silence.
In a world ruled by secrets, surveillance, and sovereign bloodlines, Ines was never meant to survive. Trained to obey, raised to disappear, she was a pawn in a marriage engineered to protect power—not people. But when the man who broke her becomes the only one who truly sees her, everything shifts.
Viktor Volkov doesn’t believe in love. He believes in leverage. A strategist cloaked in custom suits and quiet brutality, he didn’t need a wife. He needed a witness. A symbol. A shield. Until she started rewriting the rules—one calculated rebellion at a time.
Now, she's no longer his liability. She’s his equal. And the most dangerous thing he’s ever trusted.
From palatial compounds to war-torn data vaults, from shared silence to shared sovereignty, The Spine and the Serpent is a sharp, slow-burn psychological power romance—where betrayal is currency, silence is survival, and desire may be the deadliest weapon of all.
Wife.
Weapon.
Witness.
She was never supposed to escape.
He was never supposed to let her.