Chapter 2

The Marchetti estate sat on twelve acres north of the city, hidden behind walls that could stop artillery. The car passed through three security checkpoints before we reached the main house — a limestone fortress that looked like it had been airlifted from the hills outside Milan.

I counted cameras. Fourteen before the front door.

A woman in a gray uniform met us in the foyer. "The room is prepared, Mr. Marchetti."

"Feed her," Luca said without breaking stride. "Burn whatever she's wearing. Have something appropriate sent up."

He disappeared down a hallway, and I was left standing on marble floors in a torn dress that smelled like the basement where I'd been kept for three days.

The woman — Marta, she told me later — led me to a bedroom on the second floor. It was enormous. White linens, floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking a black garden. A bathroom bigger than my last apartment.

On the bed: a silk nightgown, still in tissue paper. La Perla. My size.

He knew my size.

That detail chilled me more than anything he'd said in the car.

I showered for forty minutes. The water ran gray, then clear. I stood under it until my skin was raw, until I couldn't feel the auctioneer's spotlight or the guard's grip or Dylan's smiling face in the third row.

Dylan. God.

Six years of marriage. I'd supported him through the startup years — worked two jobs, cooked every meal, edited his pitch decks at 2 AM. When the company hit, when the money came, he changed. Late nights became overnight absences. Business trips became weeks in Miami with people whose names he wouldn't share.

Then Hailey.

I found out the way everyone does — a text on his phone, left open on the kitchen counter like he wanted me to see it.

Last night was incredible. I can't stop thinking about you inside me.

When I confronted him, he didn't deny it. He didn't apologize. He looked at me with this bored, clinical expression and said, "I've been planning to leave for a year. My lawyer will contact yours."

His lawyer was better than mine. His lawyer was a shark in a $4,000 suit who tore through our prenup and proved, clause by clause, that I was owed nothing. The house — his. The accounts — his. The debt he'd secretly accumulated through a failed side venture — mine, because he'd put my name on documents I'd signed without reading during a dinner party where I'd had too much wine.

Seven million dollars. My signature. His trap.

I didn't even know he'd been capable of that kind of cruelty. But looking back, I think the cruelty was always there. I'd just been too in love to see it.

A knock. Marta entered with a tray — soup, bread, sparkling water. She set it on the desk and hesitated.

"Mrs. Marchetti —"

"Don't call me that."

She flinched. "I'm sorry. But you should know... he's not a patient man. When he gives instructions, he expects them followed. Immediately."

"What happens if they're not?"

She didn't answer. She just looked at me with the kind of pity that made my chest tighten, and left.

I ate. Not because I was hungry, but because starvation made you weak, and I couldn't afford weakness. Not here. Not with him.

At midnight, I tried the bedroom door. Locked. From the outside.

I tried the windows. Bolted.

I was in a beautiful cage, wearing silk, eating gourmet food, and I was more trapped than I'd been in that basement.

I lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling and thought about the man down the hall. Luca Marchetti. I'd heard the name before — everyone in Chicago had. The Marchetti family controlled half the city's construction contracts, most of the waterfront, and, if the rumors were true, a significant portion of the drug trade flowing through the Great Lakes.

Luca was the eldest son. The heir. The one the newspapers called "The Ghost" because witnesses against him had a habit of disappearing.

And in two days, I'd be his wife.

I pressed my palms against my eyes until I saw stars.

Why me? Why marriage? What does an eleven-million-dollar wife buy a man who already owns everything?

At 2 AM, I heard footsteps outside my door. They stopped. Paused. Then continued down the hall.

He'd checked on me. Like a warden checking a cell.

I didn't sleep.

At dawn, the lock clicked open. Marta brought coffee and a garment bag.

"He wants you downstairs in thirty minutes," she said. "He has something to show you."

Inside the garment bag: a white Valentino dress. Elegant, conservative, expensive.

The kind of dress a wife would wear.

I put it on with shaking hands and walked downstairs into the lion's den.

Luca was in the dining room, reading a newspaper like it was any ordinary morning. He looked up when I entered, and for one unguarded second, something shifted in his expression — a flash of heat, quickly buried.

"Sit," he said.

I sat.

He folded the paper and slid a document across the table. "Our marriage contract."

I scanned it. My vision blurred. "This says I can't leave the property without your permission."

"Correct."

"It says all communication with outside parties must be approved by you."

"Also correct."

"This isn't a marriage. This is a prison sentence."

He leaned back in his chair, studying me with those lightless eyes. "You were facing actual prison, Eliana. Or worse. The people your husband owed — they don't do payment plans. I bought your debt. I bought you. This contract is the most generous offer you'll ever receive."

"Generous?" My voice cracked. "You're taking away my freedom."

"I'm giving you a roof, food, protection, and my name. In exchange, you give me one year."

"One year of what?"

His jaw tightened. "Of being my wife. In every way that matters publicly. You attend events on my arm. You smile for photographs. You convince the world that Luca Marchetti is a settled, married, legitimate man."

"Why do you need that?"

He was quiet for a long moment. Then: "There's a federal investigation. My lawyers say a stable marriage humanizes me in front of a jury. You're educated, articulate, beautiful, and desperate. You're perfect."

Beautiful. The word landed like a slap.

"And after one year?"

"Your debt is erased. You receive two million dollars. You walk away."

I stared at the contract. The clauses blurred together — obedience, appearances, discretion, consequences for breach —

"What are the consequences?"

He stood, buttoning his jacket. "You don't want to find out."

He walked to the door, then stopped. Over his shoulder: "The judge comes Thursday at noon. I suggest you memorize your vows."

He left.

I looked down at the contract, at the line waiting for my signature, at the gilded cage closing around me.

And I realized, with a sickening lurch, that the most dangerous thing about Luca Marchetti wasn't his power or his money or his name.

It was the way my pulse had jumped when he called me beautiful.