Chapter 3

Thursday came like a sentencing.

Marta dressed me in ivory — a simple sheath dress, no veil, no flowers. She pinned my hair up and clasped a diamond necklace around my throat that felt like a collar.

"You look lovely," she whispered.

I looked like a sacrifice.

The ceremony took place in Luca's study — a dark room lined with books he probably never read and paintings that probably hid safes. A judge stood behind the desk looking uncomfortable. Two of Luca's men flanked the door like sentinels.

Luca waited by the window in a charcoal suit, hands in his pockets, watching the grounds like he was expecting an invasion.

When I entered, he turned. His eyes traveled from my shoes to my face with the same clinical assessment as the night he bought me. But this time, his gaze lingered. On my collarbone. On my mouth.

"Ready?" he asked.

"Does it matter?"

Something that might have been amusement flickered across his face. "No."

The ceremony lasted four minutes. The judge read the standard vows. I said "I do" with a voice that didn't sound like mine. Luca said it like he was confirming a business transaction.

"You may kiss the bride."

Luca stepped forward. My breath stopped.

He cupped my face with one hand — his palm was warm, calloused, enormous against my jaw — and pressed his lips to mine. It wasn't gentle. It wasn't performative. It was a claim. His mouth moved against mine with a controlled hunger that sent electricity down my spine, and when he pulled back, his thumb brushed my lower lip like he was memorizing its shape.

"There," he murmured, only for me. "Now you're mine."

I couldn't speak. My lips were tingling. My heart was hammering so hard I was sure he could hear it.

He turned to the judge. "We're done."

Papers were signed. Rings exchanged — mine was a flawless emerald-cut diamond that weighed down my hand. His was a simple platinum band he slid on without ceremony.

And just like that, I was Eliana Marchetti.

The first week was a strange kind of purgatory. Luca left early, returned late. We shared meals in silence. He gave orders; I followed them — not out of obedience, but out of survival instinct. I was learning the rhythms of the house, the patterns of the guards, the layout of the grounds.

I was looking for an exit.

On day five, I found the library. Real books, not decorative ones. I was reaching for a top shelf when a voice behind me said, "You like Dostoevsky?"

I spun. A man leaned in the doorway — younger than Luca, maybe thirty, with the same dark hair but softer features. His smile was warm where Luca's was razor-edged.

"I'm Marco," he said. "Luca's brother."

"Eliana."

"I know who you are." He stepped closer, hands in his pockets, casual in a way that felt deliberate. "The whole family knows. Luca Marchetti, buying a bride at auction. It's all anyone can talk about."

"I'm glad my humiliation is entertaining."

His smile faltered. "That's not what I meant. I'm sorry — that came out wrong." He ran a hand through his hair. "I just meant... Luca doesn't do anything without a reason. And I'm trying to figure out what his reason is with you."

"He told me. The federal case. He needs a wife for optics."

Marco studied me with an expression I couldn't read. "Is that what he said?"

"Why? Is there another reason?"

He opened his mouth, then closed it. Shook his head. "Just... be careful, Eliana. My brother is not a simple man. And the things he wants, he doesn't always say out loud."

He left before I could ask what that meant.

That night, I couldn't sleep. I wandered downstairs at 1 AM and found Luca in his study, jacket off, sleeves rolled to his elbows, a glass of whiskey in his hand. He was staring at a photograph on his desk.

He sensed me before I spoke. "You should be in bed."

"I couldn't sleep."

"That's not my problem."

"Nothing about me is your problem. You've made that clear."

He looked up. The lamplight carved shadows into his face, and for the first time, I saw something beneath the ice — exhaustion. Real, bone-deep exhaustion.

"Sit down," he said quietly. Not an order this time. Almost a request.

I sat across from him. He pushed the whiskey toward me. I took a sip. It burned.

"Who's in the photograph?" I asked.

His jaw clenched. "No one."

"Luca —"

"I said no one." His voice was a whip crack. The temperature in the room dropped ten degrees.

I set the glass down and stood. "Goodnight."

I was at the door when he spoke again, so quietly I almost missed it.

"My daughter."

I turned. "What?"

His eyes were fixed on the photograph. His knuckles were white around the glass.

"She's four years old. Her mother took her. Disappeared. No one — not my lawyers, not my contacts, not my men — can find her." He looked at me then, and the rawness in his expression stole the air from my lungs. "The federal investigation isn't just about legitimacy, Eliana. It's about custody. A judge won't return a child to an unmarried man with my reputation. But a married man, with a stable home, with a wife who looks like you, who speaks like you..."

The room tilted.

"You didn't buy a wife," I whispered. "You bought a mother."

His silence was the loudest confirmation I'd ever heard.

I gripped the doorframe because my knees were failing. This man — this dangerous, controlling, terrifying man — had spent eleven million dollars not for appearances, not for a trial, but for a child.

His child.

And somewhere in the world, a four-year-old girl was missing, and her father was sitting alone at 1 AM, staring at her photograph with hands that could kill but couldn't hold her.

I should have walked away. I should have gone back to my gilded cage and counted down the days until my contract ended.

Instead, I sat back down.

"Tell me about her," I said.

And Luca Marchetti — The Ghost, the monster, the man who owned me — looked at me with eyes that were no longer dark but drowning, and said, "Her name is Sofia. And she has my eyes."