The Contract

My father sold me for two million dollars.

I was worth less than his poker debts.

The chapel was beautiful. Stone walls, candlelight, icons gleaming gold in the dim. Old money. Old power. The kind of place where vows meant something.

Not today.

Today it smelled like incense and lies.

I stood at the altar in a borrowed dress, white silk that didn't fit right, someone else's idea of a bride. My hands were steady. My face was calm.

Inside, I was screaming.

One year. The contract says one year. You can survive anything for one year.

The priest droned in Latin. I didn't understand a word. Didn't need to.

I understood enough.

Debt. Payment. Property.

The man beside me hadn't looked at me once.

Dante Caruso. Head of the Caruso family. The kind of man mothers warned daughters about, if their mothers were smart, if their daughters were lucky.

I wasn't lucky.

I was collateral.

He stood close enough that I could smell his cologne. Something expensive, sharp, like money and danger had a scent. His jaw was set. His eyes fixed forward.

I might as well have been furniture.

My father sat in the front pew.

I could feel him behind me, radiating relief. His little problem, solved. His debts, cleared. His daughter,

Gone.

Two million dollars. That's what his habit cost. That's what I was worth.

Less, actually. The Carusos were getting a bargain.

"Do you take this woman..."

Dante's voice was flat. "I do."

No hesitation. No emotion. Just a transaction, completed.

The priest turned to me.

Run, something whispered. The door is right there. Run and don't stop.

But I knew what happened to people who ran from the Carusos.

And I knew what happened to my father if I did.

He didn't deserve my protection. But I'd spent my whole life protecting people who didn't deserve it.

Old habits.

"I do."

The words tasted like ash.

Dante's hand found mine. Cold gold slid onto my finger, a ring I hadn't chosen, for a marriage I hadn't wanted, to a man who wouldn't look at me.

"You may kiss the bride."

He turned.

For one moment, he looked at me.

Dark. Unreadable. Whatever was behind them, I couldn't reach it.

His lips brushed my cheek. Perfunctory. The kind of kiss you'd give a distant aunt.

And just like that,

I was married.

The reception was a blur.

Crystal and champagne. Men in dark suits murmuring in Italian. Women with sharp eyes assessing me, finding me lacking.

I smiled until my face ached. Shook hands I'd never shake again. Heard "congratulations" spoken like a threat.

No one asked if I was happy.

No one asked anything at all.

I was decoration. A prop in someone else's show.

One year.

Dante moved through the room like he owned it.

He did own it. He owned everything here, the people, the power, the fear that moved beneath every polite smile.

He didn't come near me.

Twice, I caught him watching. Or thought I did. But when I looked, he was already turning away.

Talking to men who leaned close.

Receiving whispered reports.

Being whoever he was when he wasn't pretending to have a wife.

My father found me by the champagne.

"Sera." He was smiling. Actually smiling, like this was a real wedding, like he hadn't just bartered his only child. "You look beautiful."

I stared at him.

Say something. Tell him what he did. Tell him what he is.

"Thank you."

The words came out flat. Dead. The way I felt.

He didn't notice. He never noticed.

"This is a good thing," he said, patting my arm. "The Carusos, they're powerful. They'll take care of you."

They'll own me.

"I know."

"And the debt is clear now. Fresh start." His attention was already sliding toward the bar. Toward whatever came next. Toward forgetting I existed.

"Fresh start," I echoed.

He squeezed my shoulder and walked away.

That was the last time my father touched me.

The car was black. Silent. Expensive.

Dante sat across from me, phone in hand, not looking up. The partition was raised. The city slid past the tinted windows, lights and life I was leaving behind.

I watched him instead.

Sharp jaw. Dark hair pushed back. Suit cut so precisely it could only be bespoke. Hands that had done things I didn't want to imagine.

He was beautiful.

The thought came unbidden, unwanted.

He's your captor. He bought you. Beautiful doesn't matter.

But he was. Beautiful in the way a weapon is beautiful, cold, precise, made for destruction.

The penthouse was glass and marble.

Sixtieth floor. Glass walls showing the whole city spread out below. White floors, black furniture, art that meant nothing to me.

Cold.

Everything was cold.

I stood in the entrance, still in my borrowed dress, and felt the silence press against my skin.

This is your life now. For one year. This glass cage.

"Your room is down the hall." Dante's voice behind me. I hadn't heard him move. "Third door on the left."

My room. Separate.

Of course. What had I expected?

"Thank you." The word felt strange. Thanking my jailer.

He moved past me toward what I assumed was his office. Already dismissing me.

"There are rules."

I stopped.

He didn't turn around.

"You don't leave the apartment without security. You don't speak to the press. You don't cause problems." A pause. "One year. Then you're free."

Free.

Like I'd ever been free.

"What if I break the rules?"

I don't know why I said it. Something in me, something that wasn't dead yet, wanted to make him look at me.

He stopped.

Turned.

His focus found mine. Something flickered in his expression. Surprise? Annoyance?

"Don't."

One word. Final.

He walked away.

The office door closed behind him.

And I stood alone in my beautiful prison, wearing a dead woman's dress, a cold ring on my finger, married to a man who'd looked at me twice.

Both times like I was a problem he didn't want to solve.

I found my room.

It was bigger than my entire apartment. Bed like a cloud. Bathroom with a tub I could swim in. Closet full of clothes that weren't mine, designer labels, perfect sizes, chosen by someone who didn't know me.

Everything provided.

Nothing personal.

I sat on the edge of the bed.

The dress pooled around me like a surrender.

My father sold me for two million dollars.

I was worth less than his poker debts.

And the man who bought me won't even look at me.

I didn't cry.

I was too numb to cry.

Instead, I lay back on the cold silk sheets and stared at the ceiling and tried to remember how to breathe.

One year.

Three hundred sixty-five days.

I could survive anything for a year.

Couldn't I?

Somewhere in the penthouse, a door closed.

Footsteps, soft and sure. Coming closer.

They stopped outside my room.

I held my breath.

One second. Two. Three.

The handle didn't turn. The door didn't open.

But he was there. I could feel it, the weight of his attention through wood and silence.

Then the footsteps moved on.

His door closed at the end of the hall.

I lay in the dark, body tense, and asked myself the only question that mattered:

What kind of man stops outside a door he has every right to open, and walks away?