Chapter 1 - The Bride Who Was Never Taught to Say No
Before sunrise, New York’s most feared crime families expected me to prove I had claimed my terrified twenty-year-old bride and complete the peace treaty they had arranged around us. But when Sophia whispered, “Just get it over with,” I realized what they had done to her—and by morning, the blood on our wedding sheets would be mine, not hers.
An hour earlier, hundreds of people had toasted our marriage downstairs, celebrating the supposed end of six years of bloodshed between the Belluccis and my family.
They called it peace.
I called it a transaction.
The ballroom on the forty-third floor had been decorated to look like a celebration instead of a negotiation with diamonds.
Crystal chandeliers hung over tables covered in white roses. Champagne flowed endlessly. Politicians smiled beside businessmen who knew better than to ask where the money came from. Bodyguards stood at every entrance, pretending they were there for security rather than to remind everyone that the men in the room were capable of starting another war before dessert.
My family sat to the right of the stage.
Sophia’s family sat to the left.
For the first time in six years, nobody had raised a gun.
That alone was considered a miracle.
My father had called it historic.
My uncle called it brilliant.
The newspapers would call it reconciliation.
I knew what it was.
A bargain.
Sophia Bellucci, twenty years old, only child of the Bellucci family, was the final payment.
And I was supposed to be the man who collected.
I had met her twice before the wedding.
The first time, she had been seventeen and standing behind her mother at a funeral. She had looked too young to understand why forty armed men were gathered around an open grave.
The second time, she had been nineteen.
We had exchanged six words.
“Are you really marrying me?”
She had asked it quietly in a hallway.
I had answered honestly.
“That depends on whether they leave us a choice.”
She had looked at me for several seconds.
Then someone called her name, and she disappeared.
Tonight, there had been no hallway to escape into.
There had been an altar.
A priest.
Two families.
Three hundred witnesses.
And a marriage contract written by people who considered human beings assets.
When Sophia walked toward me in that enormous white gown, everyone stood.
I didn’t.
Not because I wanted to insult her.
Because I saw the expression on her face.
She looked as though she were walking toward an execution.
The priest spoke.
The vows were recited.
She said yes.
I said yes.
Our rings were placed on our fingers.
The crowd applauded.
My father smiled.
Sophia’s father looked relieved.
And somewhere near the back of the room, someone whispered, “Finally.”
Finally.
As though they had been waiting six years for a woman to be sacrificed so they could sleep peacefully again.
When the doors of the penthouse closed behind us, Sophia flinched.
Most men would have missed it.
I didn’t.
I had survived my entire life by noticing fear before it became danger.
“You can take off your shoes,” I said.
She looked at me.
Her eyes were enormous.
“Okay.”
I pointed toward the bedroom.
“The bedroom’s through there. You can change if you want.”
She remained frozen.
Her fingers were twisted together so tightly that her knuckles had turned white.
“The zipper,” she whispered.
“What?”
“I can’t reach it.”
I stepped behind her.
“May I?”
She nodded.
I lowered the zipper carefully.
My fingers barely touched her neck.
She recoiled like I had burned her.
I immediately stepped back.
She turned.
“I’m sorry.”
The apology came automatically.
That scared me more than the flinch.
“You don't have to apologize.”
She lowered her eyes.
I watched her cross the room and sit on the edge of the bed.
She didn’t take off the gown.
She didn’t move.
She simply stared at the floor.
I loosened my tie.
“Look at me, Sophia.”
She slowly lifted her eyes.
“How old are you?”
“Twenty.”
“Have you ever been with anyone?”
Her expression changed.
She understood exactly why I was asking.
“No.”
Silence.
I sat several feet away.
“Then why are you shaking?”
She swallowed.
“My father told me it had to be done.”
“What had to be done?”
She looked at the sheets.
“The marriage.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Her lips trembled.
“The rest.”
Everything inside me became still.
“Did someone tell you what would happen tonight?”
She nodded.
“Who?”
“My mother first.”
“And?”
“My father.”
“And who else?”
She hesitated.
Then her voice became almost inaudible.
“Your uncle.”
My jaw tightened.
“My uncle told you what?”
She stared at her hands.
“That once the doors closed, I belonged to my husband.”
There were hundreds of ways that sentence could be interpreted.
I didn’t want to hear any of them.
Instead I asked, “Did anyone tell you that you could say no?”
Sophia looked confused.
“No.”
That single word changed everything.
I leaned forward.
“Did anyone?”
She shook her head.
“Not even your mother?”
“No.”
I stood.
She immediately stiffened.
I walked toward the bathroom.
Behind me, I heard her whisper the words they had apparently trained her to say.
“Just get it over with.”
I stopped.
I closed my eyes.
Then I understood.
They hadn’t prepared Sophia for marriage.
They had prepared her for surrender.
I entered the bathroom and opened my emergency kit.
Inside were bandages, antiseptic, medicine, and a small blade.
I took the blade.
Cut my forearm.
Blood appeared immediately.
When I walked back into the bedroom, Sophia gasped.
“What are you doing?”
I ignored the pain.
I held my arm over the sheets.
Several drops landed on the pristine white fabric.
Red against white.
Proof.
Evidence.
A lie designed to satisfy men who believed a bride’s body was part of a treaty.
Sophia stared at the blood.
“They’ll inspect these sheets?”
“They don't have to.”
“But—”
“Someone will make sure the right people hear about them.”
I wrapped my arm.
She looked at me as though she could no longer understand the room.
I sat beside her, but left space between us.
“You're safe.”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“You don't have to believe me yet.”
She looked at me.
“But you can sleep.”
A tear rolled down her cheek.
“And tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow, you can decide what you want.”
Her voice cracked.
“What if they ask?”
“They can ask me.”
“What if they get angry?”
“They can get angry.”
“What if they punish you?”
I looked at the blood soaking through the towel around my arm.
“They've been trying to kill me since I was nineteen.”
Her eyes widened.
“I survived.”
She stared at me.
“You're not afraid of them?”
“I’m afraid of what they taught you to think is normal.”
She looked down.
I reached for a blanket and placed it beside her.
“The only thing I’m taking from you tonight, Sophia, is the fear they taught you to carry.”
For several seconds, she didn't move.
Then, slowly, she lay down.
I stayed in the chair beside the window.
She fell asleep before two in the morning.
I didn’t.
At 4:17 a.m., my phone vibrated.
A message from my security chief.
“Done. The sheets were photographed. Bellucci people already know.”
I stared at the screen.
Then another message appeared.
“Your father is asking for you at 7.”
Of course he was.
Peace had been purchased.
Now everyone wanted confirmation that the price had been paid.
I looked at Sophia sleeping on the enormous bed.
For the first time that night, I made a decision that had nothing to do with my father.
Nothing to do with the Belluccis.
Nothing to do with peace.
I would protect her.
Not because she was my wife.
Because she was a human being who had been handed to monsters and told that obedience was the same thing as consent.
Outside, Manhattan began turning gray with dawn.
May you like
The wedding night was over.
The war had not even begun.
