It was a marriage certificate.
Stark black print on pristine paper, the bold government seal embossed in the top corner like a final, irreversible stamp of fate. Two signatures scrawled across the bottom confirmed what her eyes refused to believe.
Her breath caught.
Her gaze locked on the names.
Luciano and Nia.
She stared. Once. Twice. Three times.
As if repetition might undo it. As if staring hard enough would make her name disappear, unravel the ink, rewind time.
But it didn't. It stayed.
Permanent.
Legal.
Binding.
Her hand fell to her lap, the paper whispering as it slipped from her fingers. "This… this can't be real."
Luciano hadn't moved. He watched her with the unsettling stillness of someone who had seen this reaction before. His expression unreadable. Cold? No. Calculated.
"It's real."
Nia's mind scrambled, clawing for logic, memory, anything that could explain how she ended up married to a man whose name had only ever lived in gossip and fear.
"I don't remember agreeing to this. I don't remember a wedding. I don't remember you."
"You agreed," he said, his voice disturbingly calm.
Her head snapped toward him. "You're lying."
He met her gaze without blinking. "I don't need to."
The floor seemed to tilt under her. Her pulse roared in her ears. She couldn't feel her legs. Everything inside her felt too big—her heartbeat, her disbelief, her rage.
"Was I drunk?" she demanded. "Was I drugged?"
Luciano said nothing.
And that silence said everything.
Her hands trembled as she laid the paper on the velvet-lined bench at the foot of the bed, almost reverently, like it was a dangerous relic. Her feet moved before her thoughts could catch up, carrying her toward the tall windows. The sheer curtains danced around her as she stood bathed in soft, indifferent sunlight.
This room was a dream she couldn't wake from.
Too perfect.
Too curated.
Too silent.
She clenched her fists at her sides. Her voice, when it came, was low and deadly steady. "And if I say no?"
The quiet that followed was deep enough to drown in. She almost believed he wouldn't answer.
But then he did.
His voice was soft. Steady. Laced with regret and steel.
"Then you become a liability."
The words punched the air from her lungs.
She turned to him slowly, her expression carved from disbelief and rising fury. "So this is blackmail?"
Luciano rose from the bed with unhurried grace, gathering the sheet around his waist, but it felt more like a gesture of formality than modesty. His bare chest gleamed faintly in the light, a symbol of strength and vulnerability neither of them believed in.
He walked toward her, step by measured step, until only inches separated them. She could feel the heat of his presence. The danger.
"It's survival," he said softly. "In my world, perception is everything. If people think I've lost control—over anything, even something as intimate as marriage—they will come for me."
His eyes dropped to her lips for the briefest of seconds, then returned to her gaze. Dark. Possessive. Honest.
"And trust me, Nia," he added, almost a whisper, "they won't be as gentle as I am."
A bitter laugh tore from Nia's throat, dry and raw. "Gentle? You think this is gentle?"
Luciano's expression shifted, a shadow flitting behind his eyes. He stepped forward, but didn't touch her—he didn't need to. His presence alone was enough to press against her skin like heat, heavy and suffocating. He stood just behind her, close enough that she could feel his breath when he spoke.
"I'm giving you a choice most people in my world never get," he said quietly. "You walk out of here, Nia, and you'll be a target. You stay, and I can protect you."
Nia didn't turn. Her gaze remained fixed on her reflection in the tall glass window before her—disheveled hair, eyes wide and rimmed with confusion, fear, defiance. She looked like a stranger wrapped in silk and trapped in someone else's nightmare.
"But only if I play the part," she said, voice low, trembling despite her effort to stay composed.
"Yes."
That one word slammed into her like a gavel.
This wasn't a life. It was a contract dressed in diamonds and deception. A performance she never agreed to star in.
But she wasn't helpless. She wasn't some wide-eyed girl waiting to be saved. Nia had fought her way through rent hikes, worked double shifts, bought her own damn wine when her heart was heavy. She didn't crumble. Not now.
She inhaled sharply and turned to face him, shoulders squared.
"I want conditions."
Luciano's brow lifted, intrigued by the shift in her tone. "Go on."
"One month," she said firmly. "Thirty days. We play house, pretend everything's perfect. Then I walk. Clean slate. No strings."
He stared at her like he was reading between the words. "You think that's enough time to fool the world?"
"No," she said, lifting her chin. "But it's all I'm giving you."
A smirk curved his lips, slow and calculated, like he'd already considered this possibility. "Fine. Thirty days. But while you're mine, Nia, you play the part. No cold shoulders. No tantrums. No disappearing acts."
"And you don't touch me," she said quickly, the words snapping out before she could second-guess them. "This isn't real."
For the first time, something darker flickered behind Luciano's eyes. Heat. Possession. Amusement.
"That's your biggest rule?" he asked.
She hesitated for a heartbeat, then nodded. "Yes."
He stepped forward again, a breath away, close enough that her pulse stumbled in her throat.
"That might be the hardest one to keep, cara mia," he murmured, voice husky with something that made her skin prick and her breath catch.
Still, Nia held her ground. She wasn't going to flinch. Not from him. Not from the way her body reacted to his closeness. Whatever this was—this heat—it didn't mean anything. She wouldn't let it.
"I'll take my chances," she said, her voice steady now. Strong.
Luciano held her gaze a moment longer, then gave a single nod and stepped back.
"Your things are being moved in," he said, all business again. "Breakfast will be ready in ten minutes. And, Nia?"
She paused as she moved past him.
He glanced over his shoulder with a devilish curve to his mouth. "Wear something expensive. We're having our first public a
ppearance today."
A beat.
"Let's make it memorable."