Chapter 2 ✮⋆˙ 2 ˙⋆✮

For one terrible second, I forgot how to breathe.

Nico’s voice had not been raised. That was what made it worse. He had not sounded angry or drunk or careless. He had sounded calm. Certain. Like a man discussing weather, wine, the ceremony.

Once she’s my wife, she won’t have a choice anymore.

The words slipped beneath the bridal suite door and wrapped around my throat.

My hand tightened on the edge of the contract until the paper crumpled beneath my fingers. I should have moved away. I should have pretended I had heard nothing. That was what good Rosetti girls did. We smiled. We swallowed. We let men finish speaking, then thanked them for ruining our lives politely.

But my feet stayed rooted to the carpet.

My father said something too low for me to catch.

Nico laughed.

It was almost warm, and that was the sound that made nausea roll through me. I had heard that laugh during dinners and the party where he had placed his hand at the small of my back and told an entire room I was shy.

“She’ll adjust,” Nico said. “Women like Ava always do.”

Women like Ava.

As if there was a category for women raised in beautiful houses with locked doors no one could see. Women trained to lower their voices. Women who knew the difference between a request and a warning because men delivered both with the same smile.

My father’s voice sharpened. “You promised she would be safe.”

“She will be.” Nico sounded bored now. “As long as she behaves.”

The room tilted.

I pressed one hand against the doorframe. The lace at my wrist scratched my skin, and for one wild second I wanted to rip the whole dress off my body. The silk. The pearls. The careful little buttons someone had fastened down my spine.

Safe as long as she behaves.

A phrase like a collar.

“She doesn’t know about her mother,” my father said.

My entire body went cold.

My mother.

The word cut through panic so cleanly that everything inside me went silent.

For years, my mother had existed in my life as a collection of forbidden softness. A scarf that smelled faintly of vanilla. A photograph my father kept tucked in a drawer. A lullaby I could only remember in pieces. A grave I was taken to on birthdays and holidays, where my father always stood three steps back.

She had died in an accident. That was the story.

A terrible accident. A private tragedy. A wound I was not supposed to pick at because it made my father sad.

But now her name was outside my wedding suite.

“Good,” Nico said. “Then don’t suddenly develop a conscience.”

A sharp, broken sound came from my father.

“You said this was about the debt,” he whispered.

“It is partly about the debt.”

Partly.

“What else?” my father asked.

Nico sighed. “Louis, you are good at spending money you don’t have. You are less good at asking useful questions.”

“I am asking now.”

“Too late.”

The hallway went quiet.

Somewhere beyond them, the chapel music changed. A soft swell of strings drifted through the walls, lovely and merciless. The sound meant guests were being seated. It meant my bridesmaids were probably lining up, dresses perfect, bouquets ready, smiles fixed. It meant I had minutes before the doors opened and every eye turned toward me.

Minutes before I became Nico’s wife.

Minutes before I lost whatever choice he thought I still had.

I looked down at the contract again. My vision swam, but I forced myself to read.

Family name usage.

Transfer of marital authority.

Spousal approval required for asset liquidation.

Inheritance claims to be reviewed upon legal union.

Legal union.

Not marriage. Not love. Not even wife.

Union. Signature. Access.

I turned the page with shaking fingers.

A clause near the bottom mentioned Rosetti maternal holdings.

Maternal.

My mother had holdings?

The letters blurred, then sharpened.

Any undisclosed assets, trusts, keys, documents, deposits, storage agreements, inherited accounts, or protected properties attached to the maternal Rosetti line shall be subject to joint marital review upon execution of this agreement.

My stomach lurched.

What had my mother hidden?

And why did Nico need me married before he could touch it?

My father spoke again, hoarse now. “If she finds out, she’ll fight.”

“She is already fighting,” Nico said. “Refusing champagne. Looking at doors. Asking about clauses she does not understand.”

I froze.

He knew.

Men like Nico watched fear the way jewelers studied diamonds. He had seen every flicker, every hesitation, every time my eyes drifted toward an exit.

“She won’t run,” my father said, but he sounded like he was begging the universe.

“No,” Nico agreed. “Because she loves you. Because she still believes there is a father inside you worth saving.”

My eyes burned.

That was the cruelest thing he could have said because it was true.

Some weak, stupid, grieving part of me still wanted my father to burst through the door, grab my hand, and say he had made a mistake. That no debt, no threat, no family name was worth handing me over to the Varras.

Instead, he was standing in the hallway discussing how much I knew.

I looked at myself in the mirror across the room.

The bride staring back at me looked pale and expensive. Her dark hair was pinned beneath a veil she had not chosen. Her lips were painted soft rose because Nico’s mother said red was too bold for a church wedding. Her throat was bare except for pearls that belonged to no one in my family and everyone in his.

She did not look like a woman about to run.

That was good.

Running required surprise.

A knock sounded at the outer door, and I nearly jumped out of my skin.

“Ava?” one of my bridesmaids called from the adjoining sitting room. “They’re almost ready.”

I opened my mouth, but no sound came out.

Outside the suite door, Nico’s voice dropped lower.

“Keep her calm,” he told my father. “Smile. Walk her down the aisle. Once the vows are done, I’ll handle the rest.”

My father said, “And if she refuses?”

The silence after that question was so complete I felt it against my bones.

Then Nico answered softly.

“She won’t.”

Another knock. “Ava?”

I stumbled back from the door. The contract slid from my hands and scattered across the floor.

I had to pick it up. I had to smooth the pages, fix my face, stand where they expected me to stand. I had to survive the next five minutes long enough to find an opening.

Any opening.

My gaze darted to the side door again. It led to a narrow service corridor, I thought. Maybe to the gardens. Maybe to another locked door. Maybe nowhere.

But nowhere sounded better than the altar.

Footsteps shifted in the hall.

Nico spoke again, no longer amused.

“Marco,” he said, “put men at all the exits.”

My blood turned to ice.

Then he added, “Brides get sentimental when they realize they’ve been sold.”