Chapter 3 3

• “I want to play!” Marcus bounced on my bed, the mattress groaning beneath him.
• I didn’t respond. My eyes were fixed on the mirror, but I wasn’t looking at my reflection. I was trying to see the girl who used to live behind my eyes. The one who hadn’t been sold.
• Only two days.
• Two days until the engagement party.
• Two days until I was handed over like a bargaining chip to a man whose name made grown men swallow their fear.
• “Why don’t you ever want to play anymore?” Marcus whined.
• “Because everything needs to be perfect,” I said quietly. “Mother’s orders.”
• “But the guests aren’t even here yet!”
• Not yet.
• Tomorrow.
• Lorrenzo would arrive tomorrow.
• And with him would come the smell of blood masked in expensive cologne, the kind of silence that made your skin crawl.
• I squeezed my eyes shut.
• “Are you crying again?” Marcus slid off the bed, his voice softer. He slipped his hand into mine, and I flinched at how small he felt how pure.
• His hair was a mess. I reached out to fix it, but he ducked away.
• “Sofia says you cry all the time,” he said. “Because Lorrenzo bought you.”
• My throat closed.
• She said that out loud?
• “I wasn’t… crying.”
• Lie.
• I cried when the lights went off. When the house was quiet. When I remembered I didn’t belong to myself anymore.
• “He didn’t buy me,” I said. My voice cracked.
• “Same difference,” Alessia muttered from the doorway.
• I jumped.
• She leaned there, arms crossed, dark eyes burning.
• “Shhh,” I hissed. “What if Father hears?”
• Alessia’s lips curled into a snarl. “He knows. He signed the deal. He shook hands with a murderer and called it an alliance. He sold you like you were nothing but cattle.”
• “Alessia,” I warned.
• Marcus was still watching.
• “I don’t want you to leave,” he whispered.
• “I’m not leaving yet, Paolo,” I said, forcing a smile I didn’t feel. “Not for a long time.”
• He nodded, satisfied for now.
• Then came the mischief.
• “Catch me!” he shouted, bolting from the room.
• Alessia cursed and ran after him. “I swear, I’ll kick your ass, you gremlin!”
• Bianca popped her head out, confused. “What’s going on?”
• “Run!” Alessia shouted, laughing breathlessly as she followed Marcus.
• “No wait!” I called, panic lacing my voice.
• They wouldn’t listen.
• I chased after them, heels clicking too loud, too fast. “If you break anything, Mother will skin us alive!”
• Marcus darted into the west wing.
• My heart dropped.
• “No, Marcus! Not that way!”
• He couldn’t go there.
• Not near his office. Not near Father. Not near the place where decisions were made with guns instead of pens.
• The corridor loomed ahead. I wanted to scream.
• Too late.
• Three shadows rounded the corner.
• And then I saw him.
• Lorrenzo Alessandro.
• Marcus froze, and Bianca collided with the man in the center. She hit him full force but he didn’t move. He was a statue carved from violence.
• He steadied her gently.
• Those hands. I couldn’t breathe.
• Those were the same hands that had crushed a man’s throat in an alley three years ago. The story was legend. He hadn’t even blinked.
• I stopped, pulse pounding in my ears.
• Alessia went still beside me.
• Lorrenzo looked up.
• Gray eyes, soulless and sharp as blades. He saw me and it felt like being unclothed, like he peeled away every defense I had without touching me.
• His gaze dragged down my body, cold and calculated, before pausing on my hair.
• I wanted to scream, to run, to disappear.
• “Bianca,” I said too loudly, too sharply.
• She looked up, startled.
• I never used her full name unless something was wrong.
• And everything was wrong.
• Everyone was staring now.
• Even him.
• Lorrenzo’s lips curled at the edges. Not a smile. A recognition. Like he already owned me and I was just catching up to that fact.
• That was the f
• irst time I saw him.
• The first time I understood what it meant to belong to a monster.
• And I knew
• No one was coming to save me.