Chapter 2 The Devil’s Vows

Gianna 

It took less than twenty minutes to get the papers signed. Twenty minutes to erase the last three years of my life and replace them with a single name.

Gianna Russo.

The certificate felt heavier than paper should. My hand trembled as I held it, not from nerves, but from the reality that there was no undoing this.

“I’ll have my assistant follow you,” Dante said as he adjusted the cuff of his shirt, his voice as steady as stone. “Take whatever you need from your old apartment. You’ve nothing less than a day.”

I nodded stiffly, my phone buzzing in my palm. Luca’s name lit up the screen—again and again. Missed calls. Messages I didn’t need to read to know they were full of lies. I silenced it and slid the phone into my clutch.

Dante’s gaze flicked to me, sharp and unyielding. “And I need you to know something, Gianna.” He stepped closer, his presence demanding, his voice dropping to a low warning. “I do not condone cheating. Whatever way possible—I do not and will not do anything to tarnish my name. And I expect the same from you.”

The words stung more than they should have. Cheating. It had destroyed me just hours ago, yet here I was, married to a man who made fidelity sound like a business contract.

“I understand,” I whispered.

“Good.” His jaw tightened, as though the conversation was closed.

Daniel reappeared, a stack of envelopes in his hands, murmuring something to Dante. His assistant’s eyes flicked to me briefly, curiosity laced with pity, before returning to his boss.

“We leave in five minutes,” Dante said flatly.

I wanted to ask, Leave where? But the words stuck in my throat. Something told me questions were not things Dante Russo entertained.

Instead, I glanced down at the marriage certificate in my hands again. My name beside his. My future sealed to a man I barely knew.

And yet… for the first time since last night, I didn’t feel weak. Broken, yes. Scared, definitely. But standing next to Dante, with his shadow cast so large it seemed to swallow the world, I felt something else—something dangerous.

Protected.

Or maybe just trapped.

"I'll move in tomorrow, just the address of your place, I'll take care of the moving myself," I said, stepping two feet away from him.

"Mrs Russo," He called, closing the two feets I took away from him in one stride.

"Daniel will be at your apartment tomorrow morning," He cut, leaving no space for arguments.

"Your phone?" He demanded, his hands laid out to take them from me.

I watched him take my phone, thumbed his number in, then handed it back like he was returning something precious and dangerous all at once.

“You can call me with that,” he said. “Whenever. I’ll be your husband and you’ll be my wife.”

The words felt strange in my ears—mechanical, flat, but threaded with an unspoken promise. Protection, maybe. Ownership, definitely. I folded my hands around the marriage certificate as if it could steady me.

Daniel popped open the back of a sleek black car. Dante gestured for me to step in. Around us the registry’s courtyard thrummed with the low hum of traffic and the distant shutter of cameras. Someone had already sniffed a story—Luca’s no-show, the sudden Russo marriage—and the city smelled like gossip even this early.

Inside the car, Dante's presence was a quiet, heavy thing. He gave no small talk, only clipped instructions to Daniel over the phone. I watched his profile in the glass and tried to read him the way people read magazine covers—eyes, jawline, posture. What I found was a man used to being obeyed, and comfortable with it.

The ride to the estate was short; the Russo mansion sat on the edge of the river, imposing and calm, like a fortress that had learned how to smile. As we pulled up, a few photographers—opportunists—caught sight of us and raised their lenses. Dante’s face darkened, a slow, animal reaction, and he angled his body in front of me without hesitation.

“Stay close,” he murmured.

Inside, the house swallowed us with marble and hush. Portraits of dark-eyed men in expensive suits watched from the walls. It felt like stepping into someone else’s century. Daniel led me through rooms that smelled faintly of old wood and colder things—money, history, power. I kept my bouquet because I didn’t know what else to hold onto.

We were met in the study by a small, formidable woman who introduced herself as the house manager. She didn’t look surprised by anything; the Russo family had seen worse. A man in his late eighties, cane in hand and presence like winter, rose from his chair as Dante entered.

“Giovanni,” Dante said respectfully. “This is—”

“Your wife,” the old man finished, voice brittle but not unkind. His eyes pinched when they landed on me. “Make it quick. The papers are done. You have one day to move her items. Then a formal reception tonight. The press will want statements.”

I nodded. His tone held no permission, only terms. It was impossible not to feel like a commodity.

Later, as I stood in a sunlit guest room while movers shuffled through a few of my boxes—old magazines, perfume prototypes I’d been tinkering with, photographs of Dad and Amalfi—I realized how little of myself I’d left behind once. I had shelved my modeling dreams for Luca’s ambitions; now I packed them back up like a thing to be sorted.

One of the movers—a young man with kind eyes—handed me a small framed photo I hadn’t realized I’d kept. It showed me on a runway in Milan, hair wild, laughing in a way I remembered feeling. My fingers brushed the glass and for a second the laugh felt possible again.

“You okay, Miss?” he asked softly.

I looked at Dante in the doorway. He’d been quiet, standing like a sentinel. “Yes,” I lied. “I will be.”