Chapter Six: The Wedding Night

By the time they arrived at the master suite, the house was silent. Silence pressed like velvet here on the top floor, but the faint echoes of the celebration’s laughter and clinking glasses could still be heard in the hallways below.

Damian unlocked the door and gestured her inside first. Always under control. Never stops observing.

Isabella complied, her dress rustling on the gleaming floor as she stepped through the door. He was at her back, massive and unforgiving, as though the air bowed to his weight.

Dark wood, leather, and marble veined like frozen lightning made the room a study in power. It was a stronghold, not a sanctuary or a wedding chamber. Her cage now.

She turned as the door clicked closed behind him. Damian pulled off his jacket and casually tossed it over a chair. He untied his tie, his movements unhurried, as if nothing from the night had affected him.

“You did well tonight,” he commented. His voice was low and measured. “You smiled at the correct people. You performed your role.”

Her stomach constricted. My role. The remarks were not a compliment; they were an assessment, as if he were measuring the worth of a new purchase.

Isabella forced a slight smile. “I thought that was the point of all this.”

Damian’s eyes flickered up, keen and inscrutable. For a minute, quiet stretched between them, and she wondered if he had picked up on something in her tone. Then he just poured himself a drink from a crystal decanter, looking like molten gold as the amber liquid caught the light.

He swirled the drink and added, “Marriage is theatre. The show continues as long as you can keep the audience interested. If you let them down, the curtain will drop.”

His gaze never left hers as he sipped.

At her sides, Isabella’s fingers sank into the silk. She wanted to tell him straight out that she had heard everything and that she was a weapon made from her father’s bloodline rather than a bride. Instead, she cocked her head, training her features into serene interest.

“And what role do you play, Damian?”

The corner of his mouth raised, devoid of humour. “The villain.”

The admission should have chilled her. Instead, it grounded her. At least here, in the solitude of their cage, there were no delusions.

She crossed to the vanity and removed the pins from her hair one by one. They clattered lightly on the wood. Her mirror gazed back at her—green eyes too keen for innocence and lips painted in a grin that felt more like armour.

Damian placed down his drink and moved closer, his presence filling the space behind her. In the mirror, predator and victim met in fragile calm.

“Do you know what I see when I look at you?” he asked.

Her throat clenched. She held her voice steady. “A bride.”

He bent down, his lips close to her ear, and his words pierced through her like a razor. “A mask.”

The earth seemed to tilt again. She held herself very motionless, the only sign of her dread being a little trembling in her fingers as she placed another pin on the vanity.

If he suspected, she was already dead.

But Damian straightened, and his visage became unreadable once more. He stroked a strand of hair from her shoulder with deceptive gentleness. “Take some rest. Tomorrow, you’ll need your strength.”

He turned to the adjacent room, leaving her breathless in his wake. The door closed quietly, and she sagged against the vanity, holding its edge until her knuckles turned white.

Her reflection looked back at her, pallid and unblinking. Even though she was alone, she still smiled. The mask had not slipped for him. Not yet.

But Isabella knew the truth: every word, breath, and decision from this night forward would be conflict. Every glance would be a test.

She didn’t get any sleep. Instead, she listened to the slight creak of footsteps pacing in the other room while lying awake under blankets that were too smooth. The lord of the underworld in New York, Damian Moretti, also didn’t sleep.

She was steadied by the thought. Perhaps the weapon he had married could eventually figure out how to turn the villain’s flaws—such as insomnia, restlessness, or shadows that tormented him—into fault lines.

Isabella finally closed her eyes when the first faint rays of dawn appeared in the city. Not in submission, not in peace—but in silent pledge.

The mask would become her skin as she wore it. She would keep smiling until he thought she was real.

And until Damian Moretti realised that the bride he believed he had was the one who could destroy him, she would wait, patient as steel.