CHAPTER TWO: sealed fate

Mia's POV

The rooftop garden reminded me of my mother. It was where I came anytime I needed to remember her.

Collins was already there, smoking a cigarette. "You look pissed," he said, his eyes scanning me as I approached.

"How observant. " I collected the cigarette from him and took a long drag, even though I'd quit six months ago. "When were you going to tell me?"

"About the marriage?" He shrugged, his expression neutral as he collected his cigarette back. "I only found out last week."

"And you didn't warn me because...?" I trailed off, my heart racing slightly anxious to hear his reply.

"Because warning you wouldn't have changed anything." He answered very casually with a tone that suggested that he wasn't interested in the conversation, not the warm tone he usually used when we were alone. "Your father made his decision, that's the end of it."

I studied his face in the dim light, searching for the Collins I knew but the hardened expression on his face told me everything I needed to know.

"That's it?" I asked, my voice raising slightly"That's all you have to say? I'm being forced to marry Jonathan and you're just... fine with it?"

"What do you want me to say, Mia?" He took another drag, not sparing a glance in my direction. "That I'll fight your father? Get myself killed over some arranged marriage? Be realistic."

“Some arranged marriage.” As if it wasn't Jonathan, as if Collins didn't know what Jonathan had meant to me, what I feared he still meant even though he broke my heart.

"You helped plan this," I said slowly, the pieces clicking together as understanding dawned."Elena said you were supportive, I thought she was exaggerating, but she wasn't, was she?"

"Your father needed someone who could assess Jonathan's security protocols. I have the expertise." He finally looked at me, his expression unreadable. "It's my job, Mia. Same as this is yours."

My job. 

Marrying the man who broke my heart so my family could use me and destroy him, just another day in the De Luca empire except this time it was different.

"Is that all I am to you?" The question came out before I could stop it. "A job?"

His expression still remained infuriatingly neutral like we were playing poker."What we had was...convenient, for both of us. But it can't continue once you're married, you understand that, right?"

"Right," I said, my voice surprisingly steady. "Convenient."

I wasn't even surprised, with everything I've seen in this Godamn estate, nothing could really get to me anymore. Well, except the fact that i was about to get married to my ex boyfriend. 

"I'll still be your contact," he continued, as if he hadn't just dropped a bomb."You'll receive your instructions through me. Security updates and anything you need to complete the mission."

"When?" I asked with a slight tremble in my voice. "When do they want it done?"

"That depends on how quickly you can gain his trust." Collins threw his cigarette on the floor and crushed it under his boot. 

"I should go," I said, suddenly exhausted by this conversation, by him, by everything. I looked at him one last time, memorizing the face of yet another person who'd proven that love in this family was just another weapon. "I'll wait for your instructions, that's what you want, right? A good little soldier?"

"I want you alive," he said quietly, his eyes narrowing."That's what I want."

"Funny way of showing it." I turned and walked away, leaving him alone with his cigarettes and whatever the hell he'd actually been planning when he decided to help my father destroy my life.

The walk back to my room took several decades. It was as if the wall was whispering the truth I had feared to acknowledge. The same truth I'd been avoiding, I was completely alone in this, my father wanted to use me. My stepsisters wanted to see me fail and Collins—the one person I thought might actually care—had just revealed himself to be exactly what he'd always been. A loyal soldier in my father's army.

I locked my door and dropped in my bed letting myself feel the betrayal.

Three days until I married Jonathan Mysterio, three days until I stepped back into his world with a tongue filled with nothing but lies.

My hand drifted unconsciously to my face, tracing the subtle differences the surgery had created. Smaller nose, slightly different cheekbones, eyes that looked wider now, more innocent. A year ago, when Jonathan knew me, I'd been Sophia, my mother's maiden name, the identity I'd built when I tried to escape this family. I had dark hair and sharper features, a totally different face from the one I was wearing now.

Then Jonathan ended it, and my father finally found me after months of searching and the surgeries began. "If you're going to be useful," he'd said, "you need to look like a De Luca, like my daughter not like her."

So they erased every trace of Sophia from my face and made me into Mia De Luca, the daughter who'd been conveniently "studying abroad" for years. The perfect bride for a billionaire who'd never connect her to the woman he'd loved and discarded.

This is going to take a lot out of me. I thought t

o myself, and there's not a damn thing I can do to stop it.