Chapter 3: Paper Vows, Iron Chains

The mansion never slept.

Even at two in the morning, it breathed with a quiet menace—heels clicking against marble in the hallway, guards whispering over radios, shadows sliding beneath doors. I stood by the window in our so-called bedroom, staring at the driveway below. Two black cars. One motorcycle. The rest hidden somewhere, like everything else in this house.

I hadn’t moved for over an hour. Couldn’t sleep. Couldn’t think past the man from the meeting.

“You look like your mother.”

The words looped in my head like static, like the kind of thing you don’t realize is dangerous until it’s already cracked open something inside you.

My mother had died when I was ten. Hit-and-run, they said. Closed casket. I never saw her face again. Never asked questions. Not because I didn’t want to, but because people looked uncomfortable when I did.

And now… now some stranger said her name like it was a weapon.

I wanted answers. I wanted truth.

Instead, I had a marriage contract and a door that didn’t open from the inside.

I turned from the window and stared at the bed.

Still made. Still untouched.

Of course it was.

The room felt split in half—his and mine, but nothing in between. Two nightstands, but only one had a gun tucked in the drawer. Two robes in the closet, but only one still had the price tag on it. The staff had folded everything for me. Perfectly. Like they knew I wouldn’t dare mess it up.

Like they were preparing me to become a ghost in real time.

I sat on the edge of the bed and reached for the ring on my finger.

Gold.

Heavy.

Unreal.

I’d never worn real jewelry before, not like this. It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t romantic. It felt like a reminder. A leash disguised as luxury.

A knock came from the door.

Three soft raps. A beat of silence. Then the door opened.

Matteo didn’t wait for permission. He never did.

He stepped inside without a word, still in the same black shirt from earlier, sleeves rolled up to his elbows. His eyes flicked around the room. Then to me.

"You didn’t eat again."

I didn’t answer.

He crossed the room, slow and measured, like every step was rehearsed. When he reached the nightstand, he picked up the untouched plate and set it on the desk.

"You need to eat," he said.

I looked at him. "Why do you care?"

"I don’t," he said easily. "But a weak wife is a liability. And I don’t like liabilities."

There it was. Honesty, sharp and ugly.

I stood. “Then why keep me here? You have soldiers. You have women begging to be near you. Why me?”

He looked at me like he was bored of the question already.

“Because names have power. Yours is one I need.”

My stomach turned. “So that’s all I am? A signature? A pawn in a suit?”

“You’re a piece in a game your father started,” he said. “I’m just finishing it.”

My breath caught. “You knew him.”

His jaw ticked, but he didn’t deny it.

“How?” I asked. “What was he to you?”

He stared at me like he was deciding something. Then turned and walked to the fireplace. Leaned a hand on the mantle.

“He taught me how to shoot,” Matteo said quietly. “How to lie. How to make people bleed without touching them.”

The words sliced something in me.

“You were close.”

His silence answered for him.

“What happened?” I asked. “Why did it end?”

He finally looked at me again. “He chose the wrong side.”

I stepped closer, but not too close. “Which side is right then?”

A pause.

“The one that survives.”

He said it like scripture.

I wanted to scream. I wanted to tear off this ring and throw it in his face. But I couldn’t afford to be impulsive—not now, not yet. So I swallowed the ache and asked instead:

“Who was that man at the meeting today?”

His eyes sharpened.

“You noticed him.”

“He noticed me first,” I said. “He mentioned my mother.”

Matteo’s jaw clenched. He looked away for a moment, then back at me.

“Don’t talk to him again.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“That’s an order.”

His tone cracked the air between us. I flinched.

Then I laughed.

It surprised both of us.

“Wow,” I said, stepping back. “You really think barking commands makes you more powerful?”

“No,” he said. “But I know fear does.”

His voice dropped, low and final.

And for a second, I did feel it. The chill crawling under my skin. The understanding that this man didn’t just kill to protect—he killed because he believed it was part of the job.

Still, I didn’t back down.

“Maybe I’m not afraid of you.”

“You should be,” he said.

“I’m not,” I whispered. “Not of you. Not anymore.”

I expected him to yell. Or leave. Or break something.

Instead, he stepped closer.

Close enough that I could see the scar above his right brow. Close enough to smell the smoke on his skin.

He looked down at me like he wanted to say something he couldn’t.

Then he reached out and brushed a strand of hair from my face.

“You will be,” he said softly.

And then he walked out.

The next morning, I woke to another dress.

Not white this time.

Black.

A funeral dress.

I held it in my hands for a long time before I put it on.

There was no note. No explanation. Just the weight of it, waiting.

Matteo didn’t speak when I met him in the hallway. He just nodded at the guards and walked.

I followed.

We rode in silence again, but this time the tension was thicker. More aware. Like something between us had shifted last night, and neither of us knew what to do with it.

We stopped outside a cathedral. Old stone. Tall gates. People in black already filing in.

“Who died?” I asked.

He didn’t answer.

Inside, the air smelled like roses and ashes. Men kissed Matteo’s ring. Women avoided his eyes. No one dared whisper too loud.

At the front, I saw the coffin.

And the name.

Gianna De Vera.

I froze.

My mother’s best friend.

She used to babysit me.

The memories hit like a truck—her laugh, her perfume, the cookies she used to sneak me when my mom wasn’t looking.

I felt my knees wobble.

Matteo gripped my arm.

“Not here,” he said under his breath. “Don’t make a scene.”

“What happened to her?” I whispered.

“Suicide,” he said. “But we both know that’s a lie.”

My mouth went dry.

He leaned in, his voice a knife now.

“She was silenced. Because she knew something. Something your mother told her.”

I turned my head toward him slowly.

“You knew all this. You knew she was still in contact with my mother.”

“Yes.”

“And you didn’t tell me.”

“No.”

“Why?”

He looked at me with those hollow eyes.

“Because I needed you angry enough to stay.”

The funeral ended in gunfire.

Three shots outside the gates. No one died, but it was a message. Matteo’s men swarmed like bees, and I was pulled into a car before I could process anything.

I didn’t ask where we were going. I didn’t care.

Everything hurt.

We stopped at the top of a hill, far from the city. Matteo led me to an abandoned lookout.

“I used to come here with your father,” he said. “Before the lies. Before the war.”

I turned away from the view.

“Tell me the truth,” I said. “All of it. What happened to my mom? To my real father? Why am I here?”

He stared at the horizon for a long time.

Then finally spoke.

“Your mother ran,” he said. “Because she found out the truth. She was supposed to disappear. But she left breadcrumbs. Enough for the wrong people to find her.”

“And the man at the meeting?”

“A ghost,” Matteo said. “One I thought was dead.”

My heart dropped. “You think he killed her?”

“I know he did.”

I sat down, legs shaking.

“And now he’s watching me.”

Matteo nodded.

“That’s why I married you,” he said quietly. “To protect you. To keep you close. Because you’re the only leverage we have left.”

Tears blurred my eyes.

“So I’m not your wife. I’m your shield.”

“No,” he said. “You’re both.”

That night, I didn’t sleep again.

But I did something I never thought I’d do in this house.

I wrote.

On a piece of hotel stationery I found in one of Matteo’s drawers, I wrote down every name. Every clue. Every scar in the shape of a memory.

And I underlined one sentence three times.

Nothing stays buried forever.

Not the past.

Not my mother.

And not me.

END OF CHAPTER 3