CHAPTER 1: The Substitute Bride

⚠️🔞 TRIGGER WARNINGS (DARK ROMANCE): ⚠️🔞

This is a DARK ROMANCE book with heavy, raw, and non-traditional themes. It contains highly sensitive content that some readers may find uncomfortable, triggering, or disturbing. This includes, but is not limited to:

Domestic abuse and physical violence

Forced marriage and extreme possessiveness

Non-consensual/forced sexual situations and breeding themes

Explicit sexual content (18+)

Very strong language and toxic dynamics

⚠️ READER DISCRETION IS HIGHLY ADVISED. If you are sensitive to these topics, please skip this book for your own mental well-being. This is a work of fiction meant for mature audiences only.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

🇧🇷 ABOUT THE AUTHOR & TRANSLATION: I am a proud Brazilian author! I am translating this book into English so I can share this story with all of you. Because of this, there might be some minor translation mistakes or phrasing that sounds a bit different. I deeply appreciate your patience and understanding. Feel free to gently let me know in the comments if you spot any typos!

Thank you so much for giving my book a chance! I hope you enjoy the wild ride! ❤️

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

(Helen’s POV)

The sharp crack of the slap echoed off the marble walls of the private dressing room before I could even process the movement.

The impact was so violent that my head spun, and my body was thrown mercilessly onto the cold porcelain floor. The heavy white fabric of the wedding dress—originally tailored for my older sister's slender frame—ripped slightly at the right shoulder seam as I collided with the wooden vanity. A second later, the hot, metallic taste of blood exploded in my mouth, trickling down the corner of my lower lip.

"You will walk into that church, you will smile, and you will be the perfect wife I commanded you to be," Vittorio Rossi snarled above me, his voice vibrating with unchecked fury.

Before I could push myself up or wipe away the blood, my father’s thick fingers clamped onto my arm with brutal force. He hauled me off the floor as if I were nothing but a disposable piece of meat, shaking me.

"Your sister Genna ran away like a cowardly whore in the middle of the night. If you don't take her place at that altar right now, Damian Vance will destroy my life, seize my assets, and throw this entire family into the gutter before nightfall. You are going to accept this, and you are going to save my neck."

I tried to yank my arm back, but his grip only tightened, digging into my skin. My green eyes, which my mother always said looked like dry autumn leaves, burned with tears of pure rage and helplessness. My chest heaved heavily. My voluptuous curves and wide hips were painfully crushed inside the suffocating corset, custom-made for a skinny woman. I could barely breathe, but the fury burning inside me was greater than the physical discomfort.

"This is your debt, Father!" I spat the words in his face, ignoring the fear threatening to paralyze my legs. "Genna spent the last twelve years locked away, molded to be that arrogant billionaire’s perfect porcelain doll. Not me! I went to a normal school, I walked the streets, I had real plans for my life! I was supposed to start college in Chicago next month! I won't be anyone's backup prize! I am not a piece of merchandise!"

Vittorio Rossi’s jaw clenched dangerously. With a swift movement, he let go of my arm and slammed his palm against my throat, pinning me hard against the marble wall. I gasped, the air cut off for a brief second. With his free hand, he shoved his fingers violently into my lips, pinching the sensitive flesh and forcing the corners of my mouth upward into a grotesque, artificial smile on my bloody face.

"You don't have a choice, Helen. Understand that once and for all, for your own good," he hissed near my ear, his breath reeking of the whiskey he’d been drinking to suppress his panic. "The moment you step foot out of this dressing room, you have no rights, no college, and no fucking free will. The original contract demands a woman of the Rossi bloodline. All you need to do is keep your mouth shut, spread your legs, and get pregnant by that man in less than two years to secure the heir the Vances demand. If you fail and he cancels the merger, I’ll personally make sure you regret being alive. Now, swallow that blood, clean your face, and walk."

He released me abruptly. I slid down the wall, coughing softly as I scrambled for oxygen. The desperate crying stayed trapped in my throat, hardening into a cold, burning resentment. Looking up at the man who was supposed to protect me, the naked, ugly truth hit me: Vittorio Rossi never saw us as daughters. To him, we were just luxury livestock, prize fillies raised in a private stable to be sold and bartered away to the richest, most dangerous men in Chicago whenever his mistakes demanded a price.

I wiped the corner of my mouth with the back of my hand, staring at the red smear on my skin. I was only eighteen. I wanted to experience the world, go to parties, kiss people, meet guys my age, and have sex because I wanted to—not because of a contractual obligation. But every single one of my dreams had been murdered by a signature on a piece of paper.

Twenty minutes later, I stood before the massive oak doors of the Chicago Cathedral. The city’s freezing, grey air hit my face as the wooden panels swung open with a heavy crash. A long, thick lace veil covered my head, hiding my tears and the bruise beginning to form on my lip.

The bridal march began to echo through the monumental ceilings of the church, making my stomach churn. I glanced to the side and caught sight of my younger sisters, Sienna and Bianca, sitting in the front pews. Their faces were pale, terrified, and trembling. They knew exactly how massive this sacrifice was. They knew I was walking into the slaughterhouse in Genna's place.

Beside me, my father flashed a radiant, completely fake smile for the flashing cameras and the curious eyes of Chicago’s high society. No one there suspected the swap. As we walked, his fingers dug like iron talons into the bone of my forearm, physically pushing me forward every time my legs threatened to give out.

I took my first step down the red carpet of the center aisle. My hands, gripped tightly around a bouquet of white roses that felt as heavy as lead, shook uncontrollably. Beneath the lace of the veil, my crying was silent, but hot tears streamed down my cheeks. With every yard I advanced toward the altar, the reality that I was marching to my own execution grew heavier.

I raised my eyes and focused on the imposing figure standing at the end of the aisle, his back turned to me. Damian Vance. The thirty-year-old sole heir to Vance Global Holdings. The man who had bought my destiny without even knowing my name.

I had never seen his face up close in my life, only in distant photos in business magazines and gossip tabloids. He was Chicago’s dark prince, notorious for his extreme arrogance, his ruthless coldness in the corporate world, and his predatory reputation with women. Rumor had it that he ran an exclusive, underground erotic nightclub in the city, and that he treated the women who passed through his bed as disposable toys of submission and pleasure.

And now, due to that hidden breeding clause, I belonged to him. I would be the abused wife, used every single day to satisfy that monster's desires. Terror made my heart hammer so violently against my ribs that it actually hurt.

Yet, as the final steps brought us closer to the altar, the despair began to give way to a cold rigidity. I swallowed the rest of my tears, took a deep breath of the cathedral's incense-scented air, and clenched my fists beneath the flowers. Damian Vance spent years expecting a submissive, meek, perfectly trained doll like my sister Genna. He thought he was getting a silent piece of property to rule over.

But the arrogant billionaire was about to find out, the hard way, that this substitute bride had teeth.