Chapter 3

The moment those words escaped through my lips, the hall erupted with another gasp of laughter. Those Moretti estate women stopped at nothing to mock me.

“What's the point of spinning the wheel? Mr. Moretti’s name has already landed on Rosaline’s spin, as always.”

“At this point, you should already give up and let Mr Moretti marry Rosaline instead.”

“Another bad omen waiting for you…”

“What a loss of time!”

“Silence!” Lorenzo commanded, taking a step closer to me. His voice softened as he shot a deep glance over my quiet expression and turned to face the crowd. “The rules state only a night; it never says I should get married to the woman who spins my name.”

“Besides, Rosaline and I are only friends. I never intend to marry her.” He held my hands gently. “Next year, I’ll definitely marry you, Lucy.”

Too bad.

I don't have that much time.

I pulled my hands from his grasp and faced the crowd. My voice was laced with confidence as I spoke, “Who says I’m going for Lorenzo’s name?”

The hall fell dead silent, the echoing giggles dying on the lips of the crowd.

Lorenzo’s hand remained suspended in the air where I had yanked mine away. His brow furrowed in genuine confusion, the practiced warmth in his eyes instantly hardening into something dark and volatile.

“What did you just say, Lucy?” he asked, his voice dropping into a dangerous, warning whisper.

I didn't answer him. Instead, I turned back to the crowd, raising my chin high. “Lorenzo’s name is already taken for the night. But the rule of the empire is simple—anyone who spins a name earns a night on the island. The wheel doesn't belong to Lorenzo Moretti. It belongs to the empire.”

Gasp after gasp rippled through the gathered elites.

“Is she crazy?” a man in the front row muttered.

“Is she going to spin for another man?”

“She’d dare spend a night with someone else right in front of Lorenzo?”

“Lucy, stop this nonsense,” Lorenzo snapped, stepping up to the platform and reaching for my arm. “You’ve lost your mind. You are my fiancée. You spin for me, or you don't spin at all.”

“I will never accept a woman touched by another man!” He barked.

“One night of love can't erase the passion we have.” I quoted back to him, throwing his own cold line right in his face. “Isn't that what you told me for seven years, Lorenzo?”

I turned my back on him before he could touch me and placed my hand on the cold iron of the wheel.

The mechanism beneath it—the very same hidden magnet he had ordered Mark to set to block his own name—didn't matter anymore. He had rigged the wheel so it would never land on Lorenzo Moretti. He had never bothered to rig it against anyone else.

I drew a deep breath, picturing my grandmother’s pale, hopeful face in that hospital room.

But before I could spin it, he grabbed my arms again, saying in a panicked voice, “I’ll marry you next year, Lucy. Stop all this nonsense and go back. Even if you land on my name, I’m taking Rosaline, not you.”

“Lorenzo Moretti, are you deaf or what?” I smirked. “I said I’m not intending your name.”

At this point, he lost all his calm. He let go of my hands and laughed like a madman, saying, “Even if you spin someone else's name, who do you think would dare take you, Lucy?”

“Everyone here knows you are mine!” He announced it like I was his asset, his property no one would dare touch.

Everyone else in the hall nodded in agreement. Men quickly stepped back. Some even pulled their dates closer, while some rushed to erase their names from the spinning wheel, afraid their names might land on me.

No one wanted to offend the Mafia Lord.

Lorenzo smiled in pure arrogance. Wrapping his hands around Rosaline's waist, he turned to climb into his chopper.

But that didn't stop me. I remembered what I promised to my grandmother.

‘I’m spinning the wheel tomorrow. And I will land on a name, get married, and give you a family. I promise you.’

Recalling that promise, I spun the wheel with whatever names were left on it.

The wheel spun into a blur of gold, black, and red.

Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick.

Lorenzo stopped midway, his knuckles white, his jaw clenched so hard a muscle twitched violently in his cheek. “Stop the wheel,” he commanded the guards quietly, his voice laced with venom.

“If anyone touches that wheel before it stops, the whole empire will know the Moretti ruler cheats his own traditions!” I shouted, my voice cutting through the heavy air like a blade.

The guards froze. Lorenzo glared at them, but it was too late.

The wheel began to slow.

Tick... tick... tick...

It glided right past the mocking slot that read ‘Better Luck Next Year’.

It rolled past Lorenzo’s name.

And with a loud, resounding CLACK, the heavy brass arrow dropped into a dark red section at the very top of the wheel.

The host stepped up, his hands visibly shaking as he stared at the name painted in bold silver letters. He swallowed hard, looking at Lorenzo with sheer terror before reading the result aloud to the silent room.

“The wheel has chosen... Ethan Moretti.”

A collective gasp shattered the silence of the room.

Ethan Moretti. Lorenzo’s estranged older brother. The ruthless, dark head of the family’s overseas branch—and the only man in the entire empire who Lorenzo truly feared.

Before Lorenzo could even open his mouth to declare the result void, the heavy double doors at the back of the hall slammed open.

A tall figure stepped out of the shadows, draped in a sharp, tailored dark charcoal suit. His icy gray eyes swept over the shocked crowd, passing Rosaline, passing Lorenzo, until they locked squarely onto mine.

“A promise is a promise, brother,” Ethan’s deep, velvety voice echoed across the quiet hall as he stepped toward the stage. “Prepare the island. I’m taking my bride home.”