Chapter 3: The Lord and the Virgin

ALIYA'S POINT OF VIEW

The next morning, a subtle noise pulled me from my sleep. For a second, I thought I was dreaming. But no. The door had just opened.

I sat up suddenly, pulling the sheet against me reflexively. A woman entered. She wasn’t young, but not old either. Perhaps in her fifties. Her walk was assured, gentle, almost maternal. She wore a long, simple yet clean beige dress and a neatly tied scarf on her head. She gave me a small smile.

— Hello, bella. I am Marisa. I am here to help you get ready.

I stood frozen for a moment. No aggression. No disdain in her voice. Just… warmth. A striking contrast after these last hours of fear, silence, and tension that made my eyes well up despite myself.

— Help me… with what? I asked, my voice hoarse.

— To get ready for your wedding, of course, she replied softly. We can’t keep Santino waiting too long.

She spoke his name with respect, but not with fear. As if he wasn’t a monster, but simply… an important man.

She approached, indicating a chair near the mirror. I obeyed, not really understanding why I trusted this woman. Perhaps because she hadn’t yelled at me. Perhaps because she hadn’t looked at me like I was a thing. Perhaps because, for the first time in a long time, someone was speaking to me without judgment.

— You have very beautiful hair. A lioness's mane, she said with a little laugh as she brushed my tangled strands.

Her movements were slow, precise. She knew what she was doing. I watched her in the mirror, hypnotized. She could have been my mother. Not mine, the one I had. But another. A sweet, understanding mother. One who wouldn’t have sold me without a word of explanation, without a tear, without a backward glance.

I swallowed the bitterness rising in my throat.

— Marisa… do you know why… why I am here?

She paused, setting down the brush. Her gaze met mine in the mirror.

— I know that you are special. That Santino has chosen you. And that you are going to become his wife. It’s a great thing, Alaya.

— He… bought me, I murmured.

She sighed, gently placing a hand on my shoulder.

— Life, my sweet, is never simple. But sometimes, even in the strangest circumstances, something real can be born. A man like Santino does not take a wife if he does not need one. He has chosen you. That means you matter, even if you do not understand it yet.

I didn’t know how to respond. All of this felt so distant from me. As if I were a spectator in my own life.

Then she brought me the dress.

It was white, radiant, delicately embroidered with fine pearls. The fabric slipped through my fingers like water. I swallowed hard. I didn’t know if I should feel touched or terrified.

— Put it on, my dear. I will help you.

A few minutes later, I stood before the mirror. Silent. Frozen.

Who was that girl in the glass? This young woman with shining eyes, trembling lips, in a dress too beautiful for her fate?

I felt like an actress in a scene that was not mine.

I gently placed my hand on my belly. A ball was nestled there, compact, heavy.

I was to marry a man I barely knew. A dangerous man. And this dress, as splendid as it was, changed nothing about the fact that I was not ready.

But it was too late.

I turned my gaze away from the mirror.

SANTINO RICCI'S POINT OF VIEW

The sun struggled to break through the thick curtains of his room, but Santino had been awake for a long time. Sitting bare-chested on the edge of his bed, a cigar between his fingers and a half-finished glass of scotch in the other, he stared into the void with a serious expression. In a few hours, he was going to become a married man.

He slowly stood up, his muscles tense under the golden morning light, sculpted by years of discipline and violence. He walked to the adjoining bathroom, placed the cigar in a marble ashtray, and turned on the taps in silence. Water cascaded over his torso, washing away the sweat of the night, but not the marks of the past.

His body bore the scars of his reign: fine, discreet yet telling, each one testifying to a battle won, a betrayal avoided, a pact sealed in blood. And yet, this morning, it was another type of battle he was going to face. An inner battle. A strange nervousness tightened his throat, distant, almost forgotten.

He stepped out of the shower, a towel wrapped around his waist, and opened the custom-made closet. Inside, a cream-colored three-piece suit, tailored in Italy, awaited him. He touched it with his fingertips. Light, noble, perfect for a godfather, perfect for a king. And yet, it wasn’t the fabric that held his attention.

This marriage… It wasn’t love. It wasn’t even tenderness. It was a rite. A tradition that even he, Santino Ricci, the man feared by all, could not afford to ignore.

In the Ricci family, and in the old branch of the mafia to which he belonged, a lord only took a virgin for a wife. It was an ancestral rule. Unwritten, but deeply rooted. The wives of the godfathers should not bear the memory of another man. Their bodies belonged only to their husbands, just as the loyalty of the clan belonged only to the leader.

He had had women. Too many women. Bodies offered with longing, burning nights in silk sheets. He knew by heart the feigned sighs, the interested glances, the caresses that masked opportunism. Women who had desired him for his power, for his name, never for the man he truly was.

But this time… this time, he wanted purity.

Not because he was seeking love or a romantic illusion. But because he wanted something real. Something that no other man had had before him. Something he could fully, entirely possess. A virgin wife, to mold according to his desires, to mark with his name, with his authority, with his raw passion.

Alaya.

The young girl with fiery eyes, trembling voice, whom he had seen for the first time without her daring to look up at him. She had been sold to him, ceded like a debt to be settled, a jewel placed on the altar of power. And she had not had a choice.

But neither had he, deep down.

It was his destiny. He had taken back his father's empire. He had consolidated alliances, brought down traitors, spilled rivers of blood to establish his supremacy. All that was missing was one thing: a wife. And he had to take her pure. Untouched. That was the custom. And he would not break that sacred thread woven by his ancestors.

A valet knocked on the door, interrupting the silence.

— "Don Santino, your car is waiting for you."

He nodded slowly, grabbed his gold watch, fastened it around his wrist, then put on his jacket. In the mirror, his reflection showed an unyielding man, carved from the marble of tradition and the ice of power.

He adjusted his tie, ran a hand through his brown hair slicked back, then murmured in Italian:

— "Today, I become king… and she will be mine."

And he left, without a backward glance.