Chapter 03

The door clicked shut behind me before I could step back.

The guard was gone. The hallway, gone. The elevator, gone.

Now it was just me — and this place.

The penthouse was silent except for the soft hum of ventilation, the quietest kind of rich. Cream walls, gold trim, marble floors so pale they looked like ice. A candle burned on the coffee table, though no one had lit it in front of me. The room smelled faintly of white flowers and something colder underneath — a scent I was starting to associate with Dante Moretti.

I stood there, just inside the door, trying not to feel too small.

Then I heard the voice.

“Good. You’re on time.”

I turned. A woman in a dark fitted dress stood near the bedroom door, clipboard in hand, eyes already raking over me like I was a dress form.

“I’m here to prepare you for tomorrow,” she said crisply. “Undress.”

I blinked. “Excuse me?”

She didn’t look up from her clipboard. “Undress. Mr. Moretti sent your measurements ahead, but he wants custom tailoring. Accurate fit. Nothing left to chance.”

Left to chance. Right.

I stood still. Didn’t move.

She sighed softly, as if I were an inconvenience she expected. “You’re not here to make choices, Elena. You’re here to wear the dress. The one he picked. Now take off your clothes.”

The way she said the dress made it sound like a weapon.

Slowly, without a word, I peeled off my coat. Then the blouse. Then the jeans. She didn’t look away once.

“Underthings too.”

I hesitated.

She raised an eyebrow. “I’m not the one you’ll regret disobeying.”

So I obeyed.

Within minutes, she was draping soft fabric over my bare skin — not out of gentleness, but efficiency. Her fingers clipped, tugged, and pinned without a shred of emotion. I was measured at the ribs, hips, thighs. Her assistant brought out a long white garment bag and unzipped it to reveal what Dante Moretti thought a wedding should look like.

It wasn’t a gown.

It was a statement.

White silk. Sleeveless. Collarbone cut. A slit running high on the left thigh, almost to the hip. No room for underwear. No lace. No warmth. Nothing but a cold silhouette — the kind of dress you wore to be looked at. Owned. Branded.

“He requested you wear your hair up,” the stylist said, pinning my braid into a tight knot. “No lipstick. No perfume. Just the necklace.”

“What necklace?”

She only smiled — a sharp little thing.

“You’ll see.”

After she left, I stood in front of the full-length mirror for a long time.

The dress clung to me like it knew secrets about my skin. The slit revealed more leg than I’d ever shown outside a shower. My shoulders felt naked. My throat looked too long.

I didn’t look like a bride.

I looked like an offering.

----

The chapel wasn’t really a chapel.

It looked like one — in the way movie sets look like real places, all stained glass and carved pews and flickering candles. But there was no congregation. No priest with a smile. No music. No light through the windows — just electric amber that faked the feeling of morning sun.

I stood in the aisle alone, facing the altar.

The pews were empty except for two men in suits near the back — silent witnesses, I was told. Probably soldiers. Or lawyers. Or both.

The air smelled faintly of old wood and money.

Dante stood at the front, beside a priest who didn’t speak or smile or look at me.

And Dante?

He didn’t look at me either.

Not at first.

He stood perfectly still, hands clasped behind his back, dressed in black from throat to wrist to shoe — not a trace of white, not even at the cuffs. No tie. No boutonniere. No intention to look like a groom.

He didn’t move when I approached. Didn’t turn his head.

I kept walking.

My legs felt like someone else’s. My heart wasn’t beating fast — it was beating wrong, off-rhythm and too deep in my chest. The dress was tight across my ribs, and I wondered if that had been part of the design. A way to make it harder to breathe.

I stopped a few feet away from him.

Still nothing.

The priest cleared his throat.

“Per the terms of the agreement, we are gathered to solemnize this union in the eyes of law. Do both parties consent?”

Silence.

Dante didn’t answer.

His head turned — slowly — and finally, finally, those eyes landed on me.

“I do,” he said.

It wasn’t a vow. It was a verdict.

The priest looked at me.

“Elena Russo. Do you consent?”

I should’ve said no.

Every part of me wanted to. My tongue sat heavy behind my teeth. My stomach flipped like I’d swallowed something that was still alive.

But I looked at Dante — and I remembered what he’d said in the office.

Sign it, or I’ll assume you prefer the alternative.

“I do,” I said quietly.

The priest nodded and motioned to the lawyer, who stepped forward with a pen and license. “Please sign your legal name. Then the married name. No hyphen.”

I reached for the pen.

My hand shook.

The paper stared back up at me — stark and too white.

Elena Russo.

Then, beneath it, the blank space where the name wasn’t mine, but I had to take it anyway.

Elena Moretti.

The moment the tip of the pen scratched that second signature, something twisted in my chest like it wanted to scream.

No ring was offered.

No kiss was given.

No words were exchanged.

Just paper.

Just a glass of red wine set in my hand by a man I’d never seen before.

“Smile,” the lawyer said.

I didn’t.

Dante didn’t either.

“You may acknowledge your wife,” the priest said.

The words echoed like a cough in an empty cathedral.

For a moment, nothing happened. No motion. No sound.

Then Dante moved.

One step.

Two.

Slow and deliberate, the sound of his shoes sharp against stone. His face unreadable. His eyes unreadable. Everything about him controlled, like emotion was a thing he’d cut out of himself a long time ago.

He stopped in front of me — closer than was polite, closer than was safe.

I didn’t move.

Couldn’t.

The air changed when he got that close. Thicker. Hotter. Like his presence had its own temperature, and it didn’t care if I burned.

He didn’t smile. Didn’t say congratulations. Didn’t touch me.

Just looked.

His eyes flicked over my face — a slow, thorough drag, like a collector inspecting an acquisition. Then down. Collarbone. The line of my dress. The slit that revealed the inside of my thigh. I saw the moment his gaze paused there.

Saw what it did to his jaw — how it flexed once.

His breath wasn’t ragged.

It was steady.

But I felt it when he leaned in.

Felt it against my neck, against the soft skin just beneath my ear. His lips didn’t touch me, but they were close enough.

And then he whispered it.

One word.

The same one.

“Mine.”

The way he said it… it wasn’t like in the office.

This wasn’t about legality or signatures or ownership on paper.

This was raw.

A claiming.

He leaned back and looked at me like he was waiting for a reaction — maybe fear. Maybe resistance. Maybe surrender.

I gave him nothing.

Not because I was brave.

Because I didn’t trust myself to breathe.

He gave the priest a slight nod, turned on his heel, and walked back down the aisle like nothing had happened.

Like I was a meal he’d tasted but hadn’t decided to finish.