Married to a Stripper

The will felt like a leash.

Cold paper. Warm throat.

Thirty days.

That was all it gave me. Fifteen fucking years of control, of bleeding discipline, of becoming the weapon he forged, and he still found a way to tighten the chain from the grave.

I shoved the pages across the desk. Wood rasped like bone. The words didn’t move. That’s the thing about ink… it doesn’t flinch. You do.

The office still reeked of him. Leather. Smoke. The quiet pressed in, sharpened into punishment. He’d chosen every piece of furniture to correct posture and remind you who owned the room. Even now, with him rotting, the ghost stayed.

Sometimes I still looked toward the door, half-expecting him to walk in, voice cold, eyes sharper than glass. Ridiculous. He was gone, but somehow he’d stayed everywhere.

Ledgers sagged against shelves. Exhausted soldiers. The Montblanc sat in its glass coffin. Every detail curated to remind me I wasn’t free.

I leaned back in the leather chair. My body filled it too easily, shoulders wide, back straight, posture drilled into me until it was second nature. At one meter ninety, I was cut from his blueprint. Gray eyes cold as winter steel, the same jawline people swore belonged to him.

Even the mirror had started to flinch.

The resemblance I carried wasn’t flattery. It was a curse. Where bulk came, it wasn’t from gyms, it was years of drills, fencing, bruises that left muscle dense, knuckles scarred. He lived again in my face, and I hated it.

I loosened my tie one notch. Ritual, not relief. Dark hair slicked back military-precise, never a strand out of place. The same hair I’d seen in framed photographs of him at my age, standing stiff-backed beside board members who bent for no one. Every time I looked in the mirror, I saw him staring back.

Maybe that’s why I barely looked anymore. Some reflections are better left ignored.

My thumb pressed the ridge of my father’s watch. Stainless steel dulled by years, the only thing that survived the wreck. Both coffins had gone into the ground at once, my parents swallowed by twisted metal and fire when I was eight.

The watch was all that was left of him. Of her, nothing but quiet.

My mother would have hated what I became. Weakness killed her. His father’s training kept me alive.

Thirty days.

The clause dressed itself up in legal theater: marry within thirty days or control reverts to interim stewardship by the board pending heirship suitability. Clean words for theft. He must’ve laughed when he signed it. He’d always believed contracts were the sharpest knives.

I leaned back, eyes on the lake. Storm-shift gray — my eyes mirrored the water when it was cruel. They didn’t soften. They cut.

Chicago sprawled in steel and appetite. The water split the skyline like a blade. Honest, he would’ve called it. Weather that bent for no one. He admired cruelty when it wasn’t his.

The memory rose without permission. Eight years old. Black suit too big, shoes too shiny. Two coffins. Two names on brass. The smell of lilies like rot in disguise. After the burial he sat me at the dining table like grief was a habit to be broken. Napkin folded like a weapon.

My fork scraped once, too loud. His hand came down, flat, hard. Not punishment. Correction.

Spine straight. Eyes forward. We don’t cry at the table.

I didn’t. Not that night. I never did again.

That was the night silence stopped feeling like fear and started feeling like armor.

Discipline. That was love in his house. Wake at five. Latin at six. Markets at seven. Fencing. Rowing. Boxing. Bleed in practice so you don’t bleed in public. He built me out of drills and bruises. He carved silence into me until it fit like bone.

Even now, stillness clung to me like a scent. Leather, whisky, a trace of mint from the cologne I chose because it didn’t announce itself but lingered. Presence was enough. I filled a room before I spoke.

And now he gave me everything, on one condition. Marriage. Not choice. Not love. Control. Always control.

If power was the leash, I’d pull until it snapped or cut my throat trying.

If he expected obedience, he’d get defiance. Not a pedigree wife. A weapon wrapped in sequins. Eyes that wouldn’t bow. Chaos that tested cages.

The door opened without a knock. Tom strolled in like the air belonged to him. Sleeves rolled, tie hanging loose, a grin sharpened out of arrogance. He dropped into the chair opposite, sprawling in a way designed to piss off furniture.

“You look like you swallowed glass,” he said, eyes flicking to the will. “Tell me the old bastard didn’t.”

I didn’t answer. The quiet was sharper.

Tom’s grin widened. “Of course he did. Still pulling strings from the grave. Bet he’s laughing his rotten ass off.”

“He’s dead.”

“And still owns your pulse.” He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “So what now? You shopping for a pedigree wife? Pearls, bloodlines, the whole board’s wet dream?”

“No.” The word cut clean. “A message.”

His brows arched, curiosity replacing mockery. “Go on.”

“If he wanted legacy, I’ll give him the opposite. If he wanted pedigree, I’ll drag his name through smoke and neon. He scripted me into his image. I’ll marry someone he would’ve spat on.”

Tom let out a whistle, leaning back. “I knew grief would fuck you up, but this? You want to nuke the Carter name with stilettos?”

“Not nuking. Redefining.”

“Define.”

“A stripper,” I said. “Or an escort. Someone who knows masks. Who knows contracts. Who turns hunger into currency and doesn’t apologize for it.”

Tom blinked, then laughed. The sound cracked through the office, loud and alive.

“Christ. That’s one way to piss on a grave.”

“It’s the only way.”

He studied me, smirk still there but edged with respect. “Then make it clean. NDA, medical screens, wardrobe stipend. Payments staggered. If she bails, she walks with nothing.”

“I already know,” I said.

“Of course you do.” He tilted his head, eyes narrowing. “What’s the catch?”

“She doesn’t go back to the stage after she signs.”

“Possessive already.”

“Controlled.”

Tom chuckled, shaking his head. “You hope she bites. Admit it… you like problems too much to pick anyone easy.”

“She’ll test me,” I said, picking up the phone. “That’s the point.”

Silas answered on the second ring. Efficient. Lethal under the surface.

“Carter.”

“Get me a list. Licensed clubs. Discreet. No managers who think percentage means ownership. Names. Files. Tonight.”

“Parameters?”

“Not trash. No amateurs. Survivors who know the business.”

A beat. “Understood.”

“And Silas,” I added, “no gatekeepers. You deal direct.”

“Yes, Carter.”

I hung up.

Tom stood, stretching like a cat that had never feared a dog. “Call me when you pick the bride,” he said.

“I’m not picking a bride.”

“Right.” He grinned, backing toward the door. “You’re picking an enemy and naming it wife.”

He wasn’t wrong. Some wars don’t need soldiers. Just skin, breath, and something sharp enough to bleed for.

He left.

The office sank back into curated quiet.

I opened my drawer, slid the will inside, pressed the wood shut until it clicked. The watch crown bit into my wrist. Tiny teeth. Focus. Time marked itself into blood.

I told myself it was just about revenge. But that lie already felt too neat. Too easy.

Dusk bled across the lake when Silas walked in. No wasted movement. Black suit. File in hand. He set it on the desk like a verdict.

“Profiles.”

I opened it. Faces. Names. Backgrounds vetted, medical cleared, finances traced. All neat, all clinical.

I flipped fast. Blonde, brunette, redhead. Smiles too polished. Eyes that sold and begged in the same breath.

Nothing.

Until her.

Amber Cole.

The photo wasn’t polished. Dark hair, loose, rebellious. Hazel eyes that didn’t soften for the camera. No gloss. No apology. A mouth that looked like it knew the word no and didn’t care if you liked hearing it. Collarbone sharp. And a freckle at the edge of her lip like an asterisk, a warning.

I stopped.

My thumb hesitated on the paper, pressing until the photo wrinkled. The air changed — heavier, warmer, almost alive.

Something in me… shifted. Not cleanly. More like a bruise that remembered how it got there.

It wasn’t desire. Not yet. But my pulse said otherwise. It jumped, reckless, the first betrayal of the night.

“Her,” I said.

Silas waited. He never asked why when what would do.

His eyes flicked up once, sharp, reading more than I said. I ignored it.

“Direct contact. Not through whoever runs the room. Find her personal. A number. A route. Whatever you need that isn’t loud.”

“Yes, Carter.”

“And make it tonight.”

He nodded once. Silent. Already moving before the word settled.

The office fell quiet again.

Not peace — just the hum of something starting.

I leaned back, elbows on the armrests, heartbeat loud against the stillness. My jaw locked, pulse steadying through force, not calm.

My grandfather thought he’d caged me with contracts.

He didn’t understand… cages only sharpen teeth.

Amber Cole. The name lingered like smoke at the back of my throat. Familiar and wrong at the same time.

I didn’t know her, but I could feel her — like static before a storm, like the room was already hers.

She wasn’t mine yet… but something in me had already moved as if she was.

And whatever this was, it wasn’t control anymore. It was a mistake I was already making.

One I wouldn’t stop.