THE WEIGHT OF CHOICE

I didn't sleep that night.

The contract sat on my nightstand like a coiled snake, three pages of legal language that basically said I would belong to Dante Marchetti for the next three years. I must have read it twenty times, looking for the trap hidden in the words. But the terms were exactly what he'd said. Generous, even. Too generous.

That's what scared me most.

At four in the morning, I gave up on sleep and went downstairs to make coffee. The house was quiet in that heavy way that comes right before dawn, when everything feels weak and temporary. I sat at the kitchen table where my family used to eat breakfast together, back when Dad was still alive and Mom still smiled and Charlotte still believed our lives were magical.

That felt like a different lifetime now.

The coffee was still brewing when I heard footsteps on the stairs. Charlotte appeared in the doorway, wearing one of Dad's old college sweatshirts that hung past her knees. At nineteen, she still looked like a kid to me, all big eyes and wild blonde hair.

"Can't sleep either?" she asked, pulling out a chair.

"Something like that."

She studied me with the kind of attention that made me nervous. Charlotte was smarter than people gave her credit for. Too smart, sometimes.

"You've been weird since that man came by yesterday," she said. "The scary hot one in the expensive suit."

"He's not……" I stopped myself. "It was just business."

"What kind of business?"

"The boring kind." I poured two cups of coffee and slid one across to her. "Don't worry about it."

But she was already worrying. I could see it in the way she bit her lower lip, the same thing Mom used to do before the pills made her stop caring about anything.

"We're in trouble, aren't we?" Charlotte's voice was small. "Like, real trouble."

I wanted to lie. God, I wanted to lie so badly. But I was tired of carrying everything alone, tired of pretending our world wasn't falling apart.

"Yeah," I said. "We are."

She nodded slowly, stirring sugar into her coffee. "How bad?"

"Bad enough that I might have to do something you won't understand."

"Try me."

So I told her. Not everything though. I couldn't bring myself to say the word 'marriage' out loud but enough. That Dante Marchetti had made an offer. That it would solve our problems. That it would require sacrifice.

Charlotte listened without interrupting, which was unusual for her. When I finished, she was quiet for a long moment.

"Do you trust him?" she finally asked.

"No."

"But you're going to do it anyway."

It wasn't a question. She already knew.

"I don't see another choice," I admitted. "Your tuition is due in six weeks. The bank is threatening foreclosure. Mom needs help, real help, not just whatever pills her current doctor is giving her. And I'm so tired, Charlie. I'm so tired of drowning."

She reached across the table and grabbed my hand. Her fingers were warm around mine.

"Then do it," she said. "Whatever it is, do it. But don't sacrifice yourself thinking it's just for us. You matter too, Izzy. You're allowed to save yourself."

I almost laughed. Save myself by marrying a stranger who looked at me like I was a problem to solve? But I squeezed her hand back and nodded.

After she went back to bed, I sat alone in the kitchen and watched the sun come up through the window over the sink. It felt like watching the last sunrise of my old life.

At nine o'clock, I called the number on the card Dante had left.

He answered on the second ring. "Have you decided?"

No greeting. No small talk. Just straight to business.

"I have questions first," I said.

"Of course you do." I heard papers rustling on his end. "Make it quick. I have a meeting in ten minutes."

"The contract says I have to live with you. In your home."

"Correct."

"It says I can't work. Can't have my own income."

"Correct."

"It says you have final approval over who I see, where I go, what I do."

"Also correct." His voice was flat, bored even. "Is there a question in this list of observations?"

"Why?" The word came out sharper than I meant it to. "Why do you need to control every aspect of my life?"

Silence. Long enough that I thought he might have hung up.

"Because I own what I invest in," he finally said. "And I protect my investments. If you're going to be my wife, even temporarily, you'll be a target. For competitors, for enemies, for people who would use you to get to me. The restrictions aren't cruelty, Isabelle. They're survival."

It should have reassured me. Instead, it made everything worse.

"What if I say no?" I asked.

"Then in seventy-two hours, you lose everything. The house, your sister's future, any chance of helping your mother. You'll watch your family name turn to ash, and you'll spend the rest of your life wondering if you could have prevented it."

"You're a bastard."

"Yes." He didn't sound offended. "But I'm a bastard with the power to save you. The question is whether you're brave enough to accept."

Brave. That was a funny word for what this required.

I thought about Charlotte's face across the kitchen table. About Mom upstairs, lost in her fog of medication and grief. About Dad's grave that I visited every Sunday, where I promised him I'd take care of everyone.

"I need your answer, Isabelle."

I closed my eyes.

"Yes," I whispered. "My answer is yes."

"Good." The satisfaction in his voice made my skin crawl. "The wedding is Saturday. Ten o'clock. My lawyer will send details. Wear white if you want. I don't care either way."

He hung up before I could respond.

I sat there holding the phone, feeling like I'd just signed away for more than three years.

I signed away every version of myself I'd ever hoped to be.