Chapter 3

The villa was atop the mountain like a golden cage, all glass walls and well-maintained gardens overlooking the window; it made her dizzy to look down from her window, although it was beautifully maintained. She had spent two weeks here memorizing the guards' rotations, the gaps in the compound, and the hours when the staff left for the night shift change. She had one chance, and she intended to take it.

She left in the dead of night, a small bag packed with nothing but cash she had hidden away and a change of clothes, moving through the gardens with her heart hammering so violently she was certain someone would hear it. She made it as far as the service road at the base of the property before the headlights caught her two black SUVs, silent until they weren't, cutting off her path in a movement that told her, with sickening clarity, that she had never really had a chance at all.

They didn't hurt her. They didn't even raise their voices. They simply escorted her back, one on each side, as though she were cargo being returned to its rightful place.

Marco was waiting in the villa's grand living room when they brought her in, arms crossed, expression carved from stone. He didn't move until the door shut behind her, sealing them both inside the silence.

"Running away, Daniela, and in your condition?" His voice was almost edged, making her tremble in fear. "What were you even thinking?"

She lifted her chin, refusing to let him see how badly her legs were shaking. "I heard you in the study that day."

Something flickered across his face—surprise, maybe—but he quickly smothered it. Then, his face turned ugly in anger, worse than anything she had braced herself for; he laughed, a low, humorless sound that made her skin crawl.

“Good," he said, stepping closer, close enough that she had to fight the urge to step back. "That saves us both a lot of tiresome pretending, doesn't it?”

“You used me,” she whispered, hating how her voice cracked on the words. “You used me to get to my brother, didn't you?"

"Your brother is guilty of exactly what the court said he was guilty of," Marco said, unmoved. "And you, Daniela, are simply collecting the debt he left behind; it's very straightforward, really, if you stop trying to make it into something romantic. You knew from the very beginning this marriage was just a contract."

"Let me go," she said, her hands curling into fists at her sides. "Once the babies are born, let me go. I won't ask for anything. Just let me leave with my children."

"Leave?" He tilted his head, studying her the way he might study a business proposal that mildly amused him. "Daniela, those children are Ferrara heirs. To me, they belong to this family. You were never anything more than the vessel carrying them. A very expensive, very necessary breeder, if we are being honest with each other for once."

The word landed like a slap. “Breeder” She felt the last fragile piece of her dignity crack down the middle.

“You are a monster, Marco Ferrara," she breathed.

“I am a realist," he corrected coolly. "Now, you have two choices, and I suggest you consider them carefully, because I won't offer them twice.”

He held up one finger. “You can stay here silently and cooperate, remain calm throughout the rest of the pregnancy, and continue to enjoy the comfort you have enjoyed till now, the doctors, the food, and the freedom to walk these grounds, or you can continue testing me, in which case I will have you confined to a single room, under guard, twenty-four hours a day, until you deliver. Either way, Daniela, you will give birth to my children. The only variable factor here is how unpleasant you would like the next six months to be.”

She stared at him, searching his face for even a flicker of the man who had sat beside her hospital bed, who had arranged for chefs, who had held her hand during ultrasounds, and who had found nothing, nothing but a cold, immovable man.

“And after the children are born?" she asked, her voice barely above a whisper. “Will I get my freedom?"

“You will,” he said. "The day you deliver, you sign the papers, and you are free to go wherever you like. The children stay with me. That was always the arrangement, Daniela; you simply weren't told the terms."

Her hand drifted to her stomach, an instinctive, protective gesture, and something in her seemed to pierce her heart—grief and fury and helplessness all tangled together. She thought of running again, of screaming for help, of climbing the stone walls of this beautiful prison until her fingers bled, but she couldn't, as two small lives were depending on her to survive the rest of the pregnancy, to stay calm, to stay safe, more than she needed to stay calm, as they were her only family left.

She swallowed the screaming building in her throat and forced her voice steady.

“Fine," she said. “I will stay. I will give birth to them. And then I will sign whatever you want.”

A satisfied look settled over Marco's features, and it made her sick to look at.

“Smart girl,” he said, already turning to leave, already moving on to whatever next mattered more to him than the woman he had just broken. “I knew you would come to your senses eventually."

She watched him go, and once the door clicked shut behind him, she allowed herself to sink onto the nearest chair, both hands pressed to her stomach, tears sliding silently down her face.

“I am sorry,” she whispered to the twins growing inside her, the only two people left in this golden cage who hadn't yet betrayed her. “I am so sorry, but I promise you, I will survive. And someday, I will find a way to come back for you."

It was a promise she had no way of keeping yet. But it was the only thing keeping her upright.