Chapter 16

Marco’s POV

“THE SILENT VOW: DON DANTE TAKES A BRIDE.”

I read the headline while my fist slams into the heavy bag, the impact echoing through the basement gym. The bag swings back toward me and I hit it again without slowing, my breathing controlled, my movements precise. Sweat runs down my back, soaking through my shirt, but I don’t stop. This is where I come when I need my thoughts quiet. This is where my father usually can’t reach me.

My phone vibrates on the bench behind me.

I ignore it and strike the bag again, harder this time, leather creaking under the force. The vibration comes again, sharper now, rattling faintly against metal.

I keep moving.

The phone buzzes again and again.

By the time it vibrates for the fifth time in under a minute, the rhythm breaks. I step back, jaw tight, and tear the wraps off my hands.

“Fuck,” I mutter.

I grab the phone and the screen lights up immediately, flooding my vision with missed calls. Names I recognize without opening them. Men who don’t call unless something has shifted , they don’t waste time.

Then I see the article again.

The image beneath it loads slowly. It look like it was taken from a distance. My father’s broad back fills the frame, unmistakable even in shadow. His hand is firm at the a woman’s back who looks small as he guides her toward a black SUV. She’s dressed in white. Her face is turned away from the cameras, surrounded by security on all sides.

My grip tightens until my fingers ache.

“He actually did it,” I say aloud.

Not a rumor, it doesn’t look like a calculated leak. Not leverage floated to test reactions.

He went through with it.

I scroll, my pulse picking up as I read. Every article says the same thing with different phrasing. Closed courthouse ceremony, absolute secrecy, no witnesses beyond the inner circle. Analysts speculate about alliances and territory, about debts erased and conflicts avoided with a single signature.

“This wasn’t impulsive, it was planned!!” I say to myself

The gym door opens behind me.

I don’t turn.

“Marco,” Maximilian my body guard says. His voice is controlled, but tight. “You’ve seen it?”

“Yeah,” I reply. “I’ve seen it.”

He steps closer, eyes flicking briefly to the phone in my hand. “It’s confirmed, it was a Courthouse marriage early this morning.”

I look at him now. “How long has this been in motion?”

He hesitates.

“How long,” I repeat, my voice dropping.

“Hours ,” he says. “At least.”

The words settle heavy in my chest.

“Hours of preparation?” I pause.

“And I find out from the press?” I ask, lifting the phone slightly. “That’s how I hear about it?”

Maximilian doesn’t answer.

“His own son,” I say, the words sharp. “And I wasn’t worth a warning.”

“In this case,” Maximilian says carefully, “that was intentional.”

That stings more than I expect.

In our world, information is power. And my father just reminded me exactly how much of it he’s willing to withhold when it suits him.

I look back at the image, zooming in until it blurs. The woman’s posture doesn’t change. No smile, I couldn’t see a visible ring. Her shoulders are angled inward, tense, like she’s bracing herself.

“She doesn’t look happy,” I say.

Maximilian exhales slowly. “This wasn’t about happiness.”

“No,” I agree. “It was about control.”

I lower the phone and start pacing, the concrete cool beneath my feet. “He doesn’t marry,” I say. “He acquires.”

Maximilian watches me closely. “You think she’s leverage.”

“I know she is,” I snap. “Someone paid for this arrangement. And it wasn’t him.”

The shock drains away, replaced by something colder and more familiar.

“This is my father’s language, marriage is insurance. A wife is protection and threat wrapped together.”

“I know whose territory he just walked into,” I add.

Maximilian doesn’t respond.

The thought that follows settles heavily, pulling my attention away from strategy and fallout.

Not Dante.

Not the war this could start.

Her.

“Where is she?” I ask.

Maximilian pauses.

I stop pacing and turn toward him fully. “Where.”

“At the estate,” he says. “They brought her in immediately.”

“And my father?”

“He hasn’t been seen since.”

That doesn’t help.

“What’s happening to her now?” I ask.

Maximilian’s jaw tightens. “She’s being processed.”

The word lands wrong.

“Processed,” I repeat. “Like an asset.”

He doesn’t argue.

I grab my shirt from the bench and pull it on as I head for the door. “I’m going.”

“She signed,” Maximilian says. “Everything was legal.”

“So was every deal made under pressure,” I reply. “That doesn’t mean she understood what she agreed to.”

There’s something else under the anger I am feeling now , maybe curiosity. A woman who agrees to marry Dante Romano doesn’t survive by accident.

“I want to see her,” I say.

Maximilian falls into step beside me as we head for the door. “You sure?”

“No,” I answer honestly. “But I’m going anyway.”

As we walk, fragments of her image stick in my mind, the white dress, hidden face, stiff posture. Brave or foolish? Those are usually the only options.

“What does he see in her?” I mutter.

Maximilian stays silent.

The car engine roars to life, the estate looming closer with every mile. Whatever my father thinks he’s secured, I need to look at it with my own eyes.

Not as his heir.

Not as his son.

But as the man who will one day inherit everything he’s built including his sins.

“If she belongs to my father now, I think as the gates open, then I need to know what she cost.”