Be My Wife for a Year

Hospital:

​The scent of alcohol and iodine hit my senses long before I opened my eyes.

​My head throbbed with a dull ache, a heavy pressure wrapped tightly around my skull. 

Bandages! I shifted slightly on the firm mattress. This wasn't a standard hospital ward. It was A VIP suite.

​I forced my heavy eyelids open.

A man was ​sitting casually in a velvet armchair beside the bed. And he was, without a single doubt, the most striking human being I had ever laid eyes on.

​It wasn't just the physical perfection of his features—the aristocratic cheekbones, the straight noble slope of his nose, or the messy dark hair that fell perfectly across his forehead. 

It was the aura radiating off his body. He wore an white shirt with the sleeves casually rolled up to the elbows, exposing forearms corded with lean muscle. 

He looked relaxed, entirely at ease, yet my trained instincts screamed that I was in a cage with a sleeping apex predator.

He had the unmistakable gravity of a man who ruled in the dark. Is he a mafia boss?

​In his elegant hands, he held a small silver paring knife, methodically peeling a bright red apple. 

​I bolted upright, ignoring the spin of the room. The memory of the staircase, the crushing humiliation, and the warm hands lifting me crashed back into my brain.

​"Thank you for saving me," I said, my voice hoarse but steady.

​The man paused. He finished the final cut, letting the long red peel drop onto a silver tray before finally lifting his gaze to meet mine. 

​"Just a thanks?" he murmured, slowly burying the tip of the silver knife deep into the wooden cutting board. Thwack.

​My survival instincts flared. Without thinking, my muscles coiled. I clutched my hands into tight fists beneath the blankets, ready to launch myself off the bed, to rip his throat out if he made a sudden move.

​The man’s amber eyes flicked down to my clenched fists. A handsome smirk spread across his lips.

​"You're planning to kick your savior's ass?"

He noticed! A furious flush of embarrassment crept up my neck. I forced my hands to relax, opening my palms and laying them flat against the sheets.

​"You have good reflexes." He leaned back in the chair, crossing one long leg over the other. 

"But terrible manners. I ruined a bespoke Tom Ford coat carrying you out of a puddle of your blood, and you immediately prepared to snap my neck. Unbelievable."

​"I don't know who you are," I countered, keeping my chin high.

​He chuckled, pulling out a black metal card case. He flicked it open, extracting a thick card with gold embossing.

​"Ms. Sforza, here is my deal. Be my wife for a year."

​My heart stopped completely. My blood ran ice cold.

​I jolted up, throwing the blankets off my legs. 

"How did you know my last name?"

​The name Sforza had been buried a decade ago. Along with my slaughtered parents in that cramped, blood-soaked apartment. 

I had burned the records. Even Saga Ronway, the man who took me in, didn't know my true bloodline. To the entire syndicate, I was just Rose.

​"Frost," I snapped, my eyes narrowing into lethal slits. "Rose Frost. That's my name."

​He tilted his head, letting out a soft, mocking chuckle. "If you say so."

​"You investigated me?" I threw my legs over the edge of the bed, planting my bare feet on the cold tile. "Who the hell are you working for?"

​"Did I investigate you?" he repeated softly, leaning forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "Or do I simply know everything that breathes in this city?"

My brow furrowed. The audacity. The invasion of the one secret I had kept entirely to myself. 

"If it wasn't for the fact that you saved my life," I hissed, taking a step toward him, "I would have sent you to hell by now."

​"Woah, wow. I am terrified." He threw his hands up in a mocking gesture of surrender, though that infuriating smile never left his face. 

"Fortunately for me, you will not. You owe me a life debt, Ms. Sforza. Or Frost."

​My mind raced at a million miles an hour. Who was he? Was he a rival of the Ronway family? A rogue player? A federal agent operating off the books?

I growled. "I don't sell myself to strangers."

​"It's not a sale. It's a partnership." He stood up. He was incredibly tall, towering over my frame. He placed the gold-embossed card on the bedside table. 

"Think about my deal. Be my wife, and the underworld will be your playground, Ms. Rose. You won't be a bodyguard anymore. You'll be the one holding the leash."

​He buttoned his suit, adjusting his cuffs with relaxed precision. 

"Here's the contract number on the back. Call me when you get tired of bleeding for a boy who doesn't look at you."

​He didn't wait for a reply. The heavy steel doors hissed open as he approached them, and he vanished into the corridor, leaving behind only the faint scent of cedarwood and dangerous power.

​I staggered to the bedside table, snatching up the card. 

​Alp Norex.

​I stared at the golden letters, my brows pulling together in confusion. Norex? Is he from the underworld?

​There was only one Norex family I knew of, based out in Rafen city—hundreds of miles away from Ronway territory. 

We had absolutely no links to them. No overlapping territories. No beef.

​Why would a Norex be here in our city? Why would he offer me a contract?

​It must be a front, I reasoned, my head throbbing fiercely. There are no known bosses named Alp in their syndicate hierarchy. It’s a pseudonym. 

A normal guy acting as a proxy. It was highly unlikely he came specifically for the Ronway family.

​I tossed the card onto the bed. I couldn't afford to care about Alp Norex or his insane proposition.

​My chest tightened, a familiar, agonizing ache spreading behind my ribs. Saga.

​The image of him wrapping his large coat around Sapphire, looking at her with that tender, unguarded devotion, flashed behind my eyes like a strobe light. It made my stomach violently twist. 

He had screamed at me. He had looked at me with pure anger, ordering me out of the way like a diseased stray dog.

​But you don't just erase ten years in one night. You can't just flip a switch and turn off a decade of trauma-bonding, of shared secrets, of covering his back in the bloodiest gunfights. 

God help me, I still loved him. The humiliation burned, but the devotion was a parasite deeply rooted in my bones. I needed an explanation. I needed to know if the last ten years meant absolutely nothing to him. 

I couldn't just give up my feelings on a whim; I needed the final nail in the coffin to truly sever my soul from his.

​I ripped the IV out of my arm, ignoring the fresh trickle of blood, and demanded a release from the terrified nursing staff.

​The sun was high and unforgiving by the time I took a cab back to the sprawling Ronway villa.

​The massive iron gates opened for me out of habit. I walked up the long, sweeping driveway, the gravel crunching under my ruined leather shoes. 

My midnight-black suit was stained with dried blood and dirt. My head was heavily wrapped in white gauze, a stark contrast to my bruised face.

​I pushed through the front doors of the estate.

​The grand living room was bathed in golden sunlight. Sitting on the sofa was Sapphire. She wore a delicate, pale pink silk robe, her foot propped up on a velvet ottoman with an ice pack resting on her ankle.

​And beside her, holding a small porcelain bowl, was Saga. He was carefully lifting a spoon of warm broth to her perfectly painted lips, his eyes soft and attentive.

​The domestic perfection of the scene made bile rise in my throat. I stood in the archway, a battered, bloody mess haunting their perfect fairy tale.

​"Saga," I called out. My voice was raspy, broken.

​He didn't look up. He blew gently on the spoon, waiting for it to cool.

​"Kneel," Saga ordered. His tone wasn't loud, but it carried the chilling authority of the syndicate boss.

​My breath caught. "Sorry?"

​Saga slowly placed the porcelain bowl on the glass coffee table. He finally turned his head, his dark eyes sweeping over my bandaged head, my ruined clothes, and the blood on my collar. 

​"Guards," Saga called out, his voice echoing in the vaulted room.

​Instantly, the doors to the hallway opened. Ten heavily armed syndicate bodyguards—men I had personally trained, men who called me 'Commander'—marched into the room.

​"Give her ten lashes for slacking off duty," Saga commanded, turning his attention back to the bowl of soup.

​The floor seemed to drop out from beneath me. 

"What do you mean?" I choked out, stepping forward. "Saga, I fell—"

"Sorry, Commander," Hilton said quietly as he stepped forward. "Boss's orders."

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