Chapter 1: Sign It, Or Your Family Rots In Jail

The pen felt heavier than a gun.

Elena Hart stared at the contract on the black marble desk. Ten pages. Every page screaming one thing - You belong to me.

Across the desk, Adrian Knight didn't even look at her. He was staring at the city through the glass window, his suit perfect, his face cold enough to freeze hell.

"Sign it," he said.

His voice was calm. The kind of calm that comes before someone gets ruined.

"Adrian, please. You don't have to do this," Elena's voice cracked. Her white dress was now wrinkled from crying. "My father didn't steal anything."

"Your father stole 2 million dollars from Knight Industries." He finally turned. His eyes were grey, dead. "And he used your bank account to hide it. The police are downstairs right now. One call from me, and both of you are in prison for 20 years."

Elena's blood ran cold. "That's a lie! I never -"

"Page 4. Bank transfers." He slid a photo across the desk. It was her signature. But she never signed that.

It was a trap.

Adrian leaned forward. He smelled like expensive cologne and danger. "So here are your options, Elena. Option one: you go to jail. Your mother dies in the hospital because you can't pay her bills. Your father dies in prison."

He placed his heavy gold pen on the contract.

"Option two: you marry me. For one year. You live in my house. You play the perfect wife. You do everything I say. In return, I pay your mother's hospital bills, I make the police case disappear. After one year, I divorce you and give you $500,000. Clean."

Marry him?

This was the man she loved in college for three years. The man who left her without a word on graduation day. Now he was back. Not as a lover. As an executioner.

"Why?" she whispered, tears burning. "Why me? Why do you hate me so much?"

For a second, something flickered in his cold eyes. Pain. Rage. A wound so deep it never healed.

"Because you ruined my life, Elena," he said, his voice shaking with hate. "You and your perfect family. You don't remember, do you? You never remember what you did to me that night."

What night? Elena had no idea.

"I didn't do anything to you!"

"Sign." He slammed his hand on the desk. "You have 60 seconds. Or I call the detective."

Downstairs, a police siren wailed.

Elena looked at the contract line. Elena Hart, Wife.

Her mother's face flashed in her mind. The hospital. The debt.

With a shaking hand, she picked up the pen. Tears fell onto the paper.

She signed.

Adrian smiled. It wasn't a smile. It was revenge.

"Good girl," he whispered, pulling the contract away. "Welcome home, Mrs. Knight. You just sold your soul to the devil."

He pressed a button on his desk. "Send her to the estate. And burn that white dress. My wife doesn't wear cheap rags."

The door opened. Two guards walked in.

Elena realized - she wasn't a wife. She was a prisoner in a mansion.

And the worst part? Her heart was still beating for the monster who just bought her.