Todos os capítulos de Signed the Devil’s contract: Capítulo 1 - Capítulo 10

I didn't sleep. I don't think I cried myself out, either, I think the crying simply ran dry at some point near dawn, the way a tap eventually runs cold, and what was left afterward wasn't grief so much as a strange, hollow stillness.I packed my things before the sun was fully up. There wasn't much to pack. I hadn't planned on staying the night anywhere but my own small rented room across town, and everything I owned in that hotel fit into the bag I'd carried to work that morning like any other shift.I don't remember deciding to leave quietly. I only remember that staying felt impossible, that every second in that room was a second closer to him waking, to having to look at whatever was on his face when he did, to being asked questions I had no safe way of answering. I was a waitress who'd been sent to the wrong room by someone with more power than I'd ever have in my life. There was no version of that conversation that ended well for me.So I left. I didn't look back at the bed. I d

AMARA’S POVI said yes the next morning, the way I'd known I would from the moment the folder opened in my lap.The lawyer didn't look surprised. He simply nodded, slid a pen across the table, and told me a car would collect me in three days to bring me to "Mr. Morretti's estate" for what he called "the introduction", as if I were being onboarded into a company rather than married into a stranger's life.Kally hugged me so hard when I told her I couldn't breathe, and then held my face in both hands and made me promise to call her every single day, and then cried anyway, because we both knew a promise like that only worked as well as the man on the other end of it allowed.I packed lightly. I'd learned, the last time my life was rearranged without my consent, not to grow attached to what I brought with me.The estate, when the car finally reached it three days later, didn't look real. Iron gates that took a full minute to open. A driveway long enough that I lost sight of the road behin

AMARA’S POVI hadn't meant to wander this far into the east wing.I'd only slipped out of the "welcome tea" the household staff insisted on hosting the morning after the wedding, a term far too gentle for what it actually was. Six women in tailored uniforms pouring tea with the precision of surgeons, watching me over the rims of porcelain cups like they were cataloguing every flaw before reporting back to someone. I'd smiled until my jaw ached, answered questions about my family, my education, my "expectations for the household," until the words had started to blur together into a single, exhausting hum.I needed five minutes. Just five, alone, before I had to smile again.The corridor I chose was quieter than the rest of the house, the noise of the tea room falling away behind me with every step. The walls here were lined with photographs I didn't recognize, none of Adrien, I noticed, which struck me as strange in a house built to broadcast his success from every surface. I kept walk

AMARA’S POVNobody told me there'd be a seating chart for a family of four.I found out anyway, the hard way, when I walked into the dining room that evening and a member of staff, young, nervous, clearly new enough to still be terrified of getting things wrong, steered me toward a chair three seats down from where I'd assumed I'd sit, murmuring something about "Mr. Morretti's preference" like it was scripture. I almost laughed. Almost. The dining table alone could've sat twelve people comfortably, and yet here we were, four of us clustered at one end like survivors huddled around a single fire in an otherwise frozen house.Zuri claimed the chair beside me before anyone could assign her one. She climbed up, knees first, then settled with the satisfied air of someone who'd just won a small war, and announced to the table at large, "I sit by Mommy now."I caught Adrien's eyes across the table. He didn't correct her. He didn't even flinch, which surprised me more than it should have. I'd

AMARA’S POVAdrien told me over breakfast that we'd be attending a dinner that night. "Business," he said. "Investors. You'll need to be there.""Do I get a say in that?""No." Then, after a pause, almost gentler: "But I'll stay close. It won't be long."I didn't argue. I'd learned quickly that arguing rarely got me anywhere in that house, not because he silenced me, but because he simply outlasted every objection with calm, immovable logic until I gave up first.The event was held at a hotel downtown, all glass and gold and too much perfume in the air. Adrien kept a hand at my back as we moved through the room, introducing me to men who shook my hand too long and women who studied my dress like they were pricing it. I smiled until my face ached, same as I had at the tea, same as I had at the wedding. I was getting good at it.It was near the bar that a man approached us, grinning wide before he'd even reached us. "Adrien! Didn't think you'd actually show."Adrien's whole posture chan