"Your father is barely cold in the ground, Elara, but the vultures are already picking at your bones—and if you don't marry Dante Moretti soon, there won't be enough of you left to bury."
The words struck Elara like a physical blow, colder than the air conditioning humming through the vaulted ceilings of the Moretti estate. She stood in the center of her father's private study, a room that used to smell of expensive bourbon and aged tobacco, but now smelled only of industrial bleach and the lingering, metallic ghost of blood.
Her Uncle Silvio stood behind the massive mahogany desk, his hands trembling as he shuffled through a stack of legal documents that seemed to carry the weight of a death warrant. He didn't look like the powerful Underboss she remembered. He looked like a man standing on a trapdoor with the noose already tightening.
"Marry him?" Elara's voice was a ragged whisper. She gripped the back of a velvet armchair to keep her knees from buckling. "Dante? You're talking about the man who used to stand by the door while I did my homework. The man who... Uncle Silvio, he's thirty-six. I just turned eighteen. It's grotesque."
"What's grotesque is what will happen to you if you stay a single, unprotected heiress in this city," Silvio snapped, finally looking up. His eyes were bloodshot, rimmed with a desperation that terrified her more than the suggestion itself. "The Romanos didn't just kill your father to send a message, Elara. They did it to vacuum up the Moretti holdings. The shipping yards, the unions, the offshore accounts—it's all tied to the bloodline. As long as you are unmarried and 'unclaimed,' you are a target. Every captain in this city is currently sharpening his knife, wondering which one of them will be the first to kidnap you and force a ring onto your finger to legalized their theft."
Elara felt a wave of nausea roll through her. She looked toward the heavy oak doors, almost expecting to see a shadow looming there. But the hallway was empty. For the first time in her life, Dante wasn't there.
He had been her shadow since she was six years old. He was the silent, towering figure who walked ten paces behind her on her way to school. He was the man who had terrified her prom date into a stuttering mess without saying a single word. She had called him "Uncle Dante" out of a strange, childish respect—a title meant to bridge the gap between "protector" and "stranger."
But there was nothing familial about the way he had looked at her lately.
"He saved you tonight," Silvio reminded her, his voice dropping to a low, urgent hiss. "When the front gates were breached, when the guards turned tail and ran, who was the one who went into that basement? Who carried you through the fire while the bullets were flying? Dante did. He killed seven men tonight just to get you to the car. He is the only reason you aren't a trophy in a Romano basement right now."
"Then let him keep being my bodyguard!" Elara cried, her composure finally shattering. Tears blurred her vision. "I'll pay him double. I'll give him half the inheritance. Just don't make me... I can't sleep in the same bed as that man, Silvio. He's a butcher. I've seen what he does. I've seen the way people look at him—like he's not even human."
Silvio walked around the desk, his footsteps heavy. He grabbed her by the shoulders, shaking her slightly. "Listen to me, Elara. The Commission doesn't care about 'bodyguards.' They care about status. If you are his wife, you are untouchable. Dante is the most feared enforcer in the tri-state area. No one—not even the Romanos—is suicidal enough to touch the wife of the Butcher. If you marry him, you keep the house. You keep the money. You keep your life."
"And what do I lose?" she whispered, a tear finally escaping and tracing a path down her pale cheek.
"You lose your fear," Silvio lied, though they both knew better. "Dante has already agreed to the terms. He will protect the assets. He will eliminate the threats. In exchange, he becomes a made man with a seat at the table. It's a business arrangement, Elara. Purely tactical."
Elara looked around the room, searching for an exit, a loophole, a sign that this was a nightmare she could wake up from. But all she saw were the portraits of her ancestors—men who had built this empire on the broken bones of their enemies. She was a Moretti. She had been raised to know that in their world, love was a luxury and survival was a chore.
"He's so cold," she murmured, remembering the way Dante's eyes—dark, bottomless pits of obsidian—never seemed to reflect the light. When he touched her arm to lead her to the car tonight, his grip hadn't been frantic or panicked. It had been possessive. Grounding.
"He is a wall," Silvio corrected. "A wall between you and the animals outside that door. You have one hour to decide, Elara. Either I call the priest and we do this quietly in the chapel, or I open those front gates and let the vultures in. I can't protect you anymore. My authority died with your father."
Silvio let go of her and walked toward the window, looking out at the rain-slicked driveway where several black SUVs sat idling, their headlights cutting through the mist like the eyes of predators.
Elara sank into the armchair, her silk dress rustling in the silence. She thought of Dante—not the man who bought her chocolates, but the man who had stood over a fallen assassin tonight and emptied a magazine without blinking. He was a creature of violence. And now, he was to be her husband.
She thought of her father's laughter, now silenced. She thought of the way the Romanos had smiled when they broke through the perimeter.
The choice wasn't between marriage and freedom. It was between a golden cage and a shallow grave.
"One hour," she whispered, her voice sounding dead to her own ears.
"Elara?" Silvio asked, turning back.
She looked up, her face a mask of cold, pale marble, the innocence she'd held onto until this morning finally flickering out like a spent candle.
"Tell him I'll do it," she said, her heart hammering a frantic, terrified rhythm against her ribs. "Tell Dante he can have the inheritance. Tell him he can have the name."
She paused, a shiver running down her spine as she realized the one thing she hadn't mentioned.
"But tell him... tell him I want to stay in my own room."
Silvio didn't answer. He didn't have to. They both knew that once the ring was on her finger and the papers were signed, what Elara wanted wouldn't matter anymore. Dante Moretti didn't take orders from anyone.
Silvio picked up the desk phone to make the call that would seal her fate. Elara sat in the dark, staring at the empty doorway, waiting for the shadow to return and claim what was left of her.