Elara's POV
"You're insane."
The words were out before she could stop them, a breathless, defiant exhale. She stood up, the chair screeching a raw, painful protest on the polished concrete floor. "I'm leaving. Right now. I'll go to the police. I'll tell them everything about you, about Viktor, about the threats." It was the only card she had to play, the only shield a normal person had. The police. Law and order. Surely that still meant something. They would protect her. They had to.
"The police." Luca didn't move from the window. His voice was calm, almost bored, as if she'd suggested going to get ice cream. "A charming, civilian idea. Some officers work for me. A greater number are on Viktor's payroll. You would not make it to the precinct house. Your body would be found in the river before dawn, and the report would state you slipped on the icy bank. A tragic accident. A young woman, stressed by debt, took a walk and fell. The end."
He said it with such casual, absolute certainty that the last of the fight drained out of her. The air left her lungs in a defeated whoosh. He wasn't boasting. He wasn't trying to scare her. He was stating the weather, the political landscape, the immutable rules of the world she'd stumbled into. The police weren't saviors; they were just another piece on the board, owned by one side or the other. There was no rescue coming. No knight in shining armor. Only wolves, and she was alone in the woods.
She sat back down, hard, the impact jarring her spine. She felt hollow. Empty. Hopeless. The walls of this cold, beautiful room felt like they were closing in. There was no way out. He was right. Her old life was over. The bakery, her home, her quiet struggle with bills—it was all gone, replaced by this nightmare. Think. There has to be another way. Run. Change your name. Disappear. But she had no money. No skills beyond baking. And Viktor's men, or Luca's men, would find her. They'd already found her at the bakery. They could find her anywhere.
"What do you want from me?" Her voice was a thin, frayed thread, ready to snap. She had nothing left. No money, no options, no safe place to run. She was a toy in his hands, and she was waiting for him to break her.
"I intend to manage the problem you created." He placed his palms flat on the cold, hard steel of the desk, leaning forward. The city sprawled behind him, a glittering prize he already owned. "Viktor thinks you are mine. Therefore, you will be. Publicly. You will act the part of my fiancée."
A sound escaped her, a choked, disbelieving laugh that held no joy. "What? That's your solution? More pretending?" It was absurd. It was monstrous. It was a fairy tale turned nightmare. She was supposed to pretend to be engaged to this cold, terrifying man? To smile for cameras, to lie to the world, to live a life that wasn't hers?
"It is the only logical narrative," he stated, his logic a cold, impenetrable wall. There was no room for argument. This was the solution, and he expected her to accept it. "It explains the public kiss. It explains why you will now be seen exclusively with me. It allows me to control the situation, monitor all access to you, and keep you under my direct protection."
"Protection?" The word burst from her, sharp with hysterical anger. "You're the reason I need protection! You and your… your war!" She was shouting now, fear turning to fury, the only heat in the frozen room. "I was fine! I was just poor! Now you're telling me I'm a target in some gang war because I kissed you for two thousand dollars! This isn't protection, it's prison!"
"A technicality," he dismissed, a flick of his hand brushing away her entire reality, her fear, her innocence, her right to be angry. Her feelings were irrelevant. Only the problem and the solution mattered. She was a cracked pipe, and he was the plumber. He didn't care how the pipe felt about being fixed. "Here are the terms. You agree. You live here, in this building, under my guard. You appear at necessary public functions as my future wife. You follow my rules, my schedule, my instructions. In return…" He paused, and his eyes, those frozen lakes, locked onto hers with an intensity that felt physical, that demanded her complete attention. "I will erase every single debt attached to your bakery. The mortgage, the supplier liens, the back taxes, the eviction notice. It will be cleared, as if it never existed. The deed will be solely in your name, free and clear. Your home will be safe. Permanently."
The world tilted. The air in the vast room vanished. The bakery. Saved. Not a loan with crushing interest. Not a temporary stay of execution. Cleared. Safe. Forever. The words hung in the sterile space between them, glittering and monstrous. A devil's bargain, wrapped in a diamond bow.
She would trade her freedom, her autonomy, her name, her entire life, for a piece of property, for bricks and mortar and memories. She would walk willingly into a gilded cage at the very center of a war zone, smiling for the cameras, pretending to love a man who saw her as a problem to be managed. She would give up everything she was for the ghost of what she had been.
Her mind screamed. Don't do it. You can find another way. There has to be another way. But the cold, hard truth was that there wasn't. She had one week. He was offering not just a solution, but a fortress. A forever safety for the last piece of her past. The bakery was more than wood and brick. It was her father's hands, her mother's smile. It was the last place she felt them. To lose it would be to lose them all over again.
Could she live with herself if she let it go? Could she survive on the streets, looking over her shoulder for Viktor's men, knowing she'd let her parents' dream die?
But could she live here, in this silence, with this man, as a puppet?
The internal war was silent, violent, and over in seconds. Pride was a luxury for people with time, safety, and options. She had none. Dignity couldn't be pawned. Survival could. For the bakery. For Mom and Dad. So a part of them lives on. That was the only thought that mattered. The only thing that tipped the scales.
Her throat was so tight it felt lined with glass shards. She couldn't look at him, at this man who held her future in his cold, clean hands. She stared down at her own white-knuckled fists in her lap, at the flour still stubbornly embedded under her nails, the last trace of her real life. A baker's hands. Soon, they would be a liar's hands.
With her family's legacy, her last tether to love, hanging in the balance, Elara whispered a shaky, shattered, definitive, "Yes."
It was the easiest and hardest word she'd ever said. It tasted like ash and hope. It felt like a door slamming shut behind her, locking her into a new, terrifying world. The girl who kneaded dough was gone. In her place was Piccola, the fake fiancée.
And she had just agreed to her own beautiful, terrible imprisonment.