I know something’s wrong the moment the car turns down the gravel path instead of heading for the main driveway.
It’s a subtle shift—an old service road shadowed by cypress trees—but I grew up in this house. I know which doors are meant for guests and which ones are reserved for secrets. This entrance has always been the latter.
The driver doesn’t even glance up at me in the mirror, he is avoiding me.
That’s the first sign that all is not right.
The second is the deathly silence when I step out of the car. No housekeeper to greet me and hold open the door. No staff arranging florals on the steps. Just my uncle, standing alone on the terrace in a charcoal suit that doesn’t match the summer heat. His hands are clasped behind his back. His face is hardened, like he trying very hard not to have any expression at all.
I haven’t seen that look since the day he told me my father was dead. Who died now?
He doesn’t smile. Doesn’t open his arms. Just says, “Come inside.”
My stomach knots. I listen—because good girls in this family always do what they are told without asking why. That’s how we’re raised. Polite. Pretty. Obedient.
The villa smells like wood polish and rosewater. Everything is spotless. Still. Wrong.
I follow him to his study.
It’s a room I was never allowed in growing up. I used to imagine it full of whispered threats and men with guns. Instead, it’s bare. Two chairs. A glass of untouched whiskey. And a silence that doesn’t belong in a house like this.
“Sit,” he says.
I do, perching at the edge of the chair, like a perfect lady.
He doesn’t sit. He stands at the window, staring out at the olive groves whatever he is going to say, he is afraid to say it to my face. Men like him are never afraid.
“There’s been some unrest,” he begins. “The Romano alliance is dissolving. There’s unnecessary bloodshed. Land disputes. Families are choosing sides.” These are not topics I’m usually privy to. Business is business and women have no place in this family’s business.
I blink. “What does that have to do with me?”
His mouth thins. “Everything.”
I am confused. I am not exactly going to solve land disputes or murders.
“We need stability. Protection. The Bellandi family has agreed to accept our offer.”
“Offer?” I stutter.
He turns. Meets my gaze. “You.”
For a second, I don’t understand. Then I do.
It sounds archaic. Like something out of an old history textbook. I wait for the part where he tells me I misheard him.
“You’re going to marry Luca Bellandi.”
It is like a slap I didn’t see coming.
I shoot to my feet. “Absolutely not.”
“I was not asking you, I was telling you, as a courtesy.”
“You don’t get to decide that. I’m not a toy. I’m not something you trade to—”
“He’s already on his way. I wanted to give you a chance to process, before he arrives.”
That silences me.
My ears ring.
The Bellandi name is a legend. Whispers in marble halls. Ghost stories dressed in silk and smoke. And Luca—he’s the worst of them. The one they call the wolf. A man who took over his family at thirty and left nothing but silence in his wake.
And now I’m supposed to marry him. He’s an enigma, I have often wondered if he even exists.
My voice breaks. “You can’t be serious.”
“You’ll be safe,” my uncle insists. “That was my only condition. He gets your hand—not your loyalty. Not your obedience. He wants a wife in name only.”
As if that makes it better. So now I am a pretty ornament.
I open my mouth to argue, but footsteps echo down the hall—slow, sure, final.
Then the door opens.
And Luca Bellandi walks in. He is real. He exists.
The room seems to shrink around him. He’s taller than I expected, broad-shouldered in a tailored black suit, shirt unbuttoned at the collar like power is something casual. His hair is dark, swept back. A scar cuts clean across his jaw. And his eyes—Christ. They’re cold. Green. Unblinking. Like a forest after a storm.
He doesn’t smile.
Doesn’t speak.
Just looks at me like he already owns me.
And somehow, he does.
He takes the seat opposite mine. Our knees brush.
“You’re Emilia,” he says.
Not a question. A fact.
I nod, but my voice is gone, and I can’t make myself speak.
He looks at me like I’m something valuable he intends to keep. Something he’s already decided belongs on his shelf.
“I’ll keep you safe,” he says, voice low and rough. “You won’t be touched. You won’t be involved. I will keep my word to your father. But once you wear my ring, you’re mine.”
“I didn’t agree to any of this.”
“You didn’t need to.”
I look at my uncle, but he’s already stepped away, leaving the door ajar like the deal is sealed in blood and silence. Run off like a coward leaving me literally to the wolves.
“What happens if I refuse?” I whisper.
Luca stands up.
He crosses to me like a predator staling it’s prey. When he stops in front of me, he lifts my hand. Gently. Like I’m delicate.
He bends, presses his lips to my knuckles.
A kiss that doesn’t ask permission.
It is a claim.
“Then I’ll wait,” he murmurs. “But make no mistake, cara mia… I’ll still have you.”
