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Something cold slithers down my spine at her words. This isn’t right. She’s too composed, too measured. Where’s the reluctance? The moral outrage? The tears?

Nicolo nods once, closes his briefcase, and stands. “Saturday. Six o’clock. Don’t be late.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”

I watch him exit the café, cross the street, and approach my car. Rain plasters his hair to his forehead as he slides into the passenger seat beside me, shaking water from his coat.

“It’s done,” he says unnecessarily.

“I heard.” I start the engine, but don’t pull away from the curb, my eyes still fixed on Chiara through the window. She’s returned to work, but there’s a new energy in her movements. A purpose.

“She agreed more easily than expected,” Nicolo observes, echoing my thoughts.

“Too easily.”

“Does it matter? You got what you wanted.”

I turn to look at him, my oldest friend, my most trusted advisor. “When a mouse walks willingly into a trap, one has to wonder if it’s really a mouse at all.”

“Perhaps she’s simply pragmatic. The debt would have ruined her.”

“Perhaps.” I return my gaze to the window. Chiara wipes down the counter—deliberate, controlled. The check sits in her apron pocket. The card with my address tucked alongside it.

“Or perhaps she believes she has a card to play that we don’t know about.”

“What could she possibly have?”

“That’s what concerns me.” I shift the car into drive, pulling away from the curb. Rain cascades down the windows, distorting the image of the café as it recedes behind us.

The unease lingers as we drive through rain-slicked streets. Something about Chiara’s reaction nags at me like a splinter beneath the skin. Where’s the quiet dignity that forces her to carry the weight of the world on her shoulders? The woman who just accepted Nicolo’s offer seemed like someone else entirely. Sharper. Harder. More dangerous. Ready to gamble and unafraid of risks.

But whatever today was, she belongs to me now. By Saturday evening, she’ll be Chiara Bianchi—my wife, under my protection and subject to my rules. Whatever game she thinks she’s playing ends before it begins.

I flex my fingers on the steering wheel, imagining them tangled in her hair, gripping her waist, making sure she remembers exactly who owns her.

7

ARIA

The church is almost full now, but I don’t recognize a single person walking through those doors. Everyone looks like they’ve stepped straight out of a magazine with their tailored suits and sparkling earrings. Everyone has on a perfectly rehearsed smile, and I feel completely out of place.

I move to the edge of the church, wanting nothing more than to disappear. The guests glance around like they’re trying to place each other, and they smile and wave to people they know, but no one looks my way. I keep checking my phone even though I know there’s nothing new. No message. No call. I’ve texted her so many times already, but of course she hasn’t bothered to keep check.

I tell myself she’s probably just running late. Maybe traffic. Maybe her phone died. But the longer I stand here, the heavier it feels in my chest. That familiar twist in my stomach, the one that shows up when something’s not right, is starting to get worse. She said she’d be here. So where the hell is she?

It’s been three days since Chiara stormed into our apartment and threw a wad of cash on the coffee table like it was nothing, and said, “Problem solved.” I counted the money. It was fivethousand dollars, a small fortune, and of course, I asked where it came from.

She laughed in reply, and something about it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

“Where did you get that?” I’d asked again, more seriously now.

She just waved me off. “Don’t worry about it. It’s handled.”

But I did worry. For three straight days. Every time I brought it up again, she’d dodge the question. “You’re being dramatic,” she said once. Another time it was, “Just trust me, okay?”

Now I’m standing here, in some fancy-ass church filled with strangers, holding an invitation she insisted I accept—“Come with me. It’ll be fun. Just for the night.”

Except she’s not here. And I don’t know a single soul around me. I check my phone again—still nothing from her.