The air in the office of Luca De Luca was a vacuum that aimed at strangling anyone who wasn't in control.

I was standing right at the entrance, my heart pounding furiously in my chest like a jackhammer. I had chosen to wear all-white a stark contrast to the black widow he expected. I wore armor under my silk dress.

Luca didn't even bother to lift his gaze from his paperwork. He continued scribbling, "You have precisely two minutes, Miss Veritas, before security hauls you out of here by your hair."

I remained perfectly still. I walked across the dark floor of the room, my footsteps sounding like gunfire. I did not sit on the chair on the other side of his table; rather, I placed a piece of paper right above the one he was signing.

He paused.

Lucas raised his head slowly. His eyes were icy blue and looked like the frozen sea; they were beautiful but deadly. He scanned me, looking for the sorrow he had planted in my life.

Luca lifted his head slowly, horrifyingly. His eyes were the color of icebergs vast, beautiful, and utterly deadly. They followed the line of my jaw, seeking the sorrow he himself had fabricated. I could give him nothing but the coldest gaze.

"Term sheet," Luca rumbled, in that soft, dark, velvety voice of his. No, he did not even lay a hand on the document. "Arya, your empire bleeds, and yet you come to me with a term sheet?"

"I come to you with a surrender, and terms," I lied. The lie felt like poison on my tongue. "With conditions."

He lounged back in his chair, his hands steepled together, elbows resting on the chair's armrests. He looked like a monarch who was considering an especially amusing subject from his court. "Conditions? I don't make concessions, Arya. I take what I want."

"And you want the Veritas shipping lanes, the coastal ports?" I answered him, in the same dull tone. "A hostile takeover bid? You'll be tied up in courts for ten years. And by the time you win, your prize won't be worth a thing."

The muscle in his defined jaw tightened in response. He knew that I was right.

"Read it," I dared.

Luca took hold of the paper, letting his eyes move down its length. For just a moment, the mask broke. Shock flashed in his gaze before a predatory grin took its place.

"A marriage. You're putting yourself on the market to secure your family's reputation?"

I dug my fingernails into the palms of my hands until my skin bled. I'm getting close enough to locate the weapon he killed my father with.

"A contract of twenty-four months. Complete asset integration. I'll be your wife, and you'll receive control of the ports immediately, no litigation involved. As a part of the deal, the Veritas name will continue to exist under law and I maintain my place on the subsidiary board."

"A business transaction."

"A purely professional one."

Luca stood up from behind his desk. It was intimidating how large he was. He stepped away from the desk, walking until there was no space left between us, until the scent of his cologne invaded all of my senses. My feet stayed planted on the floor.

He froze mere inches from my face, invading my personal space.

He stared down at me, looking away from my eyes and then back into them after landing on my lips.

"You hate me," he murmured.

"I don't hate or care about you at all," I responded.

He moved closer, so close that my neck was tickled by the warmth of his breath.

Luca smirks. "Watch yourself, Arya.

"You will regret this."

The contract was between us like a loaded gun.

Fifty pages of contractual mumbo jumbo making me sign on the dotted line for the man who orchestrated the murder of my father. We sat in the dining area of his penthouse, with floor-to-ceiling windows, giving a sweeping view of the empire that he wanted to take from me.

There were no legal representatives around to witness our proceedings, having already shed their quota of blood and left us alone to sort out the matter. "Read it again if you have to," Luca spoke, while pouring two glasses of scotch at the bar. "As soon as that pen hits the paper, there is nothing you can do about it."

"I understand the terms of this agreement," I muttered, as my mind screamed, He killed him. He poisoned his drink. The same one in his hand right now. My stomach rolled violently inside me, feeling the waves of sickness hitting me. I was about to lock myself into a cage with this man, selling my freedom for some kind of access to his computer and his life.

I reached for the pen. It was chilling to touch.

Luca stepped forward and placed a crystal tumbler filled with an amber-colored liquid beside the contract. He didn’t sit down. Instead, he stood by my side, his intense gaze fixated on me. I felt his burning gaze on the back of my neck.

Does he know? My heart beat rapidly in fear. Could he be suspicious about my plans seeing the report?

Without even considering the consequences for long, I put my pen down on the paper and wrote in bold letters “Arya Veritas.”

I slid the contract towards him.

Luca snatched the pen from my hand and signed “Luca De Luca” right next to mine with ruthless efficiency.

We both now belonged to each other.

I didn’t touch my glass but kept staring at the contents of his with the taste of aconitine in my mouth and eyes filled with pure hatred. I raised my eyes towards him, trying to make sure the intensity of my rage would be masked behind an icy calmness.

If he believed that he had won or made me bend, he hadn’t known yet what had really been brought into his bedroom.

"Tomorrow, we will make the announcement," said Luca, his mocking tone turning into one of command. "You are going to move all your belongings to the master bedroom by Friday. No more separate rooms. For us to make a sale out of this, to sell this to the press and my board, everything must be perfect."

"All I promised was that I would marry you on paper," I retorted.

"And the terms of the contract dictate that I have your total compliance in the public arena," Luca answered coldly, his voice deepening as he leaned towards me and stared at me through narrowed eyes, removing the layer of civility he had put up before me. "You are mine, Arya. Completely mine."

I glared back at him, giving only a hint of defiance so that he could misinterpret my actions.

"We shall see about that," I said softly.

Luca picked up the contract, folding it with deliberate slowness. The smirk was gone, replaced by something far more dangerous. Something that looked like anticipation.

"This marriage will destroy you.”

The air of the cathedral was suffocatingly sweet, with the perfume of the white lie lilies that hung from the marble columns in great swaths of pristine beauty.

I had come here to die; not to wed. The dress, a relic passed down through generations of the Veritas family, was made of heavy, black lace, reminiscent of a funeral gown.

Luca stood waiting at the altar. His sleek black suit, cut to perfection, was a stark contrast against the pure white marble. His gaze held no warmth, just the cold, calculating satisfaction of an unspoken victory.

"You look beautiful," he whispered, for the benefit of those in the front row.

"Absolutely stunning."

"I hope your dreams of me are nightmares you can never awaken from," I replied, plastering on a false smile.

There was an odd chanting going on in the background. In reality, it was the monotone droning of the priest performing the marriage ceremony. In my head, there was a list forming of the enemy forces that surrounded me: Thorne sitting three rows back with hungry eyes, the De Luca capos scattered throughout the pews.

"I am going to kill you for what you have done to him," I thought, meeting Luca's piercing gaze when we exchanged the rings. The ring was like a ball and chain around my finger, chilling and weighty.

"I now pronounce you husband and wife."

The flashes from cameras sounded like gunshots. Luca brought me closer and put one hand on the small of my back, pressing me against his strong torso. Touching him sent an unpleasant electric current of loathing through me. We looked like a match made in heaven before the whole world. The truth was that we were two vicious predators playing our games.

The reception was a chaos of fake smiles and drinks. It was hard to keep up with acting, and I had a headache from pretending to enjoy all of it. The minute a camera turned away, my face would fall apart into a cold expressionless mask.

"Your stamina is fading, wife," Luca whispered in my ear when we were standing at the marble steps of the cathedral for some pictures.

"My tolerance for hypocrisy is wearing off."

His grip tightened on my waist, his thumb digging into my hip through the silk. He leaned down, his lips brushing my temple, his breath hot against my skin.

Luca whispers: "Smile. Or I will make you."