They told me to wear red.

Not ivory. Not champagne. Not even white.

Red.

Like blood. Like warning. Like a flag raised before a battle you know you’re going to lose.

I stood in front of the mirror in my hotel suite, my mother behind me, tugging the zipper of the gown with shaking fingers. She wouldn’t look me in the eye. Not because she was ashamed — but because she’d made her peace with selling me off to a man neither of us had ever met.

“You look... expensive,” she said.

I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Great. Just what every girl wants to hear on her wedding day.”

“You should be grateful, Amara.” Her voice turned sharp, brittle with pressure. “Do you think many men would agree to marry you knowing what your father did?”

And there it was.

My father's sins — the debts, the scandals, the betrayal of powerful men — sewn into the lining of my dress like a curse. And now I was the payment.

A bride, handed over like a blank check.

The car that picked us up was black, silent, and guarded by two men in dark suits. They didn’t speak to me. Just opened the door and waited. I climbed in, my heels sinking into the plush carpeted floor, my fists clenched in my lap.

Outside, Monaco glowed golden in the late afternoon sun, the sea glittering just beyond the cliffs, mocking me with its freedom. I should’ve been running barefoot across the sand. Laughing. Free.

Not dressed in blood silk, on my way to a mansion guarded like a fortress, to marry a man I’d never touched — never wanted — and whose name alone was enough to make my stomach knot.

Dante Alvaro.

Heir to a multi-billion-dollar empire. Royal blood from some old European dynasty that ruled in shadows, not palaces. His name was whispered in boardrooms, feared in government corridors, and blacklisted in every gossip column.

They said he was powerful. Cold. Dangerous.

Perfect.

Just the kind of man my family needed to save our name.

I was traded to him like an olive branch.

Only this olive branch had legs and red lipstick.

When we arrived, the Alvaro estate towered above us like a cathedral carved into the side of a cliff. All steel and glass and cold modern beauty, with a view of the ocean so pristine it felt like standing on the edge of the world.

But I didn’t have time to take it in.

Because the moment we stepped inside, he was there.

Seated at the long table in the sunken marble room, backlit by the ocean like some god of judgment.

Dante Alvaro.

I knew it was him instantly. You don’t mistake men like Dante.

He didn’t need to speak. He didn’t need to stand.

He just was.

Tall. Impossibly still. Dressed in a black suit that clung to every hard line of his body, the shirt beneath unbuttoned just enough to hint at arrogance. His hair was dark, thick, perfectly styled like it hadn’t been styled at all. His jaw was sharp. His mouth, unsmiling.

But it was his eyes that did it.

Cold, gray, and unreadable. The kind of eyes that didn’t see you — they calculated you.

Measured you. Stripped you bare.

I met them, and I swore I felt my knees threaten to buckle.

He said nothing at first. Just stared. As if I were an item being delivered to his doorstep — and he was deciding whether to return it.

“So,” he finally said, voice low and rich, “this is the girl I’m being forced to marry.”

I smiled, tight and sharp. “And you must be the arrogant prick who thinks he’s doing me a favor.”

A beat of silence.

Then something — just the ghost of it — flickered in his gaze.

Interest.

I wasn’t sure if that scared me more than his indifference.

My mother cleared her throat and nudged me forward. I walked — slowly — the click of my heels against the marble sounding too loud, too final. The long table had a single document laid out across it. White paper. Gold foil. Heavy as hell.

The marriage contract.

“Sign here,” said a man to Dante’s left. Older. Probably legal. Probably tired of rich people and their dramatic unions.

Dante didn’t look at the paper. He picked up the pen, held it between his fingers like a weapon, and signed.

Just like that.

His name, scrawled in that elegant, cruel script.

He didn’t hesitate. Didn’t glance at me. Didn’t ask if I was ready.

Because it didn’t matter.

I was already his.

The lawyer turned to me. “Miss Sinclair?”

My hand trembled as I picked up the pen. My signature looked delicate next to his. Almost… insignificant.

But it was there.

Done.

I was now Mrs. Amara Alvaro.

Dante stood, buttoning his jacket slowly, eyes still locked on mine.

“We’re done here,” he said.

He didn’t offer his arm. Didn’t kiss me. Just turned and walked away, as if I were a meeting he’d just checked off his to-do list.

I watched him go, my heart pounding so loudly I was sure they could all hear it.

And as I stood there — alone, married, sold — one thought sank into my bones:

I just became the property of a man who doesn’t believe in mercy.