CHAPTER 2: The Contract
1487 Words
The papers looked thicker than any school module Elena had ever printed.
They lay on the desk between them, neatly stacked, clipped together, each page stamped with some emblem—De Luca Group’s crest, the notary’s seal, the lawyer’s initials. It all screamed permanent.
“Read it,” Matteo said.
She let out a shaky breath. “All of it?”
“I don’t put my signature on anything I haven’t read,” he replied. “You shouldn’t either.”
His lawyer, a bespectacled man with silver at his temples, waited to the side with the patience of a long career. He’d introduced himself as Signor Romano, and then barely spoken a word since.
Elena sank into the leather chair provided for her, feeling small and out of place. The contract pages trembled in her hands as she began to read.
MARRIAGE CONTRACT
between
MATTEO DE LUCA
and
ELENA CRUZ
The words blurred. She blinked hard and forced them into focus.
It was… clinical. That was the strangest part. No romance, no flowers, no promises of forever. Just:
Duration: Twelve months from the date of marriage registration.
Duties: Public appearance as spouse; residence in the De Luca household; cooperation with security protocols; confidentiality.
Rights: Dedicated accommodation; financial support; basic security.
Restrictions: No unauthorized departure from the city; no public statements to press; no association with known enemies of the family.
And at the bottom of a long paragraph:
Physical intimacy between parties shall be at mutual consent. No obligations are implied beyond shared residence and public presentation.
Her cheeks warmed reading that line, even though it was phrased as coldly as the rest.
“What happens after the year?” she asked, voice barely above a whisper.
Matteo’s gaze had been on his phone. Now, it slid back to her.
“The marriage will be dissolved,” he said. “You will receive a settlement.”
“A settlement,” she repeated. “Like… like alimony?”
“A parting gift,” he said dryly. “Enough that you don’t have to run three jobs the day after you walk out of my door.”
It should have sounded generous. Instead, it sounded like payment for services rendered. For playing the role of Mrs. De Luca.
Her stomach churned.
“And my brother?” she asked.
“Clause fifteen,” Matteo replied.
She flipped through until she found it, finger tracing the printed text.
Upon fulfillment of the full term of this contract and absent any material breach, all outstanding debts owed by MARCO CRUZ to parties represented by MATTEO DE LUCA shall be considered satisfied and irrevocably forgiven.
Her chest loosened. That one paragraph felt like oxygen.
“If I break it?” she asked.
“Then the debt returns to its original owners,” Matteo said calmly. “With interest.”
She closed her eyes for a second. Those men in the alley. The bruises. The way Marco had clung to her hand.
No. Breaking it was not an option.
Elena opened her eyes and continued reading.
There was a section about public behavior—no scandal, no flirting with other men, no social media posts without approval. Another about security—bodyguards, curfews, restricted areas.
“I’m not a criminal,” she muttered. “Why does this sound like I’m entering prison?”
“You’re entering my world,” Matteo said. “The prison was always there. I’m just giving you the key to move inside it without getting shot.”
“That’s not a very comforting metaphor,” she shot back automatically.
A beat of silence—then his mouth twitched, the ghost of something like amusement.
Romano cleared his throat politely. “If Miss Cruz has any questions regarding the legal language—”
“I understand it,” Elena said. Years of reading contract-of-service modules for teaching jobs had at least given her some skill.
Understand it? Yes.
Like it? No.
Her phone buzzed in her bag, faint through the leather. She flinched.
Marco.
“Can I…?” she asked.
Matteo nodded once.
She dug her phone out with clumsy fingers and stepped toward the window, answering on instinct.
“Elena?” Marco’s voice came through, thin and raw. “Where are you? Did you– did you talk to him?”
She stared at the ocean, at the white spray crashing against stone.
“I’m here,” she said.
“And?” Desperation sharpened the word. “Is he… is he going to kill me, Len? Just tell me, I need to—”
“He’s not going to kill you,” she said, cutting in. “Not if I sign something.”
“Sign what?”
Her hand clenched around the phone. “A contract.”
“Elena—”
“It’s my choice,” she said, forcing steadiness. “This is how I pay it back. All of it. You walk free. Mama wouldn’t want you dead, Marco.”
A strangled sound came down the line. “I don’t want you— I can’t let you—”
“You don’t get to ‘let’ me,” she snapped suddenly.. Romano’s eyebrows climbed; Matteo’s gaze sharpened. “This is what you did, Marco. This is how I’m cleaning it up. Like I always do.”
Silence.
Then, hoarse, “I’m sorry.”
Elena squeezed her eyes shut against the sting.
“Be sorry by staying alive,” she whispered. “Stay out of trouble, stay away from cards, from anything that looks like a shortcut. You owe me that much.”
“I owe you more than—”
The battery icon flashed red.
“I have to go,” she said. “If I don’t call you tonight, it means it’s done. Okay?”
“Elena—”
The phone died.
No dramatic end-call button, no tidy goodbye. Just a blank screen.
She slowly lowered the useless device and turned back.
Matteo hadn’t moved, but the room felt smaller.
“Decided?” he asked.
She slipped the dead phone into her bag like a burial and walked back to the desk. Her fingers didn’t tremble this time as she picked up the pen.
“I have one condition,” she said.
Romano blinked; Matteo’s gaze narrowed. “You are not really in a position to—”
“I know,” she cut him off, surprising herself with the steel in her own voice. “But you said you need a wife who won’t betray you. So you need someone who can think. This is me thinking.”
He studied her, curiosity glinting under the ice.
“Go on,” he said.
“The… physical part,” she said, forcing the words out. “I won’t be forced. You’ve written it there. Mutual consent. That clause stays.
You don’t change it later.”
Something dark flickered in his eyes at the implication—that he was capable of forcing anyone. Maybe he was. She didn’t know.
“I don’t share my bed with unwilling guests,” he said. His tone cut. “The clause stays.”
She swallowed. “Then… I have no more questions.”
She bent, signed her name at the bottom of the last page. Elena Cruz, in her neat teacher’s script.
Romano added his signature, then slid the file to Matteo, who signed smoothly, without hesitation, as if he signed away people’s futures every day.
Maybe he did.
He capped the pen, set it aside.
“It’s done,” he said. “We register the marriage tomorrow morning. The ceremony will be civil. Efficient.”
That word again.
Efficient.
“Do I get a dress?” Elena asked, the ridiculous question slipping out before she could stop it.
One of his brows lifted again. “Do you want one?”
She thought of the weddings she’d seen online, the lace and flowers and fairy lights. Of the way her students drew veils and bouquets whenever someone mentioned weddings in class.
Then she thought of why she was doing this.
“No,” she said quietly. “I guess I don’t.”
For the first time, something like pity—or regret—flashed, almost too quickly to catch, across his face.
“I’ll have someone bring appropriate clothes,” he said. “You’ll be picked up at eight.”
Just like that.
A wedding appointment penciled into his schedule between a board meeting and a beatdown.
Elena nodded, numb.
As she turned to leave, his voice stopped her.
“Ms. Cruz.”
She glanced back.
“After tomorrow,” he said, “people will address you as Mrs. De Luca. Get used to it.”
The words settled around her shoulders like a coat that didn’t fit.
She walked out of the office with a contract in the lawyer’s briefcase and an invisible ring already tightening around her finger.
- Writer
