SOLD TO THE HIGHEST BIDDER

Rules of His World

My stomach dropped at the words, Bianca De Luca. The sound of my new name felt foreign and heavy on my tongue, like it carried someone else’s weight, someone I didn’t know, someone I wasn’t sure I wanted to become. My pulse hammered in my ears, and for a moment I swore I could hear nothing but the echo of the auction hall, the gavel, the whispers, and that piercing gaze that had followed me everywhere.

I took a cautious step forward, my hands trembling slightly, forcing myself to meet his eyes even though a part of me wanted to look away, wanted to pretend this wasn’t real. The penthouse was spacious, immaculate, and cold in a way that made my skin prickle. Every surface gleamed under the warm lighting, every shadow precise and deliberate, like the entire room had been designed to enforce control rather than comfort.

He didn’t move from where he stood, arms loosely crossed, observing me as if I were both a curiosity and a challenge. I felt like I was under a microscope, every heartbeat, every twitch of a finger, every inhale and exhale cataloged in that silent judgment.

“Y-you… you bought me,” I stammered, my voice barely more than a whisper. “I—I mean… I don’t understand. Why? Why did you bid me for twenty million? That's... that's a lot of money.”

His lips curved into something that might have been a smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Understand?” he repeated, his voice smooth, cold, yet with a strange, magnetic draw that made my knees go weak. “Bianca, you don’t need to understand right now. You need to obey me. Your life, as you know it has ended the moment the gavel struck.”

I swallowed hard, trying to find courage in the face of a man who seemed untouchable, who radiated power in a way that made the air itself feel heavier. “Obey… what? What do you want from me? I rather live in the street than live with the monster and a dangerous and ruthless man.” My voice wavered, but I forced myself to step closer, as if proximity could somehow give me an edge, as if speaking my mind could somehow make him human.

He stepped forward, just enough to close the distance between us without touching, and I felt the force of his presence wrap around me like a vice. Every instinct screamed at me to run, yet my feet remained rooted. “I don’t want anything you think I want,” he said slowly, each word deliberate, precise. “I want what I need. And what I need… is complete control. That is the rule of my world, Bianca. You will follow it, or you will regret it.”

My throat tightened. Complete control. The words echoed in my mind like a sentence I couldn’t escape, a law that applied only to me now. I swallowed again, trying to steady myself, trying to remember that I was still a person, still me, even if my name had changed. Even if I had a chance to refuse it. But no, he bought me for Twenty Million, and I know he can do whatever he wants on me.

He tilted his head slightly, assessing me with a predator’s precision, and I felt something icy settle in my chest, a cold warning that this was not a negotiation. My thoughts raced, searching for some loophole, some escape, some reason why I could challenge him, but the truth was, I knew instinctively that there was none.

Then, just as I opened my mouth to ask another question, he spoke again, his voice dropping even lower, sending a shiver down my spine:

“And don’t even think about calling anyone for help, Bianca… because no one in the world can reach you but me.”

The silence that followed his words pressed against my chest until it became hard to breathe. The penthouse felt impossibly large, yet I had never felt so confined, as though the walls themselves were closing in, listening, waiting. I stood there, frozen between fear and disbelief, trying to reconcile the man in front of me with the reality he had just imposed on my life.

No one can reach you but me.

The sentence echoed again and again in my head, sinking deeper with every heartbeat.

He turned away first, walking toward the floor‑to‑ceiling windows that overlooked the city, his back to me, his hands clasped behind him as if this were nothing more than a routine conversation. The lights below glittered like stars, distant and untouchable, and for a moment I wondered if that was how he saw people too. Small, replaceable, and easily controlled from above.

“You’ll be staying here,” he said without looking at me. “Your room has already been prepared. Everything you need is provided.”

Everything you need. Not everything you want.

I swallowed hard, forcing myself to speak despite the tightness in my throat. “And if I don’t want to stay? What are you gonna do? Kill me? Hurt me? tell me now.” The question slipped out before I could stop it, fragile but desperate, like a final attempt to remind myself that I still had a voice.

He turned slowly, his gaze settling on me with a calm that was far more terrifying than anger. “That isn’t an option,” he replied simply, as if stating a fact rather than delivering a sentence.

A sharp knock echoed through the room, and I flinched. A woman entered quietly, her expression is just neutral, her posture is respectful. She didn’t look at me for long, but when she did, there was something in her eyes, pity, maybe, or understanding that made my chest ache.

“She’ll show you to your room,” he said. “Rest. Tomorrow, we begin.”

Begin what? I wanted to ask, but the words refused to form.

I followed the woman down another corridor, my steps are slow, my thoughts are racing. The room she led me to was beautiful, soft lighting, clean lines, a bed that looked too perfect to be real, but it didn’t feel like safety. It felt like a cage dressed up as comfort.

When she left, the door closing softly behind her, I stood alone in the center of the room, my reflection staring back at me from the mirror. Bianca De Luca. The name still felt wrong, heavy, like a chain I hadn’t agreed to wear.

I barely had time to sit on the edge of the bed before the door opened again.

He stood there, watching me, unreadable. His presence filling the room without a single step forward. The silence stretched, thick and deliberate, as if he were waiting for me to break first, to speak, to beg, to ask for something I no longer had the right to demand.

And then, in a voice low and unyielding, he said, “Tomorrow, Bianca, you will learn exactly what it means to belong to me.”