The devil's wife

A deal signed in blood

People said the dead couldn’t hurt you and they were wrong.

Adrian’s ghost followed me all the way to the Cross Industries penthouse floor with every step echoing the same accusation the world spat at me: Traitor! Black widow! Murderer!

I kept my chin high anyway, even with the security guards glancing at me like I might suddenly pull out a knife.

Damian had called to see me.

With no condolences, no polite request and no apology for cornering me like a criminal in front of mourners.

He only sent a message through his assistant:

“Come to my office. Immediately.”

I could hear his tone even in text form. It was cold, commanding and absolute.

I told myself I wasn’t afraid. I lied.

The elevator opened to a floor drenched in power. There was black marble, glass, steel, and a skyline that swallowed the horizon. Damian Cross stood by the window, his back was facing me and his shoulders were straight beneath his suit. He didn’t turn when I approached, he didn’t even acknowledge me at all.

That was worse than being looked at.

“You wanted to see me,” I said, steady as my pulse tried to outrun my ribs.

He finally turned.

Damian’s eyes were the same storm-grey colour as the day Adrian proposed to me. Only that Damian’s eyes held no warmth and no softness. Just calculation sharpened into cruelty.

“Sit,” he said.

I didn’t want to sit. Not until his gaze darkened enough to say try me.

So, I sat.

He remained standing, which was intentional. It was a power move. He wanted me small and cornered.

“Let’s not waste time,” Damian said, sliding a file onto the desk between us. “I had investigators follow every trail you left behind before my brother’s death.”

My stomach knotted.

He opened the file.

There were printed pages, screenshots and a log-in record I recognized too well. Adrian’s private server had been hacked twelve hours before his death. The breach that had destroyed everything.

Damian’s voice cut in, low and lethal.

“You leaked confidential Cross Industries data to a rival company. You triggered the investigation that tanked our stocks. You ruined my family’s name.”

Each sentence struck like a blow.

I forced a breath.

“That’s not what happened.”

He leaned forward with his palms braced on the desk.

“It isn't? Because the evidence says otherwise.”

“The evidence is incomplete, and you know it.” I whispered.

He smiled, but it wasn’t just a smile, it was danger stretching itself across his mouth.

“I know you’re lying,” he said softly. “And I know why.”

His words wrapped around my throat, squeezing.

He couldn’t know, he couldn’t. I’d buried that secret so deep it should’ve been unreachable.

But Damian’s eyes said he’d dug, and dug hard.

He pulled out another file. A thicker, red-tabbed file and tossed it in front of me.

I didn’t touch it.

“You have two choices,” he said. “Both unpleasant for you, but one far more efficient for me.”

Every cell in my body bristled.

Damian circled the desk and stood next to me so close that his cologne slid beneath my skin. His presence was both a chokehold and a temptation.

“Choice one,” he said, leaning down so his lips were near my ear, “You turn yourself in and we leak everything. You'll be publicly disgraced and be sent to prison with a ruined legacy and a ruined life.”

A shiver cracked down my spine.

I kept my face blank. “And choice two?”

He moved around me slowly, like a predator circling prey.

I followed him with my eyes and regretted it instantly.

Because Damian Cross wasn’t handsome, he was devastating.

“Choice two,” he said, returning to his seat, “is considerably more… beneficial.”

“To you.”

He didn’t deny it.

“Marry me.”

The words slammed into me.

For a moment, the room tilted.

I laughed once, a sharp, unbelieving sound.

“You’re insane.”

“No,” he said calmly. “I’m strategic.”

“Why would you, why the hell —” I stopped myself before I sounded hysterical. “You hate me.”

“Correct.”

“Then what is this?” I demanded.

“Control,” he said plainly.

“Leverage.

Appearances.

The Cross name cannot take another scandal. A united front repairs a reputation faster than fire ever could.”

“And you think I’d agree?”

He shrugged, a lazy gesture that I hated so much.

“You don’t have the luxury of pride, Sera.”

I swallowed hard.

He thought he could break me.

He didn’t know I was already broken.

“And what do you get out of this?” I whispered.

“Punishment,” he said, without hesitation. “And answers.”

My pulse stuttered.

He didn’t know the truth behind the betrayal, not fully.

He didn’t know about the secret I’d protected for years.

But he was close, too close.

Damian opened a drawer and pulled out a thick document.

He slid it across the table with two fingers.

It was a marriage contract.

Customized.

Precise.

So cruel.

“You’re out of your mind,” I breathed.

“Sign it,” he said, “and you stay protected, from the board, from the law and from the vultures outside.”

“And if I don’t?”

He leaned back, eyes glinting like steel catching fire.

“Then I destroy you.”

I stared at him, at the man who looked like Adrian in the light and like the devil in shadow.

My chest tightened with grief, confusion, attraction and rage. All tangled up and suffocating.

He thought I was guilty.

He thought this was about revenge.

He had no idea how deep the rot really went.

How much I’d given up and how much Adrian had taken.

Damian mistook my silence for fear.

“Clock’s ticking,” he murmured. “Your life is hanging by a thread you don’t even control.”

He reached inside his jacket, pulled out a black pen, and placed it in front of me with a soft click.

I stared at it.

My hands trembled, from anger, not fear.

Because Damian thought he was offering me a trap.

But he was also unknowingly offering the only protection I had left.

I lifted the pen.

Damian watched, without even blinking, the air between us was thin enough to break.

I signed.

One stroke.

Another.

My name bleeding across the page like a confession.

The moment I finished, Damian leaned in, his voice as a dark whisper brushing my skin.

“Congratulations, Mrs. Cross,” he said. “You’re about to become the devil’s wife.”

And then,

He flipped the second file open in front of me.

The one I hadn’t touched.

And staring back at me… was a picture that should’ve never existed.

A picture that changed everything.

A picture that proved Adrian wasn’t as dead as he wanted the world to believe.