HER RULES HIS EMPIRE

CHAPTER TWO :HER FATHER'S BARGAIN

Her father was sitting upright on his hospital bed, looking frailer than she remembered but alert, his eyes sharp despite everything. Near the window stood a man she didn't recognise, his back turned, gazing out at the city below.

"Bella, you're finally here," her father said, his voice warm despite its weakness. "Meet Enzo Moretti."

It was not just the name that piqued her interest — it was the weight it carried. She wondered, almost immediately, if this young man could be the heir to the Moretti Exchange, a name she had heard whispered in business circles for months. Inwardly, she berated herself for the thought that followed so quickly on its heels, but she couldn't help it: if she could simply convince this man to help settle some of her father's mounting debts, she would be content. A plan began to form in her mind, and she decided, for now, to play along and see where the conversation led until her father spoke again.

"Bella, I said meet Enzo. The man you will be marrying."

For a moment, Isabella didn't fully register what her father had said. Her mind, still caught in calculations of debts and solutions, took a beat too long to catch up — and in that gap, a strange, unbidden flicker of relief passed through her, a fleeting thought that her plan might unfold more smoothly than she'd hoped. But the moment shattered when her father spoke again, his tone firmer now.

"I have spoken twice without getting a reply, Bella. Are you okay?"

At the sound of his voice, sharp with concern, the man by the window finally turned. His eyes met hers, and Isabella felt the room tilt slightly beneath her feet.Isabella knew something was wrong the moment she saw Enzo's face, the man her father had just introduced as her husband, this same man who represented everything that was wrong with her. It turned out her instinct was never wrong. A private car had been sent to fetch her without explanation. Unfamiliar men stood stamped outside her father's room like statues. And now this stranger sat across from her, studying her with the calm, unreadable patience of someone waiting for a storm to pass.

A laugh escaped her lips before she could stop it. She pressed her hand to her mouth, holding back the rest of it, though it kept threatening to bubble up this kind of hysterical laughter of someone who has just been told something so absurd that her mind refused to process it as real and true. It was then she discovered that if pushed, she could go mad.

"Father — excuse me. Let me call a nurse. Is everything all right?" Isabella asked, her voice hovering somewhere between concern and disbelief, as though the entire situation might have something to do with his medical condition.

"Bella, please, this is not a joke." Her father's voice was tired, worn out, and faint in a way she hadn't noticed before this moment. "If not for anything, do this for the empire."

That word, empire, it kept pushing something in her; it finally broke loose that thing it was pushing in her."What empire, Dad?" Her voice rose to a higher pitch, sharp and unsteady. "The one that's already in shambles, or the one that can't even afford your hospital bills? Please — I've had enough of this. It's too much for one day."

She was screaming now, the sound tearing out of her before she could soften it into something more composed, more dignified as she realised that "her husband"was still in the room. Tears blurred her vision. She saw her father flinch, saw Enzo go very still across the room, but she couldn't stop the words once they started — months of watching the company crumble, watching her father's health deteriorate under the weight of debts he refused to explain to her, watching everyone around her make decisions and then hand her the consequences without warning.

She stood abruptly. The chair scraped against the floor. She crossed to the glass door, dragged it open, and walked out into the hallway, not because she had anywhere to go, but because she needed one full minute where no one was looking at her, waiting for her to agree to something she hadn't chosen or bargained for.

The hallway felt colder than the room she'd left. Isabella pressed her back against the wall and breathed, forcing air into lungs that felt too small. She counted the doors, the paintings, anything to keep her mind from drifting any further apart. When her breathing steadied not calm, but at least functional she walked back in.

The walk back down the hallway felt longer than it should have. Isabella studied everything the way she always did when she was trying not to feel to fall into depression; the unfamiliar cars parked at strange angles in the driveway, cars she didn't recognize and didn't like the look of; the staff who suddenly discovered that they had urgent business in her father's ward e, refusing to meet her eyes as she passed;her to agree to something she hadn't chosen.

The hallway felt colder than the room she'd left. Isabella pressed her back against the wall and breathed, forcing air into lungs that felt too small. She counted the doors, the paintings, anything to keep her mind from spiraling further. When her breathing steadied — not calm, but at least functional — she walked back in.

The walk back down the hallway felt longer than it should have. Isabella catalogued everything the way she always did when she was trying not to feel: the unfamiliar cars parked at strange angles in the driveway, cars she didn't recognize and didn't like the look of; the staff who suddenly discovered that they had urgent business in her father's ward, refusing to meet her eyes as she passed; the peculiar, suffocating silence that had settled over the entire house, the kind of silence that comes only when everyone already knows something that you are not aware of and they are not yet willing to disclose.