MARKED ENEMY

My family sold me on a Tuesday. I found out on Wednesday, when a black car arrived to collect me like a parcel. Omegas like me don’t get to choose. We are bonded, married off, or bought. I just never thought my own family would be the ones to name the price. “Mamma,” I said slowly, holding my coffee, “why is there a man at the gate holding a sign that says Signorina Vitale?” My mother, who had never in twenty-five years been unable to look me in the eye, looked at the kettle. My father cleared his throat. My brother Paolo suddenly remembered an urgent appointment with the floor. “Betta,” Papa began, “sit down.” “No.” “It’s about the debt.” The debt. Three months ago, Vitale Silk, four generations of my family’s pride, had burned to the ground in a single night. The insurers refused to pay, citing a lapsed policy. The banks called it “default.” My father called it “bad luck,” in the voice of a man who was drowning and had decided not to notice the water. “We have nothing left,” Papa said, to the tablecloth. “Not even enough for bread.” “Signor Bellandi has agreed to clear everything,” he went on. “Eleven million euros. The loans, the lawyers, the house.” “How generous of him.” I sipped my coffee. “And what does the great Massimo Bellandi get in return?” Silence. A long, rude, Italian silence. “A mate,” my mother whispered. “For one year. It’s a contract, Betta. It’s all legal, it’s very respectable—” I set my cup down very carefully, because I was one second away from throwing it. “You sold me.” “We saved you,” Papa said. “For eleven million euros.” I laughed. It came out wrong. “I thought I’d be worth more.” Paolo made a small, strangled sound. Mamma started crying, which was deeply unfair, because I had wanted to be the one crying, and now I would have to be angry instead. So I was. But I didn’t scream. Vitale women don’t scream. We negotiate, and then we get even. “Fine,” I said. “I’ll go.” Relief flooded my father’s face so fast that I almost, almost felt sorry for him. Then I walked into his study, took his favorite silver fountain pen, the one he had loved more than me since I was nine, and dropped it into my bag. “Betta, that’s—” “My commission,” I said sweetly, and left. The Bellandi estate sat on the shore of Lake Como like a palace that had won an argument. Iron gates. Cypress trees standing guard like disapproving relatives. A butler waiting on the steps, so stiff he looked starched. “Signorina Vitale,” he said gravely. “I am Giacomo. We have been expecting you.” “Like a delivery.” Giacomo looked genuinely pained, as if I had insulted his mother. “Like a guest, signorina.” He led me through a hall bigger than my entire house, past portraits of Bellandi men who all shared the same cold eyes, and stopped before a pair of enormous doors. “Signor Massimo will see you now,” he murmured. Then, lower, almost nervous: “He has been waiting since seven. He does not wait for anyone.” “How touching.” The doors opened. He stood at the window with his back to me, tall and still, in a charcoal suit that probably cost more than my father’s car. When he turned around, I forgot, for exactly one second, that I hated him. Dark hair. A sharp jaw. Eyes the gray of the lake before a storm. And then his scent reached me. Cedar. Smoke. And something warm underneath, like a fire in a house you’ve been away from for too long. My knees did something treasonous. Dio mio. My suppressants were supposed to stop this. Don’t, I told myself firmly. He is the alpha who bought you. Remember that. “You’re late,” said Massimo Bellandi. His voice was low and cool, completely unbothered. “I was sold, not scheduled.” Something flickered across his face. It was gone before I could name it. “Sit.” “I’ll stand.” “As you like.” On the desk, beside the contract, sat a tiny cup of espresso with a twist of lemon peel on the saucer. Exactly how I drink it. I had never told anyone outside my family. He gestured to the desk, where a stack of pages lay as thick as a bible. “Read it.” I read it. Separate bedrooms in the east wing. Public appearances as a mated pair. No leaving the estate without an escort. And then Clause nine, which made me stop: No mating bite, and no claim of any kind, without the omega’s written consent. I looked up. He was watching me. “Why?” I asked. “Why what?” “You could have written this any way you liked. Why make the bite my choice?” “Because I do not take what isn’t given.” “No,” I said. “You’re a man who bought a woman.” His jaw tightened. He didn’t defend himself. Of course he didn’t. Men like him never explain. Explaining is for people who can lose. “Sign, Signorina Vitale.” I took out my father’s silver pen. Massimo’s eyes dropped to it, then lifted to my face. “That’s a fine pen,” he said. “It was a gift,” I lied. “From a very generous man.” I turned to the last page. Beneath his neat, ruthless clauses, I wrote in my best handwriting: Clause 31: The omega may insult the alpha freely, creatively, and in Italian, without penalty. I slid the contract across the desk. Behind me, I heard Giacomo make a noise like a kettle about to boil. Massimo read the line once. He did not blink. “Granted.” I stared at him. “Granted?” “I have been insulted in four languages by experts,” he said evenly. “Do your best.” I should have been satisfied. Instead I felt like I had thrown a punch and hit a wall that politely stepped aside. I signed. The pen scratched, loud in the silence. And just like that, I belonged to a stranger for three hundred and sixty-five days. Massimo rose and walked around the desk. He stopped close, much too close, and the cedar and smoke wrapped around me until I had to lock my knees. “Elisabetta.” Nobody called me that. Not even my mother. “How long have you been taking suppressants?” he asked quietly. Cold ran down my spine. “That is none of your business.” “Three years? Four?” “My doctor—” “Stop taking them.” “Excuse me?” “Tonight. Throw them away.” “We signed two minutes ago, and you’re already giving me orders?” “It isn’t an order.” For one moment, the mask cracked. Behind the ice, I saw something that looked almost like fear. “It’s a warning.” Then it was gone, and he stepped back, cold and perfect again. “Giacomo will show you to your room. Dinner is at eight.” I almost laughed. A warning. From the man who had bought me. What a clever way to start controlling me. My room was bigger than the whole ground floor of my old home. I dropped my bag on the bed and pulled out the small white bottle I had taken every morning since the fire. I had been on suppressants for three years, but my old doctor had retired, and the new one had been so kind. He had come to the house the week after the fire, a friend of a friend, my father said. A very well-connected man who had “wanted to help.” I turned the bottle in my hands, ready to prove Massimo Bellandi wrong. There was no pharmacy label. No doctor’s name. Nothing. Then I tilted it toward the lamp, and saw the tiny letters stamped into the plastic along the base. Bellandi Laboratories.