Chapter Two: Bound by Name
1154 Words
The black car pulled up to the towering iron gates of an estate that looked more like a fortress than a home. Cameras shifted, locks clicked, and within seconds, the gates parted like they had been waiting for Alessandro all along.
Eliana sat stiffly in the passenger seat, her hands clenched in her lap. A wedding band sat cold on her finger—thin, silver, clinical. Just like their so-called marriage.
“This is your house?” she asked.
Alessandro didn’t look at her. “One of them.”
She let out a shaky breath. “Of course.”
The car rolled to a stop in front of a marble entrance lit with soft golden light. The building loomed in sleek elegance—white stone walls, wide staircases, wrought-iron balconies. It was beautiful, but it felt like a gilded cage.
Two men in suits stood at the door. Armed. Watching.
“Do they know?” she asked quietly. “About me?”
“They know you’re under my protection,” he replied. “That’s all they need to know.”
Eliana turned to him. “And what exactly does that mean, Alessandro? Am I your wife in name, in appearance—or in something else entirely?”
His jaw twitched, and finally, he looked at her.
“You’re my wife on paper,” he said. “That’s all.”
She studied him. The way his expression was carved from stone, the way he kept everything locked behind those dark eyes. Still, there was something in his voice—like even he didn’t quite believe the words he’d spoken.
Alessandro stepped out of the car and opened her door. His hand extended to help her out. She hesitated, then took it.
It was warm. Strong. Possessive.
The moment she stepped inside, she felt eyes on her. Staff paused. Conversations stopped. A chill ran through her.
“I can’t stay here,” she said. “This isn’t my world.”
“It is now,” he replied.
---
He showed her to a guest room on the second floor—if you could call a suite the size of her entire apartment a "guest" room. The walls were deep gray and cream, the bedding silk. It was elegant. Sterile. Lonely.
“There’s a doctor’s bag in the cabinet,” he said. “Full supplies. In case you need to check on my wounds.”
“So I’m your nurse now too?”
His lips twitched. “You always were.”
She crossed her arms. “You know this marriage means nothing.”
“To you,” he said simply. “But in my world, it means everything.”
She frowned. “Why? What are you protecting me from that’s so serious it requires a fake marriage?”
He didn’t answer.
Instead, he turned away. “Dinner’s at seven. You don’t have to come.”
“And if I do?”
“Wear something red,” he said without turning. “It’ll make a statement.”
Eliana scoffed. “A statement for who?”
He paused in the doorway. “Everyone who wants you dead.”
Then he was gone.
---
She didn’t come down for dinner.
Instead, she sat by the window and stared out at the moonlit courtyard, thinking about her brother.
Tobias had been sixteen when he’d been shot in a crossfire between two street gangs. Wrong place. Wrong time. Wrong world.
And now she was married into it.
She didn’t cry. Not yet. She couldn’t afford to fall apart, not when she didn’t even understand what she’d stepped into.
At midnight, she heard a soft knock on her door. She opened it to find a different man standing there—tall, clean-shaven, sharp cheekbones and intelligent eyes.
“I’m Matteo,” he said. “Alessandro’s right hand.”
“Okay…”
He held out a folder. “Your new identity. Documents. A marriage license. Updated hospital credentials. You’re officially Mrs. Moretti now.”
Eliana took the folder slowly. The papers were flawless. The ink still fresh. Her name—Eliana Carter—had vanished from existence. Replaced by Eliana Moretti.
“Who did all this?” she whispered.
“Alessandro has resources.”
“I didn’t ask for this,” she said.
Matteo gave her a long look. “None of us ask for the life he pulls us into. But he protects what’s his. Don’t mistake that for mercy.”
Then he left.
---
Downstairs, Alessandro sat in the study, sipping dark liquor by the fire. Matteo entered silently and waited.
“She’s overwhelmed,” Matteo said. “You should’ve told her more.”
“She doesn’t need more,” Alessandro replied. “She needs time.”
“You’re risking everything for her. Why?”
Alessandro didn’t answer. He stared into the fire like it held the answers.
“She didn’t flinch when I told her my name,” he said finally. “She should’ve run. But she didn’t.”
Matteo folded his arms. “You’re falling for her.”
“No,” Alessandro said, voice like stone. “I don’t fall.”
But even as he said it, a memory flashed behind his eyes—Eliana in the ER, sweat on her brow, blood on her gloves, refusing to let him die. Her eyes like wildfire. Her hands steady as steel.
No, he didn’t fall.
But he wasn’t standing either.
---
The next morning, Eliana woke early. She walked the halls of the mansion, trying to make sense of it all—the silent guards, the polished floors, the expensive art.
She found the kitchen and made coffee herself. Staff offered, but she refused. She wasn’t ready to feel like one of them.
She was staring at the fireplace in the living room when Alessandro entered.
“You didn’t come to dinner,” he said, hands in his pockets.
“You said I didn’t have to.”
“I didn’t say I wouldn’t notice.”
She looked up at him. “What happens next, Alessandro? What am I supposed to do here?”
“You wait.”
“For what?”
“For them to make their move.”
“Who are ‘they’? You keep talking in shadows.”
He studied her. “You’re smart. You already know. The man who tried to kill me wants power. He knows you’re my weakness now. That’s how they’ll come for me—through you.”
She set the mug down with a sharp clink. “I’m not your weakness.”
“You are,” he said simply. “That’s why you’ll stay here. That’s why you’ll play the role.”
“What role?”
“My wife,” he said. “Publicly. Completely. Until the threat passes.”
“And if it never does?”
He stepped closer, his scent all dark spice and danger.
“Then you’ll be mine forever.”
- Writer
