BOUND BY BLOOD, STOLEN BY HIM

Rejected Ring

Bound by Blood, Stolen by Him

Bride of Lies

Chapter 2

Allesandra stood in the garden long after the sun had dipped below the horizon, the black rose still crushed gently in her palm, its velvet petals darkening to the color of dried blood. The note had vanished into the pocket of her gown, safe against her heart — where it burned hotter than the gold ring weighing down my left hand.

Otto Moretti. The name echoed in my mind like a warning. she had heard whispers all her life. The cousin born on the wrong side of the family. The one sent away in shame. Framed for a crime he did not commit, the rumors said. Dangerous. Unpredictable. Ruined.

And he had been watching her.

A floorboard creaked on the terrace above. Alessandra looked up to find Marco standing there, his silhouette sharp against the warm glow spilling from the open doors. He did not descend the steps. He simply stood, arms folded over his chest, staring down at me with eyes like chips of pale ice.

“Come inside, Alessandra,” he said. His voice carried easily through the cooling air — calm, commanding, utterly indifferent. “The evening grows cold. And there are things to be discussed.”

Alessandra did not move. “Things to be discussed,” she repeated quietly. “Or lies to be told?”

His jaw tightened. For a heartbeat Allesandra thought he would snap. Instead, he turned on his heel and vanished back into the villa, leaving me to follow or stay — as if he knew she had nowhere else to go.

A transaction, he had called her Convenient.

Allesandra walked back through the gardens, the black rose hidden in her fist.

Inside, the dining hall was grand and terrible — high ceilings, frescoed angels watching from above, a table long enough to seat twenty that night held only three. Marco sat at the head, Giulia to his right. When Alessandra entered, Giulia looked up, her emerald eyes bright and glittering. She smiled — the same sweet smile she had given her a thousand times before, the smile Allesandra had once trusted more than her own reflection.

“Darling,” Giulia said, her voice like spun sugar. “You look pale. Come, sit. We were worried you might have wandered off.”

Alessandra did not sit across from them. She stood at the foot of the table, hands clasped behind my back so they could not see the rose, or the way her fingers trembled.

“You knew,” Alessandra said. Her voice did not shake as much as I expected it to. “All this time. You pushed me toward him. You held my hand while I walked down the aisle — and you knew.”

Giulia’s smile faltered. She looked to Marco, but he did not save her. He swirled red wine in his glass, watching me over the rim as if I were a puzzle he had not expected to assemble so quickly.

Marco set down his glass with a sharp clink. “Sit down, Alessandra. We will speak plainly. It saves time.”

Allesandra remained standing. “Did you ever intend to tell me? Or was I meant to live in ignorance forever — your wife in name, your shadow in every other way?”

“Your father agreed to the terms,” Marco said, cool and cruel. “He knew exactly what this marriage was. An alliance. Protection. You were never meant to look too closely. To feel too deeply.”

“And you?” Allesandra stepped forward, ignoring the way Giulia shifted in her seat. “Did you ever intend to tell me that your heart belonged to her? That every vow you spoke was a lie?”

Marco leaned back in his chair, his expression hardening into something unyielding. “I made no vows to her. I made them to you. To the family. Honor binds us, Alessandra. Duty binds us. Whether you like it or not, you are a Moretti now. You will wear the name. You will wear the ring. And you will behave as my wife — in public.”

“And in private?” Allesandra asked.

Marco’s gaze flickered toward Giulia.

The answer hung in the air, heavy and suffocating.

Giulia reached across the table and touched Marco’s hand. He did not pull away. “Do not be bitter, Alessandra,” she said, soft and venomous. “You have position. Wealth. Safety. What more could you want? Love is… fragile. Dangerous. This arrangement protects all of us.”

Allesandra looked at her best friend — the girl she had shared secrets with, scraped knees with, dreams with — and realized she had never truly known her. She did not look ashamed. She looked satisfied.

“Love is fragile,” Allesandra repeated slowly. “And so is trust.”

Marco stood then, his chair scraping loudly against the marble floor. The air in the room shifted — grew heavier. “You will remain here. You will fulfill your duties. Your family depends on your silence. Do not think you can simply walk away. There is nowhere to go that the Moretti name cannot reach.”

A threat. Clear and cold.

Allesandra looked at him — the man she had loved for eight years — and felt the last of her hope crumble into dust. He thought he could chain her with blood and bargains. He thought silence was all she had left.

He did not know about the rose. Or the note. Or the man watching from the shadows.

“Is that all?” Allesandra asked Marco.

He frowned, thrown by my calm. “Go to your rooms. We will speak again when you have learned to bridle your tongue.”

Allesandra turned and walked out. Past the long table. Past Giulia, who called my name with false sweetness. Past Marco, who watched her go with a scowl etched deep between his brows.

she did not go to her rooms. Allesandra walked instead to the library — a vast, shadowed chamber at the far end of the villa, where the windows looked out toward the cliffs and the sea. She locked the door behind her,walked to the center of the room, and opened her hand.

The black rose lay there, its stem still sharp. Allesandra pulled the scrap of parchment from my gown and read it again, the ink seeming to burn in the dim light:

He married you for contracts. He loves her for pleasure. But I? I have waited for you since before he knew your name.

A soft sound — a shift of fabric, a breath — came from the darkest corner of the room.

Allesandra head snapped up.

From the shadows beside the tall bookshelves, he stepped forward.

Otto.

He did not move like other men. There was something predatory in his grace — slow, deliberate, silent. He wore black from head to toe, his coat fitting broad shoulders like a second skin. The scar across his eyebrow caught the faint light, and his amber eyes glowed — bright, burning, fixed entirely on her.

He stopped several paces away, close enough that Allesandra could see the faint stubble along his jaw, the way his gaze traced every line of her face as if memorizing something precious. He did not bow. He did not speak. He simply looked at her — and I felt stripped bare.

“You…” Allesandra breathed, clutching the note to my chest. “You were watching me. All along.”

Otto’s voice was deep, rough, as if he did not speak often. “I told you I would.”

“How did you get in here?”

“I go where I please.” He took one step closer. “And I come when they hurt you.”

Allesandra heart hammered — not with fear, though she should be afraid. With something far more dangerous. Recognition.

“Marco said there is nowhere I can go,” Allesandra whispered. “That I am trapped here forever.”

Otto’s gaze dropped to the ring on her finger. His expression hardened — something dark and fierce flashing in his eyes.

“He bound you with blood,” Otto said, his voice low and deadly. “But blood can be broken. Chains can be melted. And you…” He lifted his hand, and for a moment I thought he would touch my face. Instead, he curled his fingers into a fist at his side, as if holding himself back. “You are not his prize. You never were.”

“Then whose am I?” Allesandra asked, breathless.

Otto looked at her — truly looked at her — and his answer was a vow.

“Yours to choose. But if you let me in… I will not share. I will not wait. And I will not let him — or anyone — hurt you again.” He paused, his amber eyes burning into mine. “He bound you by blood. I will steal you with fire.”

Footsteps sounded in the corridor outside. Heavy. Familiar.

Marco.

Otto’s expression shifted instantly. He did not panic. He simply leaned in, his voice dropping to a whisper that brushed against my ear like a caress.

“Think on it, little captive. And know this — while he threatens you with chains… I offer you ruin. Which do you prefer?”

Before Allesandra could speak, he stepped back and vanished into the shadows — as if he had never been there at all.

The door handle turned.

“Alessandra?” Marco called out, pushing open the door. He stepped inside, scanning the room, his gaze landing on me standing alone in the center. “Why are you hiding in the dark?”

Allesandra folded the note into her palm, closed her fingers tight around it, and lifted my chin.

“Am I?” I said softly.

Marco frowned, glancing toward the dark corners of the room — seeing nothing. When his eyes returned to me, they narrowed.

“Come upstairs,” he said, extending a hand she did not take. “We are done speaking for tonight.”

Allesandra looked at his outstretched hand — the hand that had signed her life away, the hand that touched Giulia’s face — and then she looked at the shadows where Otto had stood.

He bound you by blood. I will steal you with fire.

Allesandra looked back at Marco.

“No,” she said.

Marco froze. “Excuse me?”

she pulled the ring from her finger — cold, heavy, burning — and held it out to him. Not in surrender. In warning.

“I said no.”

Marco’s face darkened. But before he could speak, a sound drifted from the darkness — soft, low, and unmistakably a laugh.

Amber eyes glowed briefly in the shadows. And then they were gone.

Marco spun around, staring wildly into the dark. “Who is there?” he shouted.

Allesandra closed her hand around the ring. And for the first time since the wedding she smiled.

“Just the dark,” she said.