Chapter 2 Chapter 2 – Terms of Ownership

Dante

She’s the wrong thing to appear in a place like this. Bright, alive, fury wrapped in thin skin.

The scream she lets loose when she sees what I’m doing is music in a key I didn’t know I liked. It fractures the air, makes the men around me jerk, and it makes my accountant freeze with his head bowed and his tears shivering on his cheeks like a man trying to hold together wet paper.

When she steps between him and me, she does it with ridiculous, childish bravery. She calls him Dad as if it keeps the safety of the word alive. It makes the hunter in me lean forward with interest.

I’m not sentimental. I don’t believe in knives held for the sake of theatre. I believe in outcomes. I believe in leverage. I believe in a man’s ability to set the terms and enforce them. That’s how empires are kept whole. By contracts and consequences, by having the stomach to do what the timid cannot.

When she follows me into the tiny office at the back of the warehouse and I shut the door, the light in the room throws her into relief. She’s wearing trainers, hair glossy brown curls have half-escaped from a clip and her eyes are so wide she looks like a frightened deer. Bambi’s mother, caught in the cross-fire.

She wants to be brave. I admire the shape of that impulse. It tells me what kind of resistance I’ll enjoy breaking.

“Sit,” I tell her, and she doesn’t. Instead she stares at me, jaw working, a thin line between fury and vomit. For entertainment’s sake, I could watch her forever.

“You said we have something to discuss,” she says, chin up, voice remarkably steady, but I can still hear the tremor under it. “What is it?”

“Terms,” I say, taking off my jacket and rolling my sleeves to the forearms. “You’re entitled to hear them once. After that, there’s only acceptance or refusal.”

Her mouth flattens. “You’re acting like this is a contract.”

“It is a contract.” I tip my head. “Everything that matters is.”

I hold her in my gaze and lay it out in clean lines.

“You will marry me. Publicly, legally, without delay. You will remain faithful. You will attempt to conceive immediately and produce an heir within one year of our wedding. If there is no pregnancy by day three-hundred-sixty-five, I reserve the right to reassess our contract. Either I divorce you and withdraw your father’s stay of execution, or I grant a defined extension at my discretion. Should we separate at any time, your father’s protection ends the moment the papers are filed.”

I let the silence breathe. Let it become a third presence in the room.

She blinks once, twice. Her throat works. “You can’t mean-”

“I never say what I don’t mean.”

I watch with interest as she does the math. Her father’s pulse against her future. The cost of a ring compared to the cost of a bullet.

I continue before her outrage detonates, because I’m sure it’s coming.

“Further terms. Being my wife means I will have free access to you. I have a healthy sexual appetite. I will hold myself to the same standard I expect from you and will remain faithful while we’re married. Therefore you will make sure I’m well satisfied. Whenever. Wherever. That is not negotiable.”

The detonation arrives and her cheeks flame. “That’s barbaric. What the hell is wrong with you?”

“You can call it whatever you like,” I say, evenly. “Barbaric. Transactional. Sensible. I call it binding. My lawyer will draw up a contract for both of us to sign. So there can be no quibbling about the facts later.”

Her laugh is small and full of disbelief. “You want to chain me to a bed to save my father. You’re not offering terms, you’re dressing up slavery.”

“Slavery is ownership without choice,” I say. “You have a choice. Walk out that door right now, and I will finish what I started in the warehouse. Your father dies tonight. Or stay, sign, and he lives under my protection. Choices don’t stop being choices because one of them is ugly.”

“You’re a monster.”

I let a sliver of amusement show. “Probably. That doesn’t’ change the fact that I know what I want.”

“What if I can’t conceive?” she asks, voice thin but steady. “What if it isn’t… possible.”

“Then we reassess. I already told you that.” I lift a shoulder. “Infertility happens. So do lies. I know how to tell them apart.”

Her chin lifts defiantly at the stab to her pride. “Suggesting I would lie to you is rich for a man holding my father’s life hostage.”

“If you keep me interested, if you keep me satisfied, if you remain precisely where I put you, I will be a very generous husband.” I let the word hang. Husband, not lover.

“You’ll be safe. Wealthy. Respected by people who matter, feared by those who don’t. I won’t share you. You won’t share me. Those are my vows.”

She stares like she’s trying to peel me open and find a hint of softness. There isn’t any to find. I believe in power, honor, and keeping my word. Love is a tax that weak men levy on themselves.

“You expect me to keep you ‘interested,’” she says, tasting the word like poison. “Do you want me to dance? Smile on cue? Spread my legs when you snap your fingers?”

“I don’t snap,” I say. “I state my needs. And yes, then you’ll spread your legs and meet them.”

“Your house,” she repeats, quieter. “Your rules. What about my happiness?”

“I can be entertaining, Mya. I can be good company. I can make you laugh while getting everything I want. I will make sure your sexual expectations are met and exceeded. Beyond that, you can take responsibility for your own happiness.”

“Why marriage?” she asks, finally. “Can’t you put him on some kind of… payment plan?”

“Repayment without consequence invites more theft,” I say. “If I don’t punish him, I’ll breed chaos in my organization.”

Then, because the truth is a luxury I can afford, I add, “And because I saw you, and I decided I wanted you. I don’t attach poetry to appetite. You’re simply an easy conquest.”

Fury brightens her like she’s being back-lit. She’s even more gorgeous when she’s angry. Hazel eyes shot with green like cut glass, mouth lush with defiance.

“You can’t make me want you,” she hisses.

“I don’t need your want,” I answer. “I need your obedience. Want is a bonus.”

She flinches like I struck her.

“I hate you,” she says, softly.

“That’s allowed,” I say. “It feeds passion. Keep your hate if it keeps you warm. Just keep your vows as well.”

“I won’t be your whore,” she says at last.

“Good,” I say. “Whores sell to many. You’ll belong only to me.”

“I’ll never love you.”

“I won’t ask you to.” I hold her a beat longer. “But I will ask you to decide. Now.”

Her breath hitches, then evens out. She’s trying not to cry and I approve when she succeeds. Tears are expensive and buy nothing here.

“I want to see my father,” she says.

“You will.” I move to the door, then stop and turn back, because I want sure the clauses that matter most are engraved on her mind.

“Your fidelity is non-negotiable. Stupidity like flirting with a rival will be treated as betrayal. I don’t tolerate humiliation. Privacy is a luxury, not a right. When I want you, you come to me. When I say ‘now,’ the answer is ‘yes, Dante.’ If you’re in doubt about whether I’m joking, I’m not.”

Her eyes flare. “You’re warning me that you’ll take me wherever you like.”

“I’m informing you that I will,” I correct. “It will be pleasurable if you allow it to be. I’m an excellent lover.”

“Rot in hell.”

“Likely,” I say, amused. “But first, I intend to live very well.”

“What happens to him if I agree?” she asks.

“He goes home,” I say. “He’ll sign everything I put in front of him. He’ll never touch a dollar that isn’t his again. He will die old, bored, and mildly ashamed. That is what your agreement buys.”

“I hate you,” she repeats.

“Noted.” I wait patiently for her answer.

She lifts her chin. “I’ll do it.”

The same satisfaction I get when a rival family capitulates threads through my chest. I don’t show it. I incline my head, as if she’s simply confirmed an appointment.

“Wise choice,” I say. “I’ll have the paperwork ready for you to sign by tomorrow morning. The wedding will take place within a week. Dress, ring, photographs for the people who require theatre. Blood work by a physician I trust. You’ll move into my house tomorrow and only have contact with people I pre-approve.”

Her lip curls. “Of course master.”

“Look at me,” I say.

She does and I let her see nothing but the truth.

“I don’t care about love. What I want is for everything that’s mine to stay mine. That includes you now.”

She looks at me, one last check for softness, one last dive for the bottom of a lake that has no bottom.

“What do you need to hear?” I ask, because sometimes a deal closes faster when you speak the objection aloud.

“That you’ll keep your word,” she says.

“I always keep my word.” I let a smile touch and leave. “Ask the people who are still breathing.”