Betrothed to the Devil

The rain fell like a curse the night Gold's fate was sealed.

Thunder rattled the windows of the Rossi estate as she stood in the drawing room, the soft tremble in her fingers betraying the calm expression she wore. Her engagement ring-a delicate, glittering lie-sat heavily on her finger, mocking her with its weight. Outside, the world was drenched in grey. Inside, her soul felt just as soaked, just as heavy.

She was twenty-four, poised, polite, and painfully obedient.

The daughter of the once-powerful Rossi family-now reduced to faded elegance and fragile pride-Gold had learned early how to carry silence like armor. How to swallow her protests. How to smile at men who saw her as a transaction.

And tonight, she was the transaction.

"Smile," her mother whispered, adjusting Gold's hair like she was fixing a doll. "He'll be here any moment. Do not ruin this."

Gold didn't respond. Her eyes were fixed on the door.

She'd only met Nicolas De Cruz once. A silent, brooding man with eyes that looked through people like glass. He didn't smile. Didn't touch. Didn't flatter. But he had money-more than enough to pull the Rossi family from their grave. And more than that, he had power. The kind of power that made dangerous men bend the knee.

When he asked for Gold's hand, her father said yes before she could breathe.

"Betrothed to the devil," her cousin had whispered a week ago, laughing under her breath. "Better you than me."

Gold didn't disagree.

The door opened with a hush.

Nicolas stepped in like a shadow-dressed in black, a storm of a man. Tall, lean, with cold eyes and the expression of someone who'd long stopped pretending to be kind. Rain clung to his coat, to the edges of his dark hair. He removed his gloves slowly, deliberately, like a ritual.

Everyone in the room stood.

But his eyes only found one person.

Gold.

He didn't smile. Didn't greet. Just studied her, like he was trying to decide if she was worth what he was about to pay.

"Miss Rossi," he said finally, voice like velvet dragged over glass. "You look... obedient."

Her spine stiffened. Her mother's hand found hers and gave it a warning squeeze.

"I try my best," she replied, her voice calm, even. But inside, she was fire and thorns.

He moved closer. Not fast. Like a man who never had to rush for anything.

"You will marry me in three weeks," he said, skipping past small talk. "You'll move into my estate the day after. You will have access to every part of my life-except the ones I do not give you. And in return, your family's debts are erased. Their disgrace wiped clean."

Her breath caught.

He didn't say if she agreed. Only when.

Gold held his gaze. "What if I say no?"

His brow lifted slightly. "You won't."

And he was right.

Because behind her, her father was sweating with desperation. Her mother's gaze was sharp with warning. And every voice she had ever silenced screamed the same thing:

This is your duty.

This is the price of survival.

So she nodded. Once. Slowly.

Nicolas studied her a moment longer, then handed her a small velvet box.

She opened it with steady hands.

A pendant.

Not a diamond. Not a ring.

A black onyx, shaped like a tear.

"I don't like wearing chains," she said softly, eyes on the necklace.

"You're not wearing it for me," he replied. "You're wearing it to remember who you belong to now."

Her breath hitched. She looked up-and for a split second, she thought she saw something in his gaze that wasn't cruelty.

Just emptiness.

Like someone who'd forgotten how to be human.

"I'll see you soon, fiancée," he said, and turned away before she could answer.

The door shut behind him with a soft, final click.

And Gold felt her lungs empty of air.

This was her life now.

Not love. Not even safety.

Just survival, with the devil holding her leash.

But as she stood in that room, surrounded by people who had sold her for their comfort, she made herself a promise:

She would not be his prisoner forever.

She would learn him.

Unmask him.

And when the time came, she would make her own choice-no matter what it cost her.

Even if that choice burned her to the ground.

Gold didn't cry when Nicolas left.

She didn't scream or tear her hair out or collapse like the heroines in old films did. No. She stood perfectly still, even when the door closed. Even when the guests began to murmur and her father poured himself a drink with shaking hands.

The world had changed in the span of minutes.

And yet, no one asked her how she felt.

Her mother was the first to speak. "You were perfect," she said, smoothing a nonexistent wrinkle from Gold's sleeve. "Exactly what he wanted."

"What you wanted," Gold said quietly.

Her mother's hand paused, then dropped. "Don't start."

"Start what?" she asked. "Start grieving my own life?"

"You're not a child, Gold. We all make sacrifices."

She looked at her mother, really looked at her. At the pearls too tight around her neck, the wrinkles hidden under layers of powder, the glassy way she smiled at people who never truly saw her.

And she wondered, bitterly, when her mother had stopped being a person.

"I'm going to bed," Gold said, stepping away.

"Be grateful," her father called after her, his voice gruff with scotch. "That man just saved this family."

Saved, she thought.

No.

He bought us.

Her footsteps echoed up the marble staircase, soft but certain. She passed the gallery wall of faded portraits-ancestors staring down with dead eyes, all of them symbols of a legacy built on prestige and illusion. Gold had never believed in legacy. Only in the quiet ache of being seen as something to polish and parade.

Inside her room, the door clicked shut behind her like the final note in a song she didn't choose.

She leaned against it and let out a breath she didn't know she was holding.

Her room hadn't changed since she was a teenager-soft lilac walls, a vanity she rarely used, shelves lined with worn novels. But it felt different now. Smaller. Tighter.

Like a cage dressed in silk.

She walked to her mirror, stared at her reflection.

Was she still the same girl?

Brown eyes. A little too wide. Skin golden, lashes long. Her hair, a halo of tight curls, framed her face like a crown she never asked to wear. She touched the onyx pendant around her neck. It was cold against her skin.

Like his voice.

Like his promise.

You belong to me now.

A knock interrupted her thoughts.

She turned.

"Come in."

Her cousin Mara peeked inside, already slipping off her heels. "God, these people never leave on time," she muttered, collapsing on the bed like she owned the place. "So, how does it feel? Being engaged to Gotham's most terrifying billionaire?"

Gold didn't answer.

Mara sat up, watching her carefully. "That bad?"

"It's not real."

"It is now." She paused. "Are you scared of him?"

Gold thought about it. The stillness in Nicolas's eyes. The way he looked at her, like she was a puzzle he already solved.

"I don't know," she said. "But I'm not scared for the reasons you think."

"Then what?"

"I'm scared I'll disappear."

Mara was quiet for a moment. Then, softer, "You're stronger than you think."

Gold gave a humorless smile. "That's the kind of thing people say when they're not the ones getting sacrificed."

Mara didn't argue.

Eventually, they both lay back on the bed, the silence between them filled with old memories-laughter from years ago, the scent of summer at the vineyard, the way they used to dream of freedom before the world taught them the rules.

Gold stared at the ceiling.

Somewhere, Nicolas De Cruz was probably in a car, checking his watch, sending out orders that could end lives.

And she?

She was lying in her childhood bed, betrothed to a man with too much power and no heart.

But she wasn't helpless.

She wouldn't be a martyr in a gilded cage.

Not if she could help it.