Chapter 3 Terms of Surrender

Serena's POV

The contract was delivered the next morning - hand-bound leather, stamped with gold foil, and thick enough to choke a horse.

I found it waiting for me at the breakfast table, beside a plate of croissants I didn't order and a cup of black coffee I didn't drink. A silent message from the man I was supposed to marry. No note this time. He didn't need one.

It was all there in ink and cruelty.

I flipped through the pages, skimming the clauses.

"No independent travel without prior clearance."

"Zero tolerance for public dissent or defamation."

"All assets jointly acquired shall remain under Moretti oversight."

Page after page carved away pieces of me. My voice. My freedom. My very name.

The worst clause? Buried on page twenty-three: "Should the wife breach any of the above terms, including emotional infidelity, the Moretti family reserves full right to determine corrective action."

Corrective action.

Not consequences. Not divorce. Action.

That wasn't marriage. That was a prison sentence without walls.

And still, I knew what I had to do.

---

By noon, I was in my father's study, demanding an audience.

"I want a lawyer," I said.

"You have one," he replied, not looking up from his phone.

"Not one of yours. Not one of Luca's. Mine."

His eyes lifted. "You already signed the contract."

"No. I haven't."

A pause. He set the phone down slowly. "What are you planning?"

"Protection," I said. "You sold me to a man who eats weakness. I'm not going into that house blind."

He studied me, fingers steepled beneath his chin. "And what would this... lawyer of yours do?"

"Read. Redline. Add one clause."

His jaw twitched. "What clause?"

"If there's no child after one year, either party can walk."

Caprini tilted his head. "And you think Luca will allow that?"

"I don't care what Luca allows," I said. "I want it in writing."

---

I got my clause.

I used a pen with red ink and scrawled it neatly between paragraphs, like blood on snow. Matteo watched me sign it. Not a word. Not a warning. Just a long, haunted stare.

When I turned to leave, he stopped me with a single question.

"You think you can outplay him?"

"I don't have to outplay him," I said. "I just have to survive him."

He looked away. "Luca kills the women who cross him."

Something cold slithered down my spine. "How do you know?"

"Because I've seen the tape."

---

Luca's POV

I received the amended contract an hour later.

The clause was clever. Not desperate. Strategic.

It surprised me more than it should've.

Most women in this world, when forced to marry a man like me, either cry or run. Serena didn't flinch. She negotiated.

I respected that. Even admired it.

Didn't mean I'd let her win.

I stood at the balcony of the Caprini estate, the city humming far below. My second-in-command, Nico, stood beside me. He'd been silent since the meeting ended.

"She's smart," Nico finally said.

"She's dangerous," I replied.

He gave a tight nod. "You like that."

"I don't have to like it. I just have to control it."

He hesitated. "And if you can't?"

I looked out at the skyline.

"Then I'll break her."

---

Serena's POV

I wore white the day I signed my life away.

Not the wedding kind. A silk blouse, high-waisted pants, clean lines. Power disguised as elegance. I wasn't going to give Luca the satisfaction of seeing me fragile. If this was surrender, it would be done on my terms.

He was waiting in the garden.

Of all the places to finalize a mafia marriage, the rose garden felt like a joke. Thorns and blood. Maybe that was the point.

He didn't rise as I approached. Just watched me.

"I expected your father," he said.

"He's done negotiating."

"Is that what this is to you? Negotiation?"

I sat across from him, ignoring the armed guards lurking at the edge of the hedges.

"It's survival."

He gestured toward the contract on the table. "The clause. The twelve months."

"Yes."

"You think you'll want out by then?"

I held his gaze. "I know I will."

He said nothing for a moment. Then he leaned forward, elbows on the table.

"You want a child?"

"No."

"Then why limit the escape to one year?"

"Because it's enough time for the world to believe the lie."

He nodded slowly. "So this is all just pretend?"

I smiled coldly. "Isn't everything in your world?"

He signed the contract.

No hesitation. No comment. Just a swipe of his pen.

Then he passed it to me.

I signed second.

And just like that, I became his property in ink and law.

---

The sun had started to set when he walked me back toward the house. We said nothing. There was nothing to say.

At the threshold, he paused.

"I'll pick you up tomorrow. Seven a.m."

"For what?"

"To move in."

I turned to him. "You expect me to pack by dawn?"

"No," he said. "You won't be packing anything."

"Excuse me?"

"Everything you own has already been duplicated in my house. You're not bringing your past with you."

My stomach turned. "You really are a monster."

He leaned in, not quite touching, voice barely above a whisper.

"You married one."

---

Luca's POV

I watched her walk away without looking back.

She was fuming. Good.

Anger was fuel. I could work with anger.

She was already trying to bend the rules - testing boundaries, drawing her lines in the sand. But she hadn't realized yet: in this world, there are no lines. Only knives.

Nico stepped beside me. "You trust her?"

"No."

"You attracted to her?"

I gave him a look.

He smirked. "Thought so."

I turned back to the garden.

Let her scheme. Let her sharpen her claws and pretend she's in control.

The game was just beginning.

And no one beats the Devil at his own table.

---

Serena's POV

That night, I burned my old journals. Every note, every memory, every name that once mattered. I watched them crumble to ash in the Caprini fireplace.

Tomorrow, I would enter Luca Moretti's world.

But I would not enter it empty-handed.

Hidden inside my coat was a flash drive.

And on it... secrets.

His secrets.

I just had to survive long enough to use them.