Bound To The Wrong Sister

[ IRIS'S POV ]

The air to the grand ballroom of the Russo estate was thick with the scent of money, blood, and a thousand freshly cut roses.

Chandeliers dripped light softly, making the room look alive. So much that it's reflecting off the polished marble floors where the elite of the underworld mingled.

Tonight was not just a celebration, it was a truce, a public peace-making and alliance between the Russo and the Moretti families, and an end to a decade-long feud that had painted the streets of New York red.

I hate galas. I hate the forced laughter that never reaches anyone's eyes.

The whispered behind crystal glasses, the way every glance weighed on me like a number written in blood. I would kill to be anywhere but here.

My name is Iris Russo. Nineteen. Old enough to be exchanged, young enough to be ignored.

I lingered where I always did, near the velvet curtains, half swallowed by shadow. A place where I would be hardly noticed or never. My dark red dress was simple, almost severe. I wore it like armor.

Sofia never did.

She didn't need to. Because she was born into this. To be daddy's little heir and princess.

She stood beside our father as she belonged there, and the room had been built for her. Well, tonight's gala is also in her name.

Ivory silk hugged her body. Sequins caught the light with every move she made. Blonde hair. Perfect wave.

A smile trained. Warm enough to calm a soul, hard enough to set a fire. To disarm men and kill for sport.

"Iris, I knew I would find you here." She murmured as she passed me, lips curved sweetly, eyes sharp." You look like you're waiting for a coffin, like we're here for a burial and not a celebration.

"Someone has mourned what this family used to be," I replied quietly but enough to hear. " And you're busy selling what's left."

Her smile tightened, just for a moment and it was gone as quickly as it came, just like a pro that she is.

"Careful," she said softly." People mistake bitterness for weakness."

"You and I both know I'm not bitter, sister." I said using my eyes to trace the room." This is not just my style."

"What is your style, Iris? staying in the room reading and acting like a widow?" I looked at her, to reply.

But she drifted away before I could. Sofia answered the rule. And she lived by them.

---------

The room shifted. The kind of quiet that settles before violence. Announcing a powerful presence even before he set foot in the hall.

All the guests in the room turned in the direction of the door as it opened.

Salvatore Moretti.

He didn't walk in, he claimed the space. Tall. Broad. And good looking. He controlled the room as it belonged to him with just his presence.

His suit was charcoal. Neat. Cut to precision. Power rolls off him in waves. Beside him, His father, Vincenzo Moretti smiled like a man who had buried cities.

But Salvatore didn't smile. His eyes swept the room with cold disinterest, men, women, alliances reduced to nothing.

Until they landed in Sofia.

Approval showed in her eyes. calculation, ownership deferred. She was happy he looked her way.

She straightened, radiant. She put on her practiced smile.

Then his gaze moved. Past her. Past my father. and every single soul in the room.

Straight to the shadows. Where I had chosen as my hiding place. And his cold eyes landed on me.

My breath stilled. My world narrowed to the weight of his stare, it wasn't a curiosity. It wasn't a surprise. It was recognition.

As if he had found something misplaced. His eyes darkened and he tilted his head to a side slightly, mouth curving, not into a smile, but a promise. One that says got ya.

Something dark stirred low in my spine.

Then he looked away. I exhaled as if I'd been underwater. I have heard a lot about him. About a boy who was given a gun instead of a book.

"Iris!" My father barked. "Stop hiding. Come here."

I obeyed like I always did.

Sofia's voice cut in smoothly. As soon as I reached their side." This is my sister Iris. She's always shy."

Salvatore turned, I had thought he looked scary. But up close. He was worse. His presence pressed in, heavy, so that my heart is beating against my chest.

There is something about his look I can't lay my hands on. It's like standing close to the devil.

"She doesn't look shy," he said calmly. A voice I did not know a man like him could have. Cool, calm, and enough to calm a soul.

I shifted once on my feet as he bore a hole into my body.

Sofia laughed lightly," She is shy, " she said, not accepting what Salvatore had said.

His eyes never left mine, " No," he murmured," She watches. " I held his gaze, "Observation is safer. He said silently, making sure I caught on to something dark that sparked in his eyes.

He stretched his hand in a gesture, I looked at it for a moment, then placed my hand on his. He took my hand.

Didn't kiss it. Didn't release it.

His thumb brushed my wrist, slow, deliberate.

"Dangerous too," he said under his breath," you hide it well. Didn't you?" he asked, still holding onto my hand.

I stiffened." Let go. " My body went into a spiral. One I could not lay my hands on. His gaze and touch were unsettling me.

His lips curved." Soon." He said, smirking. I knew he felt it. How my body shook under his touch.

He released me as if nothing had happened.

But my skin burned where he touched me.

I eased back to my initial position, where the gala looked like a blurred painting of gold jewelry and spinning silk.

I finally felt like I could breathe, away from the prying eyes and the suffocating tension, but a heavy heat still prickled the back of my neck. Even without looking, I knew Salvatore's eyes were locked on me.

"Hi, Angel."

I jumped, my heart hitting my ribs. Peter, one of Sofia's friends, was leaning against the wall right next to me.

He swirled the ice in his glass, his eyes trailing down my dress in a way that made me want to shrink.

"You look so good tonight, Iris," he said, his voice dropping an octave. "Why don't you come to my table? I can keep you company."

I pressed my back against the cold stone. "No, I'm fine, Peter. I'm good right here."

"You mean in this corner where you're hiding?" He let out a dry, mocking laugh. "Don't be like that."

I looked away, but he stepped closer, blocking my view of the room. He was starting to get under my skin, his presence oily and loud.

"Okay, fine," he smirked, reaching out to brush his fingers against my arm. "Let's use your 'perfect spot' then... so I can make you feel a little less bored."

I didn't like anyone Sofia hung out with. They all felt like snakes in expensive suits.

But as I looked past him and saw Salvatore watching us-his face a mask of cold, silent fury-I felt a spark of defiance. Maybe if I talked to Peter, I could finally stop drowning in the Moretti devil's gaze.

"Fine," I said, stepping out from the pillar.

A waitress appeared out of the crowd, looking breathless as she tapped Peter on the shoulder.

"Mr. Peter?" she said, glancing nervously at Salvatore before looking back at him. "Mr. Moretti sent me. He said if you aren't at his table in three minutes, the deal you've been trying to sign is dead."

Peter's face went pale. The smirk he'd been wearing for the last ten minutes vanished, replaced by a look of pure panic. He looked at me, then at the man sitting like a saint.

"I'm sorry, Iris," he stuttered, already backing away. "I've been chasing that deal for three years. I... I have to go. We'll talk later!"

He didn't just walk, he practically ran toward the VIP section, tripping over his own feet in his rush to please the man who had just been "boring" me.

I turned slowly to look at Salvatore. He wasn't even watching Peter's pathetic retreat. He was looking down at me, a cold, sharp smirk cutting across his face.

The "Moretti devil"

My sister's fiancé

[ IRIS'S POV ]

The Russo estate was a labyrinth of cold marble and echoing silence, but tonight, it felt like a tomb.

The air felt different. Not when two powerful families are in the estate at the moment. To form an alliance that would be sealed in blood.

I lay in the comfort of my bed. My mind went back to the event that had played in the gala.

I could still feel his touch on my hand. After the brush with his skin at the gala. The room felt too small, the air thin.

I needed to breathe, but more Importantly I needed to hide. So I left. Away from the party. Away from people's gazes.

How much I hate parties. Hate being in the same space with a lot of people.

I slipped out of my bedroom, my bare feet silent on the hallway marble floor. I made my way to the library, the only space in the house that didn't feel like a stage set for a mafia play.

It was a two-story sanctuary of mahogany shelves and a comforting scent of old papers.

I didn't turn on the light. The moonlight streaming through the floor-to-ceiling windows was enough to guide me to my favorite book. I sank into the velvet armchair, pulling my knees to my chest.

"You smell of jasmine and rebellion,"

His voice still lived in my ears, a low frequency that made my pulse jump every time I closed my eyes. Do I like it? yes.

Salvatore Moretti was supposed to be my brother-in-law. He was supposed to be the man who secured our family's future.

He wasn't supposed to look at me like I was the only person in the room full of royalty.

I reached into the pocket of my silk robe and pulled out a small, silver locket. I had found it on my pillow three months ago. No note. No card. Just delicate pieces of jewelry with a single petal pressed inside.

It was my favorite flower. A detail I had never told anyone, not even Sofia.

"Do you like it ?"

The voice didn't come from the hallway. It came from the shadow behind the desk, deep and smooth like an expensive bourbon.

I bolted upright, my heart leaping into my throat," Who's there?" I asked, clutching the locket tightly to my chest.

The shadow detached itself from the darkness.

Salvatore.

He wasn't wearing his suit jacket anymore. His white dress shirt was unbuttoned at the collar, the sleeve rolled up to reveal a forearm corded with muscles and marked by the dark ink of tattoos I couldn't quite decipher in the dark.

I hated tattoos, hated how they looked on people. But to him it looked beautiful. So much that I could run my lips on it all day and bathe it with my tongue.

He looked less like a businessman now and more like a killer everyone whispered he was.

"You shouldn't be here," I whispered, my voice trembling." This is my father's private study. If he finds you"

"Then he will do what? He asked moving closer to me," I would like to know what your father would do to me. Especially... when he finds me running my fingers over his precious little daughter.

I shifted back and he walked slowly to me.

"Taking her raw in his private study..." he emphasizes the study just enough to make me know he doesn't give a fuck about what my father thought or thinks.

I take a step away from him. I watched as his muscles flexed under the casual clothes he wore.

The way his lips move. And God. How would it truly feel to have it all over my body? The devil's lips.

"Your father is currently drunk on his vintage, celebrating a deal he thinks he won," Salvatore said, stepping into the silver of moonlight.

"Think he won?" Aren't you here to sign a deal with my father to stop the war and take Sofia as the medal?"

He didn't reply but instead. His eyes were fixed on the locket in my hand.

"And Sofia is dreaming of a wedding that would have been what she expects. He continued.

He takes another step towards me, his gait slow and predatory. I should have run. I should have screamed. But my legs felt like jelly. Gummed to the floor by the sheer weight of his presence.

"The locket," I said, my voice gaining strength," you sent this?"

"Took you long enough to know.Iris." His eyes moved to the locket then back to me.

"I sent all of them," he said, stopping just an inch from me. He was so tall that I had to crane my neck to look at him.

He smelled of sandalwood, expensive tobacco, and something dark, like the woods after a storm." The books. The Lilies on your birthday. The vintage camera you found on your doorstep when you turned eighteen."

My breath hitched."That was you? For five years .... I thought I had a guardian angel. Or a ghost."

"I am no angel, little mouse," he growled, reaching out. I flinched, and he smirked.

At first, I thought he would be angry, and lash out at me.

My father always said men like Salvatore should be giving whatever they want. Obey their every command. But he's not angry.

Instead, he tucked a stray lock of hair behind my ear. His fingers were warm, his touch surprisingly gentle which made it even more terrifying.

"And I am more dangerous than a ghost. A ghost can't touch. Can't keep what belongs to him," he said.

"But me, I will not only touch you, I will spread you apart and ruin you in every way possible, so that you won't have a choice but to come back for more." he continued.

"I did not belong to you, I never did. And I never would. I hissed, though the way my body leaned into his touch betrayed me.

"You're to be engaged to my sister tomorrow, and the papers will be signed tomorrow."

Salvatore laughed, a low, dark sound that sent a shiver down my spine.

"I signed a piece of paper to get into the walls. To be close enough to finally reach out and take what I've been watching from a distance for five long years.

Five years? What the hell did he mean by five years?

"And oh! If you keep saying you did not belong to me, I will have no option but to bend you over a desk here to show you who you belong to. Should we put that in text? Mamasita?"

[ IRIS'S POV ]

Bend me over? Did he just say he would bend me over? Fear crashed into me. So much so that I did not want anything more than to escape. From him. From the estate and all other things.

He watched me, a low smile crossed his face like a flash and it was gone.

"Relax. Iris. I would take you raw. Not now. And definitely not here. That would be in my house. My place, where you actually belong."

He leaned down, his face so close to mine that our noses almost touched." I know everything about you. Iris. I know you hate the taste of champagne but like tea. I know you sneaked out to the garden at 2:00 AM when you couldn't sleep. And in the afternoon when you're bored. I know you have a birthmark shaped like a star on the small of your back."

My blood ran cold ." Have you been watching me? In my room ?"

"From the trees. Through the lens of my camera. From the back of the cars you never noticed. "He confessed,

His voice devoid of shame. In fact, he sounded proud. Obsessed, like he's done a good job. In watching me, invading my privacy.

"I watched you grow from a girl into a woman. I watched men try to approach you at school, men I had to..... discouraged from ever speaking your name again."

The realization hit me like a physical blow. The boys who had suddenly moved away. The teacher who had mysteriously resigned after being too friendly with me.

It wasn't bad luck. It was him. Sofia. Am so sorry for ever thinking of taking him away from you. He's all yours.

I looked at my back for an escape route but found none. Behind me are shelves full of books and if I try to run, he would catch me and who knows what the devil would do to me. So I stayed.

"You're insane," I whispered, tears of frustration and fear pricking my eyes.

"I am obsessed," he corrected, his hand moving from my hair to my throat, his thumb resting over my thudding pulse. He wasn't squeezing, but the threat was there.

"There is a difference. Insane men lose focus. But with you, I have never been more focused in my life. Every move I've made, every war, every war I've fought, everybody I've buried, was to get to this moment. To this house,"

"Why not just ask for me ?" I cried ." If you wanted me so badly, why marry Sofia ?"

Salvatore's eyes darkened, a flash of genuine rage crossing his handsome features ." Because your father would never have given me his precious youngest daughter.

"If you know me like you truly claimed, you would know I am not his precious daughter. I have no interest in the kind of world and businesses he runs. My sister does. So if you want a queen for your dynasty. It's her.

"He wants you for a political trade later. He thinks you're a hidden ace. He used Sofia as the bait, thinking he could keep you for someone else ." he replied unbothered.

He brushed his lips against my ear. " But I didn't play by Lorenzo Rossi's rules. I took the bait so I could burn the whole trap down. By the time this wedding arrives, Sofia would be the least of my problems. And you. Will be in my arms. You belong to me, Iris. Every fiber in you is mine."

I tried to push him away, but my hand landed on his broad chest. It was like trying to move a mountain. He didn't budge instead, he grabbed my wrists, pinning them behind the armchair. He didn't hurt me but the display of strength was absolute.

"Can I kiss you? Iris ?" He asked his mouth almost on mine. I could feel his hot breath on my face.

"Let me go, Salvatore."

"Not until you understand," he said, his voice dropping to a low command." You're going to play the part of the dutiful sister. You are going to help Sofia plan her wedding. You are going to stand at the altar as her bridesmaid.

I won't, "I sobbed." I won't do what you just asked. You belong to my sister. To Sofia.

"You will ." He countered, his eyes burning into mine ." Because if you don't, I'll start taking things away from his family. First, your father's business. Then, your sister's reputation. And finally your freedom. Do you understand, Iris? You are mine.

No...no he can't be serious. He can't stake a claim on me like I'm his.

"You have been since the moment I saw you five years ago standing in the rain outside your school, looking like you wanted to set the world on fire, only that it's me you light it on, and I can feel it burn, deep inside my veins. No one can set it off, not you, not your father, or even a fire extinguisher."

He released my wrist and stepped back , the sudden loss of his heat made me whimper. Lowky. He looked perfectly composed again, as if he hadn't just admitted to stalking me for half a decade.

"Go to sleep, little mouse," he said, glancing towards the door ." And keep the locket. It looks better on you than it did in the box.

Without another word, he melted into the shadows of the library. I stayed in the chair for a long time, my heart racing, the scent of jasmine and sandalwood clinging to my skin like a brand.

I looked at the locket in my hand. It wasn't a gift anymore, it was a leash.

Salvatore Moretti wasn't here to marry into my family. He was here to colonize it. And it was the territory he had achieved.

I was in the same spot for a while trying to stabilize my breathing. I ran a hand through my hair and sighed.

What did he want from you?

A voice said from the door of the library. I turned back slowly. My heart was beating loudly as if it would burst out of my rib cage.

Sofia was standing there with her hand on her waist and I knew she was trying to keep it from shaking.

What did she see?