The Don's Unwanted Prize.

01:18 PM. The numbers on the clock burned my retinas like a countdown to an execution. Today was the day I stopped being a person and started being a peace treaty.

I rolled out of my bed, a massive, silk-sheeted island that suddenly felt like a coffin. My head throbbed, a brutal reminder of the cheap liquor I'd used to try and drown out the sunrise. It hadn't worked. It never worked.

"Luca! Are you up?" Tatiana's voice sliced through my skull.

"Stop screaming, Tati," I groaned, shielding my eyes. My sister pushed into the room, her eyes full of that suffocating pity I hated.

"Father wants you sorted," she whispered.

"Like he cares," I snapped, the bitterness sharp in my throat. "He's just happy to finally sell off the unwanted son"

I walked into the bathroom, catching my reflection. I looked like a ghost. This war with the North had turned us all into monsters or corpses. My father, Don De Santis, had 'solved' it with this marriage. A genius move for him; a life sentence for me.

"Lucas. If you mess this up, you'll wish you were never born."

My father's voice was a cold blade at my neck. He stood in the doorway, his shadow stretching across the room like a predator.

I recoiled, my skin crawling as Tatiana scurried away. He didn't look at me with love; he looked at me like a product he hoped wouldn't break before the sale.

Once he left, I retreated to the shower, turning the water hot enough to scald. I wanted to wash the 'South' off me, to burn away the horror of the day before it even began.

When I stepped out, a beige suit waited on the bed. Beside it, a note from Tati and my "favorite" hidden in the vanity drawer: Xanax. I didn't take one. I took two. I washed them down with a swig of wine, waiting for the chemical fog to settle the screaming in my nerves.

Just as the numbness started to bleed in, my father burst back in. No knock. No respect. He grabbed me, turning me around roughly. He wasn't checking my tie; he was checking for the wire he'd forced me to wear.

"King of the North," he hissed, checking the device. He already expected me to betray him. He'd hated me ever since my twin, Enzo, outed me in middle school. I could still feel the sting of his spit on my face from that day.

"Come on, pretty son," he said, smiling. "Let's get you married."

I put on my Ray-Bans. I wasn't Luca anymore. I was a mask. I walked down the stairs with a fake swagger, hiding the pain in my chest with every dancey step.

The drive to the church was a blur of black SUVs and cold dread. When the doors opened, the air left my lungs. Silas Vane stood at the altar in charcoal black. He was a statue of ice and power. At 6'5", he towered over my 5'1" frame.

He looked at me like a wolf watching a wounded deer. I looked at him and could swear he smirked.

He smirked. My legs buckled; half from the drugs, half from the sheer, terrifying gravity of the man waiting to own me.

The priest spoke, but I only heard the silence of the crowd.

"If anyone has an objection..."

A cough echoed from the back. In a flash, Silas didn't turn to look; he drew his gun at the altar and aimed it at the heart of the crowd.

Don De Santis couldn't handle the fury of the North. Nobody can. He spent a year trying to steal my shipments and take over my streets, and all he got for it was a pile of body bags.

He finally realized that you don't play games with the Vane family. We have owned this city for decades. We are old money built on silence and iron. He is new money, built on noise and chaos. So, he did what all cowards do when they are losing. He crawled to me and begged for peace.

He offered me a treaty in the most unlikely way: a marriage. He wanted to tie our bloodlines together so I wouldn't finish what I started. I'm not entirely sure why I agreed to this charade, but I am a man of my word. If a wedding stops the bloodbath for a while, I will take the deal. But I don't believe in peace. Peace is just a quiet moment between two wars. It is the time a man takes to reload his gun.

I stood at the altar of St. Anne Cathedral, my back a straight line of iron. I didn't feel like a groom. I felt like a general waiting for a surrender. The church was cold, the way I prefer it. The smell of incense and old stone filled the air, but all I could think about was the last time I stood in a place like this.

Fifteen years ago, I was a different man. I was thirty years old, and I thought I knew how the world worked. I married Claire because it was expected of me. She was a woman of high standards, a perfect queen for the North. She was soft, elegant, and never asked questions about the blood on my shirts. We were the perfect pair until a car bomb meant for me turned her Mercedes into a ball of fire on Lake Shore Drive.

I remember the heat of that day. I remember the smell of burning rubber and the way the glass looked like diamonds on the pavement. I didn't cry at her funeral. I didn't scream. I just became cold. I spent the next ninety days hunting down every single person involved in that hit. I didn't just kill them; I erased them. Claire's death taught me the only lesson that matters: softness is a liability.

Love is a weakness that people use to destroy you. Since that day, I haven't let anyone close enough to hurt me. I lived in a fortress of my own making, alone and satisfied.

And now, here I was again. A widower at forty-five, standing in a church waiting for a boy who wasn't even born when I started running this city.

I looked out at the pews, analyzing the church like a tactical map. The divide was clear. On the left sat the North. My people. They were dressed in charcoal black, sitting perfectly still. They didn't whisper. They didn't move. They were statues of discipline. On the right sat the South. The De Santis clan. They were a nightmare of bad taste. They wore bright gold chains, loud silk shirts, and too much cologne. They were restless, shifting in their seats and whispering like children. They were trash wrapped in expensive labels.

Don De Santis sat in the front row, looking proud of himself. He thinks this marriage is a victory. He thinks he has bought his safety by giving me his son. He is a fool. He hasn't bought peace; he has just given me a hostage. Once the boy is under my roof, the Don will be on a leash. I will own his most precious asset, and I will use that asset to dismantle the South from the inside out.

The organ music started to play. It was a deep, heavy sound that felt more like a warning than a celebration. The massive doors at the back of the church opened, and the air shifted.

I checked my watch. 02:28 PM. He was late. That was the first strike. I don't tolerate lateness. It shows a lack of respect and a lack of control.

Then, I saw him.

I saw him, the bratty, spoiled prince of the south, taking the aisle towards me. He looked drunk or something, and for a minute, he looked like he wanted to run. Not only was the Southside chaotic. They are cowards, too. This is gonna be quite an adventure.

He was wearing a beige suit, which was a ridiculous choice. He was small, barely over five feet tall, and he looked like he was drowning in the ceremony. He was wearing dark Ray-Bans inside a dim church, which was the height of arrogance. He stumbled slightly as he walked, his movements hazy and unfocused. I could tell immediately that he was medicated. I've seen enough addicts and nervous wrecks to know the look. His father probably had to drug him just to get into the car. It was pathetic.

As he reached the altar, the space between us felt electric. I am six-foot-five and built like a wall; he was a tiny, trembling bird in comparison. He stopped a few feet away, swaying on his feet. He looked like he might pass out right there on the marble floor. I didn't reach out to steady him. I don't help people who can't stand on their own.

He slowly reached up and took off the sunglasses.

I expected to see glazed, empty eyes. I expected to see a boy who had completely given up. But I was wrong. When he looked up at me, his eyes were red and tired, but they were burning with a fierce, violent hatred. He didn't just dislike me; he wanted me dead. He looked at me with more fire than any of the soldiers I had faced in the last year.

Interesting, I thought. Maybe there was something under the surface after all.

"You're late," I said. My voice was low, meant only for him.

He blinked, his breath smelling of wine and chemicals. He didn't flinch. Instead, he leaned in just an inch. "And you're old," he whispered back. His voice was messy and slurred, but the insult was sharp.

I felt a tinge of a smile pull at the corner of my mouth. Almost. Most people are too afraid to breathe in my presence, and this drugged-up boy was insulting me at his own wedding. This was going to be more entertaining than I thought.

The priest began to speak, his voice shaking. He knew this wasn't a marriage of love. He knew he was presiding over a business transaction between two monsters. He hurried through the words, his eyes darting between the North and the South pews as if he expected a riot to break out at any second.

I kept my eyes on Luca. He was vibrating. I looked at his hands; they were soft and manicured. He had never worked a day in his life. He was a doll, a pretty thing used to settle a debt. I wondered how long he would last in the North before the cold broke him.

"If anyone has an objection why these two should not be married," the priest said, his voice rising in pitch, "speak now or forever hold your peace..."

The silence that followed was heavy. It was the kind of silence that happens right before a bomb goes off. I could hear the wind howling outside the cathedral, battering against the stained-glass windows.

Then, it happened.

A cough.

It was sharp and sudden, coming from the South side of the church. In my world, a cough is never just a cough. It is the sound a man makes to tell his friends to get ready. My brain immediately went into combat mode. I didn't look at the crowd. I didn't look at the Don. I analyzed the sound and the timing.

In one fluid motion, I reached inside my tuxedo jacket. My hand found the cold, familiar grip of my 1911. I drew the weapon with a speed that made the priest gasp. I didn't point it at the ceiling. I leveled the barrel directly at the row where the cough had come from.

Screams broke out. The North side stood up in unison, their hands growing to their own holsters. The South side scrambled, knocking over pews in their panic. The priest dove behind the altar like he was seeking cover in a trench.

But I wasn't looking at them. I was looking at Luca.

He hadn't moved. He hadn't screamed. He didn't even look surprised. He stood there, swaying slightly, staring down the barrel of my gun with a look of total exhaustion. He didn't look like he was afraid of dying. He looked like he was disappointed that I hadn't pulled the trigger yet.

"Finally," he mumbled, his voice so quiet I almost missed it. "Do it."

I stared at him over the sights of my pistol. My finger was steady on the trigger. I realized in that moment that this boy wasn't just a bratty prince. He was suicidal. He was a tragedy wrapped in white silk, and he wanted me to be his executioner.

For the first time in over a decade, I felt a jolt of genuine curiosity. I wasn't bored anymore.

"Nobody moves," I shouted, my voice booming through the church, silencing the chaos. "Or I shoot the groom first."

I watched the light in Luca's eyes. He didn't blink. He just waited. And for the first time, I wondered what kind of hell he had been living in to make a man like me look like an escape.

Usually, the thick and heavy glass insulation drowned out the world, leaving me in the peaceful vacuum of my own thoughts. But today, the silence was jagged. It was occupied by the frantic, shallow breathing of the boy sitting three feet away from me.

I didn't need to look at Luca De Santis to know he was falling apart. I could smell it on him; the sharp, bitter scent of fear mixed with the floral notes of too much expensive wine and the chemical sweetness of whatever he'd popped before walking down the aisle.

I sat perfectly still, my legs crossed at the knee, watching the blurred grey of Chicago suburbs turn into the sharp, steel lines of the North Side. I felt the weight of my wedding ring, a brand-new band of heavy platinum. I felt like a shackle, though I was the one holding the key.

Fifteen years ago, when I sat in a car like this with Claire, the air had been filled with the scent of lilies and her soft laughter. She had been a prize of tradition. Luca? Luca was a prize of war. He was a sacrificial lamb dressed in white silk, sent to my altar to stop me from erasing his bloodline from the map.

I glance at him. He was slumped against the door, his head resting against the window. He was still wearing those ridiculous dark glasses. He looked like a child playing dress-up in his father's clothes, hiding behind plastic lenses as if they could protect him from the reality of who I was.

"You can take the glasses off, Luca," I said. My voice was calm, cutting through the hum of the engine. "The sun isn't out, and I've already seen how much you hate me. There's no point in hiding it now."

He didn't move. He didn't even flinch. He just stayed there, a little pile of discarded South Side trash, trying to pretend to be invisible.

"I like the view better this way," he slurred. His voice was thick, his tongue clumsy from the drugs. "It filters out the parts of this wedding I didn't sign up for. Which is... well, all of it. Everything."

I felt a spark of something not quite amusement, but close. Most people in this city spoke to me in whispers or with a stammer. This boy, even when he was half-comatose, had a tongue like a razor. It was the only part of him that seemed to have any spine.

"You signed the papers. You walked the aisle. You belong to the Vane name now," I reminded him. I turned my head, fixing my gaze on the side of his face. I wanted to see him crumble. I wanted to see the exact moment he realized that his father's protection was a shadow. "And in my house, we don't hide behind the plastic."

He finally moved. It was a slow, shaky motion. He reached up and pulled the glasses off, tossing them onto the floor mat as if they were trash. When he looked at me, I saw the storm I'd noticed at the altar. His eyes were bloodshot, his pupils blown wide from the chemicals, but the hate was still there; vivid and burning.

"Happy now, King?" he snapped. He tried to pull himself upright, attempting a swagger that failed miserably because he was vibrating with nerves. "You've got the prize. The unwanted son of the South. Sold for the price of a ceasefire."

I let the silence hang for a moment, letting the weight of it press against him. I didn't reach out. I didn't offer a hand. "Don't flatter yourself, Luca," I said, my voice dropping. I wanted him to feel the coldness of the North in his bones. "You weren't a prize. You were a debt. And I always collect what I'm owed."

He looked away, his jaw tightening. I could see the pulse jumping in his neck. He was terrified, but he was fighting it with sarcasm. It was a pathetic defense, but it was all he had.

"My father thinks I'm his spy," he whispered.

I stayed silent. I already knew this. I knew Don Santis wouldn't send his son into my home without a leash.

"He put a wire on me," Luca continued, the honesty spilling out of him. It was the drugs, I suspected. They made him loose-lipped. "He wants to know where you keep the bodies buried."

I finally shifted my position. I leaned in, invading the small space he had claimed for himself. I watched his eyes go wild, his body tensing as he tried to pull back further into the leather. He looked like he expected a blow. His father must have used his hands often; the boy had the reflexes of a beaten dog.

"Stay away from me," he hissed.

"Sit still," I commanded.

I didn't hurt him. I wasn't a brute like his father. Brutes were messy; I was surgical. I reached out and gripped the lapel of his beige jacket. I pulled him toward me until I could smell the terror on his skin. I reached inside the silk lining of his suit, my knuckles grazing the warm skin of his chest. He gasped, his breath hitching, his heart hammering against my hand like a trapped bird.

I felt it immediately. A small, hard bump near his collarbone.

With one sharp tug, I ripped the transmitter free. I didn't care about the suit. I didn't care that I'd probably left a faint red mark on his skin. I held the tiny device between my thumb and forefinger, looking at it with the same disgust I felt for his entire family.

"The South is so predictable," I muttered. I lowered the window just enough to feel the bite of the winter air, then flicked the wire into the street. "Your father is a man of low imagination, Luca. He thinks a piece of plastic can bridge the gap between his gutter and my throne."

I let go of him, and he slumped back, breathing hard. He looked smaller now, if that was even possible.

"What are you going to do to me?" he asked. His voice was small, cracking under the pressure. "Kill me? Throw me out? My father said if I mess this up, I'll wish I was never born."

I looked at him. Really looked at him. I saw the bruises under his eyes that no amount of makeup could hide. I saw the way he gripped his own arms as if he were trying to hold himself together.

"You already wish you were never born, little prince," I said. It wasn't an insult; it was an observation. "I could see it in the way you swallow those pills and the way you looked at my gun at the altar. You weren't afraid of the bullet. You were waiting for it."

He didn't answer. He couldn't. The truth was too heavy for a boy like him to carry.

We fell back into silence as the car slowed. We were entering my territory now. The Lake Shore Drive estate. It was a monument of glass and black stone, standing against the crashing waves of Lake Michigan. It was a house built for a man who wanted to see everything and be seen by no one.

The driver pulled the car to a stop in front of the grand entrance. The silent valet opened the door, and the Chicago wind roared inside, bringing with it the scent of salt and ice.

I stepped out first, and the cold air felt like a homecoming. I stood by the door and watched Luca. He didn't want to get out. He looked at the house as if it were a prison.

I offered him my hand. Not because I cared if he fell, but because I wanted him to acknowledge the shift in power. He looked at my palm, his eyes narrowing, then he deliberately ignored it. He climbed out on his own, his legs shaking, trying to walk with a 'dancey' strut that was entirely faked.

I followed him up the steps. He stopped at the massive iron door, his hand trembling as he reached for the handle. He turned to look at me, the rain starting to dampen his dark hair, making him look even younger.

"This isn't a home, Silas," he said, trying to find his sarcasm again. "It's a museum. And I'm just the latest exhibit, right? 'The Broken Prince of the South'?"

I didn't give him the satisfaction of a response. I reached past him, pushed the heavy door open, and ushered him into the dark, marble foyer. The moment the door slammed shut, the world outside disappeared.

I turned to him. The house was dimly lit, shadows stretching across the high ceilings. "The bedroom is upstairs," I said, pointing to the grand staircase. "One bed. One room. I suggest you get comfortable, Luca."

He looked at the stairs, his breath catching in his throat. He looked like he was staring at the gallows.

"What if I don't want to go up?" he challenged.

I stepped into his space one more time, pinning him against the wall with my presence alone. I leaned down until my lips were brushing his ear. "Then I'll carry you," I said. "But one way or another, you're staying where I can see you."

I felt him shiver. "And Luca? If I find another pill on you, you'll learn exactly why they call me the King of the North."

I stepped back, watching him. He didn't say a word. He just turned and started climbing the stairs, his shoulders hunched, heading toward the room where he would spend his first night as my husband.

I watched him go, my hand resting on the banister. The night was just beginning, and I had a feeling the South had sent me something much more dangerous than a spy. They had sent me a reason to feel again.

And that was the most dangerous thing of all.