Bound Bride of Ruin

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

ROSALIA

Oh God. Oh God. What am I doing?

I stand frozen at the edge of the mattress in my husband’s bedroom. On the silk sheets, Luciano lets out a low, ragged snore, his heavy arm draped uselessly over the side.

He always sleeps like a dirty pig, but the sound is heavier tonight, thick and drug-induced. Right now, he is being held under by the heavy dosage of sleeping pills I crushed into his drink a while ago.

My heart pounds a frantic rhythm against my ribs. I look down at my hands, my fingers still tingling from the sheer pressure it took to grind the sedatives between two silver spoons.

I don’t regret it. Not for a single second.

It took longer than I expected for his speech to slur, then for his eyes to lose focus, and now, finally, he is completely under.

I force myself to wait a few more agonizing minutes, watching the slow rise and fall of his chest to be absolutely certain he’s unconscious.

God, I hate looking at this old beast’s face.

Looking at Luciano only invites the rot of the last ten years—the sharp sting of his palms, the casual humiliation in front of his brothers, and the absolute isolation of being the eldest Caruso daughter, sacrificed by a greedy father for a dynasty alliance.

I have only survived this long by becoming a ghost. I learned to give him a perfectly composed, obedient public wife while keeping my real thoughts entirely unreadable.

But those thoughts aren’t very unreadable right now.

In the quiet of this dark, cavernous bedroom, the mask has finally slipped. I can feel the raw weight of the emotions anchoring themselves to my features. The pure, unadulterated hatred. The disgust. The blistering anger.

Luciano snores again, a wet, heavy sound, and I tear my gaze away.

Time is ticking. I have to move.

I slip out of his bedroom, the heavy oak door clicking shut behind me with agonizing finality.

Down the dimly lit corridor, a maid catches my eye from afar and immediately drops her head, quietly bowing in deference. I force my shoulders to drop, forcing a mask of placid indifference over my features. My pulse is electric, hot and nervous, but I don't let it show.

It is normal for the staff to see me roaming the halls so late. They know the routine. I only ever cross the threshold into Luciano’s room when he summons me for sex, and the moment the grunting, sweaty, unbearable activity is over, I leave. I never stay the night.

I make a straight line for my own bedroom, but I can't afford to linger. I have to leave, do my business, and return before the drug wears off.

Moving with practiced, silent speed, I slip a dark wool coat over my shoulders.

I don't grab a purse—purses carry ID, tracking tags, things that leave a digital footprint.

Instead, I just push the small, clear plastic bottle of my birth control pills deep into my coat pocket, right alongside a thick stack of folded cash.

The moment I step out the side door of the DeLorenzo estate, the cold midnight air hits my face like a physical slap.

I keep my head down, keeping to the blind spots and avoiding the main driveway where the security cameras cut through the dark.

I take the narrow gravel path that snakes toward the outer perimeter, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs, threatening to choke me.

If Luciano wakes up early, I am dead. If the guards catch me crossing the property without permission, I will be dragged right back to his bed, and the consequences will be worse than anything I have survived in the last ten years.

But staying still is no longer an option.

Two weeks ago, the sudden waves of morning sickness started. Yesterday, the test confirmed my worst nightmare: I am pregnant.

With child.

The memory of those two pink lines turns my blood to pure ice and sends a violent churn through my stomach.

For years, I have been meticulous about my birth control, finding a way to buy it without anyone knowing and waking up at the exact same time every morning to swallow the tiny tablet.

It was the one invisible boundary I had drawn in the dirt—the single, solitary part of my life I thought I still controlled.

I swore an oath to myself that I would never bring a child into Luciano’s kingdom, never give that monster a helpless piece of leverage to ensure I could never run away. A child will trap me in this marriage forever.

Yet, against all odds, the test is positive.

I finally reach the edge of the estate property, my fingers finding the loose section of iron fencing I scouted months ago. Squeezing through, I step onto the cracked asphalt of the public road, my breath forming small, ragged white clouds in the dark.

I need answers. I need a doctor who can't be bought by the DeLorenzo name, and I need to end this before it becomes a cage I can never break out of. Walking briskly into the shadows of the city, I don't look back.

I walk nearly a mile away from the house, slipping through the darkest corners of the neighborhood until I finally reach the main highway to flag down a taxi.

My husband, Luciano DeLorenzo, is a dangerous man whose reach spans the entire city, and his name carries a weight that terrifies everyone in his path. I cannot risk going anywhere near our usual medical circles.

Instead, I chose a tiny, struggling clinic on the absolute outskirts of the city that I stumbled across during a hidden internet search.

It is small, rundown, and desperate enough for cash that I can maintain my anonymity—the kind of place where I can get away with things a major hospital would flag immediately.

As the taxi zooms down the empty roads, I rest my aching head against the cool glass of the window, watching the streetlights blur into long streaks of yellow. A cold wave of fear washes over me as I think about my life and how utterly terrifying this night is.

Stepping out into the dark like this seems like something my younger sister, Sienna, is more likely to do. She is the rebel of the family, the one who lets her heart run wild. I have always been the eldest, the dutiful daughter, the one who calculates every move to protect the others.

Yet here I am, running through the midnight shadows alone.

Eventually, the car slows to a crawl, pulling up to a dimly lit, unassuming concrete building. I pay the driver in cash, push the heavy car door open, and step down onto the pavement.

The air inside the clinic is thick with the sterile scent of cheap bleach, and the fluorescent lights hum a low, irritating buzz against the peeling wallpaper.

It is exactly what I expected: small, poorly equipped, and desperately lacking the polished luxury of the private doctors people in my circle employ.

A nurse with tired eyes approaches me from behind a scratched laminate desk, sliding a clipboard forward. When she asks for my information, the lie leaves my lips without a single tremor.

"Amelia Williams," I tell her.

I have arranged every detail with agonizing care. I paid for the burner phone in cash, used an encrypted browser to find this place, and made sure no paper trail could ever link this midnight appointment back to Rosalia DeLorenzo.

Because I have made up my mind to take this pregnancy out of me. After ten years of being knocked around and physically punished by my wild beast of a husband, I will not give him the ultimate victory of turning my own body into a cage. It will not happen. For once, I will stand up for myself.

Within ten minutes, I am escorted to a cold examination room. The doctor, a balding man whose white coat has seen better days, looks at me with a quiet understanding that I am paying for his discretion as much as his medical advice.

Before he can even begin the ultrasound, I pull the small plastic bottle from my coat pocket and place it firmly on the metal tray between us.

"I need you to test these," I say, my voice tight. "I need to understand how this pregnancy happened. I’ve taken one of these at the exact same time every single day for years."

The doctor frowns, picking up the bottle.

He unscrews the cap, tips a few of the tiny pink tablets into his gloved palm and walks over to a small cabinet where a basic chemical testing kit sits.

The silence in the room stretches, suffocating me, until he finally turns back around with a grim expression.

"These aren't birth control, Ms. Williams," he says softly. "They’re standard over-the-counter vitamins. The coating has been dyed to match a generic contraceptive, but the active hormones are entirely absent."

The room tilts on its axis.

A cold, sickening wave of clarity hits me, knocking the breath right out of my lungs.

Luciano knew.

He knew I was secretly trying to prevent a pregnancy, and instead of confronting me, he chose a far more twisted punishment. He replaced my pills without a word, turning my own body against me and forcing me into the one future I had fought the hardest to avoid.

He wanted to chain me to his side forever, and he used my own biological clock to do it.

"I want it out," I say, my voice dropping to a harsh, lethal whisper.

I look at the doctor with an angry conviction that burns away the last trace of my shock and doubts. I will not carry Luciano's legacy. I will not let that monster win.

The doctor’s brow furrows, and he immediately steps back, shaking his head.

"Ms. Williams, I can't do that. It’s almost midnight, we don't have the standard intake paperwork, and performing an unscheduled procedure under these conditions poses severe liabilities for this clinic."

He is hiding behind medical jargon, but I know what he really means. He doesn't want the risk.

Without a word, I sink my hand deep into my coat pocket and pull out some of the thick wad of hundred-dollar bills I brought with me. I drop it onto the metal desk beside me with a heavy, deliberate thud.