2. He Finds Her #3
A wife. Not a partner, not a lover — a strategic asset. A woman willing to sign her name next to mine and stand in front of the family and play the part. Someone with no connections to exploit, no ambitions to manage, and no loyalties that conflict with mine.
Someone who needs something badly enough to say yes.
Marco and Gianna watch me, waiting for a decision, a direction, the command that will set the machine in motion. They're good at waiting; they've done it their entire careers.
"That will be all," I say.
They leave. The door closes. The clock ticks.
I sit in the dark for a long time.
The study has no overhead lights — just the desk lamp and the fireplace, both off.
The only illumination comes from the city beyond the windows, a distant orange glow that makes the room feel like the inside of an ember.
My father's chair. My father's desk. My father's rules, reaching out from whatever hell he's burning in to shape the life I'm still living.
I turn my signet ring. A habit — the only nervous tic I've never been able to train out of myself.
The ring is heavy, made of old gold, engraved with the De Santis crest. Vittorio put it on my finger the day he told me I was the heir, not Sebastian.
I was nineteen; Sebastian was twenty-three. Neither of us was the same after that.
Vittorio called it an honor.
Sebastian called it what it was.
A punishment dressed like a crown.
My father had a gift for turning love into a competition no one could survive.
He never had to raise his voice to divide us.
He only had to look at one son longer than the other.
Only had to place a hand on my shoulder while Sebastian stood three feet away, silent and burning.
Only had to say my name with approval and his with correction.
Little by little, he made brotherhood feel like a room with only one chair.
Sebastian was my brother before he was my rival.
Before my father taught us that blood did not make us equal.
Before every dinner became a test, every mistake became evidence, every success became something stolen from the other.
There were years when Sebastian still laughed with me.
Years when he still dragged me out of trouble and lied for me without thinking.
Years when I would have trusted him with my life because he was my life.
Then Vittorio chose me.
And somehow, that choice took both of us.
I did not ask for the ring. I did not ask for the title.
I did not ask to watch my brother’s face close off while my father smiled like he had built something powerful instead of breaking something sacred.
But I kept the ring on. I wore it because refusing it would have been weakness, and in this family, weakness was the only sin worse than betrayal.
Maybe that was the first thing Sebastian never forgave me for.
Not that Father chose me.
That I let him.
Then I think about Sofia Marino's file: the $211 in her savings account, the $800,000 transplant, and the insurance letter stating her mother's life-saving procedure wasn't medically necessary.
I think about her standing behind that counter, holding a coffee pot like a sword, telling me to get in line behind the billing department.
I think about the marriage clause. Thirty days. A wife. A woman who has nothing to lose and everything to gain.
Two problems. Two desperate, impossible problems that have no business being connected.
One solution.
I sit with it. I turn it over. I examine it from every angle, looking for a flaw, a weakness, a point where it might break.
A contract marriage. A transaction. Clean, defined, temporary.
She gets her mother's life. I get my father's throne.
Neither of us gets tangled in the other's world longer than necessary.
It's cold. It's calculated. It's the kind of thinking that built this family.
It's also the first idea I've had in forty-eight hours that makes the knot behind my sternum loosen by a fraction.
I pick up the phone.
Marco answers on the third ring, his voice rough with sleep. “Matteo?”
“Draft the contract.”
Silence sharpens on the other end.
“What contract?”
“The marriage contract.”
This time, the silence lasts longer.
“Matteo,” Marco says carefully, “it’s after midnight.”
“Then you’ll have it done before morning.”
A slow breath. Papers rustle, like he’s already reaching for a pen because he knows better than to ask if I’m serious.
“Name?”
“Sofia Marino.”
Another pause. Smaller this time. Smarter.
“You’re serious about this.”
I turn the signet ring once around my finger. “I’m not in the habit of repeating myself.”
Marco says nothing.
“Full protection clause,” I continue. “Financial support. Medical coverage for her mother. I’ll tell you more details in the morning. And a termination penalty severe enough that no one mistakes this for temporary.”
“Does she know about any of this?”
My jaw tightens.
“She will tomorrow.”
I hang up before he can say anything else.
Then I call Enzo.
He answers on the first ring, just as he always does.
“Bring her to me,” I say.
Silence. One beat. Two. Enzo is measuring the words, reading the tone, doing the calculation he has done a thousand times — whether this is an order he follows or the one he questions.
“When?” he asks.
“Tomorrow.”
“And if she refuses?”
I look toward the window, at the city burning orange beyond the glass.
“Then make sure she understands I’m not asking twice.”
Another pause. “Yes, boss.”
I hang up.
I set the phone on the desk. I stare at it for a long time, the way you stare at a match after you’ve struck it — watching the flame, knowing what it’s about to burn, unable to look away.
The clock ticks.
Sixty days.
Thirty days to find a wife.
I think I already have one.