Chapter 4

The Cathedral of St. Patrick rose before them like a monument to traditions Aurora no longer believed in. She sat in the back of the white Rolls Royce, her wedding dress pooled around her feet like spilled cream, watching guests file through the massive doors. Two hundred people had been invited to witness her transformation from Aurora Santelli into Aurora Cortese—a metamorphosis that felt more like death and resurrection than marriage.

But all Aurora could think about was what would happen after the ceremony. Tonight. The wedding night that loomed ahead like an approaching storm.

"You look beautiful, cara mia," her father said from beside her, but his voice carried the weight of a man attending a funeral rather than his daughter's wedding.

Aurora nodded mutely, her stomach churning with terror. She had spent the morning trying not to think about what Luca would expect from her tonight, about the pain she had heard whispered about by married women, about the blood that would stain the sheets as proof of her purity. Aunt Carmela's brutal words echoed in her mind: *Red blood on white sheets.*

"It's time," Vincent said softly.

The ceremony passed in a blur of terror-tinged fragments. Aurora heard herself speaking vows she didn't mean to a man she barely knew, promising to love and honor someone who would soon have the legal right to do whatever he wanted with her body. When Luca kissed her at the altar, his lips were warm but impersonal—a preview of the more intimate touch that would come later.

The reception felt endless. Aurora smiled and danced and accepted congratulations while dread built in her chest like a weight she could barely carry. Every passing hour brought her closer to the moment when she would be alone with Luca, when he would claim what was now legally his.

She noticed the meaningful looks passing between family members, the way older women smiled at her with something that looked almost like pity. They all knew what awaited her. They had all endured their own wedding nights, their own brutal initiations into wifely duty.

"You're very quiet," Luca observed during a brief moment when they were alone at their table.

Aurora looked up at him—this beautiful, cold stranger who now owned her completely. "Just tired," she managed.

"The evening is nearly over," he said, and something in his tone made her stomach clench with fresh terror. Nearly over meant nearly time to leave. Nearly time for him to take what he had purchased with this marriage.

Around eleven o'clock, Salvatore Cortese approached with that significant look Aurora had been dreading all evening.

"Perhaps it's time for the young couple to retire," he said with a smile that made her skin crawl.

Aurora's hands began to shake. Retirement meant the bedroom. It meant submitting to a man who looked at her with the same emotional investment he might show a piece of furniture he had bought.

"Of course," Luca said, standing and offering Aurora his hand. "Aurora?"

She took his hand because she had no choice, her palm damp with perspiration. The silk of her wedding dress rustled ominously as she stood, the sound like a funeral shroud settling around her.

The drive to Luca's penthouse passed in silence broken only by Aurora's increasingly rapid breathing. She pressed her hands together in her lap to stop them from shaking, but nothing could calm the panic rising in her throat. Beside her, Luca sat with his usual composed stillness, completely unaware of or unmoved by her terror.

*He's going to hurt me,* Aurora thought desperately. *He's going to take what he wants and I can't stop him and no one will help me.*

The penthouse was exactly as she remembered from her brief visit during their engagement—expensive, minimalist, coldly beautiful. Now it felt like a prison she would never leave.

"Would you like a drink?" Luca asked as they entered the main living area.

Aurora shook her head, not trusting her voice. Alcohol would only make her more vulnerable, less able to endure whatever he planned to do to her.

"Your things have been moved to the master bedroom," Luca said, pouring himself a scotch. "Rosa unpacked everything this afternoon."

The master bedroom. Where it would happen. Aurora's breathing became even more shallow.

"She's prepared the room according to... traditional expectations."

White sheets. For the blood. Aurora felt nauseous.

"Luca," she whispered, then stopped. What could she possibly say? *Please don't hurt me?* *Please be gentle?* Would he even care?

He turned to look at her, his dark eyes taking in her obvious distress. "Yes?"

"I..." Aurora swallowed hard, fighting back tears. "I know you have the right. I know I belong to you now. I just... I've never..." She couldn't finish the sentence.

Luca studied her trembling form for a long moment. Something flickered in his expression—not kindness, exactly, but perhaps recognition of her terror.

"Aurora," he said carefully. "Do you understand what's expected tonight?"

She nodded mutely, tears threatening to spill over.

"And you understand why the proof is necessary?"

Another nod. She understood that his family's honor required evidence that she had been pure, that he had claimed his virgin bride properly.

Luca was quiet for a moment, swirling the scotch in his glass. When he spoke again, his voice was completely neutral.

"Go to the master bedroom. Change into whatever makes you comfortable. I'll join you shortly to... handle the requirements."

Aurora's vision blurred with terror, but she nodded and walked toward the bedroom on unsteady legs. Each step felt like walking to her execution.

The master bedroom was beautiful and intimidating—king-sized bed with pristine white sheets, floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city. Aurora found silk pajamas laid out on the bed and changed into them with shaking hands, her wedding dress pooling on the floor like discarded dreams.

She sat on the edge of the bed, hands clasped so tightly in her lap that her knuckles showed white. Every sound from the apartment made her jump. Every passing minute brought him closer to claiming what was now his by law.

When the soft knock came, Aurora's heart nearly stopped.

"Come in," she whispered.

Luca entered, having changed out of his tuxedo into dark slacks and a white dress shirt. He looked less formal but somehow more dangerous, more real. In his hand, he carried what looked like a small knife.

Aurora's breathing became rapid and panicked. "Please," she whispered. "Please, I'll do whatever you want. Just please don't—"

"Aurora." His voice cut through her rising hysteria. "I'm not going to hurt you."

She looked up at him through tears, not understanding.

"The sheets need blood," Luca said simply. "They don't need it to come from you."

Before Aurora could process what he meant, Luca drew the blade across his own palm in one quick motion. Dark red blood welled up immediately, dripping onto the white sheets as he moved his hand over the bed.

Aurora gasped, covering her mouth with both hands. "Luca, what are you—why did you—"

He made several strategic drops on the sheets, then set the knife aside and pressed a tissue to his bleeding palm. "There. The evidence they require."

Aurora stared at him in complete shock. He had cut himself. He had used his own blood to create the proof his family expected, sparing her the pain and trauma she had been dreading for weeks.

"You're bleeding," she said stupidly, her mind still trying to catch up with what had just happened.

Luca glanced down at his palm with clinical detachment. "It's not deep. It will heal."

But Aurora was already moving, her terror replaced by an overwhelming surge of something she couldn't name. She rushed to the bathroom and returned with the first aid supplies she had noticed earlier, sitting beside him on the bed without conscious thought.

"Give me your hand," she said softly.

Luca looked surprised by her sudden boldness, but he extended his injured hand toward her. Aurora cradled it gently in both of hers, studying the cut with careful attention. It wasn't deep, but it was bleeding steadily, and he had done it for her. To protect her from something she had been terrifying herself about for weeks.

"This might sting," she murmured, cleaning the wound with gentle precision.

Luca watched her work in silence, his dark eyes unreadable. Aurora was hyperaware of the intimacy of the moment—sitting on his bed in silk pajamas, holding his hand, caring for a wound he had inflicted on himself for her sake.

"Why?" she asked quietly as she applied antibiotic cream to the cut. "Why did you do this?"

"Because I'm not a monster," he said simply. "Despite what you might have heard."

Aurora looked up at him, really looked at him, for the first time since their wedding ceremony. In the soft light of the bedroom, with his formal mask slightly lowered, Luca Cortese looked younger, more human. The cut on his hand was proof that he was capable of mercy, of sacrifice, even if it was practical rather than emotional.

"Thank you," she whispered, carefully wrapping his palm with gauze.

"You don't need to thank me. This arrangement works better if you're not traumatized."

Even his kindness came with clinical reasoning, but Aurora found she didn't care. He had spared her something terrible, had sacrificed his own blood rather than take hers through force. In their world, that was more consideration than most women could expect from their husbands.

"There," she said, securing the bandage with gentle fingers. "You should keep it dry for a day or two."

Luca flexed his fingers experimentally, testing the wrapping. "You did that well. Do you have medical training?"

"I volunteered at a hospital during college." Aurora was still holding his hand, reluctant to break the contact. This was the first time she had touched him voluntarily, the first time she had felt anything other than fear in his presence.

"Useful skill for a wife in my position," Luca said, and she couldn't tell if he was being sincere or practical.

They sat in silence for a moment, Aurora still cradling his bandaged hand while Luca studied her face with that penetrating attention she was beginning to recognize.

"You'll sleep here," he said finally. "I'll take the guest room. Tomorrow, when asked about tonight, you'll say I was gentle with you. That you were nervous but I made it as comfortable as possible. Can you do that?"

Aurora nodded, still overwhelmed by the reality that he wouldn't be forcing himself on her. "Yes, I can do that."

"Good." Luca stood, gently extricating his hand from hers. "The bathroom adjoining this room is yours exclusively. There's a lock on the door between here and the rest of the apartment. Use it if it makes you feel safer."

He moved toward the door, then paused. "Aurora."

"Yes?"

"You're safe here. In this room, in this apartment, in this marriage. As long as you remember that you're mine, no one else will hurt you. Including me."

With that, he was gone, leaving Aurora alone with the bloodstained sheets and the profound realization that her husband was far more complex than she had imagined.

She sat on the edge of the bed for a long time, staring at the drops of blood that would satisfy his family's archaic requirements. Luca's blood, not hers. Given freely to spare her pain she had been dreading for weeks.

When she finally slipped under the covers, Aurora's last thought before sleep was of Luca's hand in hers, warm and solid and surprisingly gentle as she tended his self-inflicted wound.

For the first time since her engagement was announced, Aurora Cortese fell asleep without tears.

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