His brideHis rule

"You're not my wife for love. You're my wife for leverage."

The marble of the Manhattan courthouse glared under the harsh light,too white, too clean, too final.

Calla Rose Hart's heels tapped the floor like faint warning shots as she stepped into the room, her palms sweaty around the pen she didn't remember gripping.

A judge sat at the front, his robe stiff, his expression unreadable. Two attorneys murmured over a legal folder thicker than her college textbooks. But all Calla could focus on was the man seated across the room, legs crossed, back straight, dressed in an obsidian-black suit that made the rest of the world fade to ash.

Lucian Wolfe.

The man she was being forced to marry.

He didn't look at her right away. He didn't have to. His presence filled the air like smoke-silent, suffocating the life out of her, and impossible to ignore.

Calla inhaled shakily. "Is it too late to walk away?" she whispered.

"You signed the pre-marriage agreement last night," her handler reminded her, not unkindly. "It's already public knowledge. If you run now, your brother loses his surgery. Your mother loses the care home. And your father..."

"My father doesn't deserve saving," Calla said sharply, her father could rot for all she cared. But her voice trembled, betraying her.

She didn't walk toward the man waiting at the other end of the courtroom. She was pulled toward him, as if fate had already handed her over like a pawn on a silver plate.

Lucian didn't rise. Not when she entered. Not when the judge called her name.

But when she took the seat beside him, on the cold wooden bench that's when finally moved.

A single glance.

Just one flick of those frost-colored eyes, and she forgot how to breathe.

"Sit up straight," he murmured without looking at her. "You represent me now."

"I'm not your toy."

"No," he agreed, coolly. "You're my bride."

The word felt like poison on her skin.

The judge cleared his throat. "Miss Hart. Mr. Wolfe. Do you both agree to this legal union under the clauses laid out in the marital contract?"

Calla hesitated.

Lucian didn't.

"I do," he said with a voice like stone-smooth, hard, and unbreakable.

The judge turned to her. "Miss Hart?"

She glanced at her reflection in the polished table surface. Pale. Terrified. Small.

But not dead.

Not yet.

"I... do," she said, barely audible.

The gavel hit wood like a gunshot.

"In the eyes of the state, you are now husband and wife."

Calla flinched. It felt more like a sentence than a celebration.

Lucian rose slowly. Like a wolf who knew he didn't need to growl to scare the lamb. He extended his hand-not out of affection, but formality.

"Shall we go home, Mrs. Wolfe?"

The limousine that took them away was as silent as a tomb.

Calla sat rigid, watching raindrops paint lines across the tinted window. Manhattan blurred beyond the glass-skyscrapers, headlights, horns-but none of it reached her. Her heart was a muffled drum in her chest.

Lucian poured himself a drink from the crystal decanter. No ice. No words.

"You're not even going to pretend to care, are you?" she asked.

His eyes flicked toward her, calm and unreadable. "Would you prefer I lie to you?"

"I'd prefer to understand why you hate me."

"I don't hate you," he replied smoothly, swirling the amber liquid in his glass. "I hate your father. You're simply collateral."

She stiffened. "You're using me."

"Correct."

A bitter laugh rose in her throat. "And I suppose I'm just supposed to smile and obey like a good little puppet?"

He leaned in, one hand gripping the armrest beside her. His breath was warm against her cheek.

"No, Calla. I don't want a puppet. I want a wife who knows the value of silence and the consequences of rebellion."

Her cheeks heated, half from fear, half from the electricity suddenly sparking between them.

"You're disgusting."

"I'm effective."

"And cruel."

"That too."

His words were delivered with brutal calm. No apology. No shame.

But then his gaze dropped-for a fraction of a second-to her lips. The atmosphere shifted, suddenly thick.