No One Touches My Wife

Alessandro

The wedding was a transaction, and my bride was at the price of peace.

Her name was Seraphina Romano, the youngest daughter of my most loyal fan. A porcelain doll with wide, terrified eyes, was offered as a sacrifice, to affirm her family's fealty to their new Don. To me.

I watched her walk down the aisle of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, a vision in white lace, and felt nothing. Less than nothing. A cold, hollow void where a man’s heart should be. She was an asset. A beautiful, well-bred, virgin asset to be acquired and controlled, a symbol to the other families that the Moretti dynasty, under my rule, was stable. Unbreakable.

This marriage was not a union of hearts. It was a fusion of power, a cold line item in the budget of my brutal new reality. My father, the previous Don, was dead. And I, Alessandro Moretti, the son he raised but did not sire, now wore his crown. It was a crown of blood and secrets, and it sat heavy on my head.

Later, in the master suite of the Moretti estate—a room that reeked of my father’s cigars and old power—she stood by the window, a fragile silhouette against the glittering Manhattan skyline. I watched her for a long, silent moment, this girl who was now my wife. My property.

I felt the familiar ice creep into my veins. The cold that had been my only companion since I learned the truth of my birth. The truth that my blood was a lie, that I was the bastard son of a rival my adoptive father had killed. I was an imposter on a throne, and my entire life was a performance of strength. This marriage was just another act.

I stalked towards her, my footsteps silent on the thick Persian rug. She tensed as I approached, her scent—a soft, clean fragrance of chamomile and something sweet, like honey—spiking with fear. It was a pathetic, prey-like scent. It disgusted me. It intrigued me.

When I was standing directly behind her, so close I could feel the heat radiating from her skin, I finally spoke.

“Let us establish the terms of this arrangement, Seraphina.”

She flinched at the coldness of my tone.

“You are now a Moretti. You will act with the decorum and respect befitting that name. You will be a dutiful wife in public. You will smile when I tell you to smile. You will be a mother to the heirs this family requires. But in private… you are nothing to me.”

I saw her shoulders tremble.

“This,” I said, gesturing to the opulent, lonely room, “is my chamber. That bed is my bed. You will occupy the guest suite across the hall. You will not touch me. You will not speak to me unless spoken to. You will not, under any circumstances, presume to harbor any wifely affections for me. This is a contract, not a romance. Do you understand?”

She didn’t turn around. She just gave a single, jerky nod, her head bowed in submission.

A grim satisfaction settled in my chest. She understood. She was a good, obedient little pawn.

Leaving her standing by the window, a prisoner in her own wedding dress, I walked to the plush armchair in the corner of the room, loosened my tie, and settled in for the night.

The new Don of the Moretti family, on his wedding night, alone in a chair, with his beautiful, terrified bride standing ten feet away.

Let the performance begin.