"The Decision"

Elián didn’t sleep.

Not in the alley. Not at the safehouse where Luca’s men dumped him hours later. The rain had stopped, but the cold inside him hadn’t.

He sat in silence on a leather couch, bandaging his wrists with a med kit someone had left nearby. Everything around him reeked of power—polished mahogany floors, floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city, soft golden lamps humming against velvet curtains.

A palace for a monster.

“Marriage,” he muttered, jaw tightening. “To that bastard?”

He gripped the gauze tighter, blood soaking through from his earlier struggle. It wasn’t the pain that bothered him—it was the choice. Or lack of one.

His brother had always protected him. Even when they had nothing. Even when their mother died and the streets became their home. Elián owed him his life. But this?

Becoming someone else’s... thing?

A knock echoed at the door. Sharp. Measured.

Elián stood slowly. “What now?”

A man entered—mid-thirties, quiet eyes, expensive suit. Not a thug. A handler.

“The Don requests your answer,” the man said, tone dry but polite. “You have one hour.”

“I thought I had twenty-four?”

“Your brother’s heart doesn’t.”

The door shut behind him before Elián could snap back.

He stared at the floor for a long moment, breathing through his rage. His hands shook—not from fear, but from the weight of the invisible chain tightening around his throat.

Then, a screen flickered on across the room.

Security feed.

One camera.

His brother, bound to a chair, bruised and unconscious.

Elián lurched forward. “No—no, no—”

He pressed against the screen, heart hammering. His brother’s chest moved slowly. Alive. Barely.

A note flashed across the bottom: Clock’s ticking, husband.

Elián slammed his fist into the wall, pain shooting through his knuckles.

This wasn’t a choice.

This was a leash disguised as a wedding band.

......................

Thirty minutes later, he was in a car.

No words. No guards with guns. Just him and the same handler from before, driving silently through the heart of the city as neon lights bled against the windows.

“I didn’t even get a ring,” Elián muttered.

The handler smirked. “You’ll get more than that.”

......................

The estate was cathedral-like. Old stone and glass wrapped in roses and secrets. Guards flanked the marble steps. The moment Elián stepped out of the car, the front doors opened like jaws.

Luca stood at the top of the stairs.

Black on black. No tie. Shirt unbuttoned just enough to expose a line of ink curling down his collarbone.

“Changed your mind?” Luca asked coolly.

“No,” Elián said. “I never had a choice.”

Luca walked down two steps. “That’s the smartest thing you’ve said.”

Elián stopped at the landing, chest heaving. “If I do this—if I say yes—you let him live. You let me live.”

“I keep what I own,” Luca replied. “And starting tonight, that includes you.”

His voice didn’t rise, but it scraped against Elián’s skin like a promise carved in glass.

Elián lifted his chin. “Fine.”

Luca smiled. “Good boy.”

The doors closed behind them, sealing Elián’s fate inside a house where power ruled, love was a myth, and submission was survival.

But as their shadows merged in the candlelight of the grand hall, Elián whispered in his head: