"Money."
He blinked. "What?"
"Cash. How the hell am I supposed to set all this up? Magic?
Give it to me. Lots of it. And don't you dare be stingy."
He let out a jagged, genuine bark of laughter at her sheer audacity. "Is that all? Enzo will handle the finances. Anything else... *my dear wife*?"
She flashed him a razor-sharp, confident smile. "Oh, there's plenty more. But I'll save the rest for after the wedding. Do you know what's actually important right now, though?"
"What?"
"Do you people even eat in this house?"
Luca blinked, momentarily thrown off. "What the hell are you talking about?"
"It's been two goddamn days without a single meal. You aren't trying to starve me into submission, are you? Because that's a pathetic tactic."
"Ah," he muttered, rubbing the back of his neck as if it were a minor oversight. "To be honest, I completely forgot you existed for a minute. Go ahead, go to a restaurant. I'll assign a guard to follow you."
"I don't need a shadow," she snapped.
"Suit yourself. But before you go anywhere, follow me."
"To where? In case you haven't noticed, I'm still barefoot. It can wait."
He stared at her for a long beat, his dark eyes unreadable. Then, without a word of warning, he reached out and hauled her up. Before she could even gasp, he had her tossed over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, striding out of the office and through the grand hallways of the estate.
As he hoisted her up, the hard line of his shoulder slammed directly into her injured side. A white-hot flare of agony shot through her, stealing her breath for a jagged second. "Son of a—!" she choked out, her vision swimming as the world went upside down. The pain only fueled her rage, making every blow she landed on his back feel like a desperate attempt to beat back the darkness creeping into her eyes.
"Is this how you carry a woman?" she yelled, her voice echoing off the marble walls as she hammered her fists against his back. "You absolute moron! No wonder those five wives ran for their lives. You have the grace of a goddamn forklift!"
"Shut the hell up for a second. We're almost there, and I'm sure as shit not in the mood for romance lessons from you."
Her movements became sluggish, her muscles betraying her as the lack of fuel finally took its toll. A fine tremor started in her fingertips—a byproduct of two days of starvation and a surging adrenaline crash. She hated that he could probably feel it, that he could sense her body yielding not out of surrender, but out of sheer, physical exhaustion.
After a few minutes of navigating the cold, silent corridors, he kicked open the door to his private quarters and dumped her unceremoniously into a chair.
"What now?" she snapped, crossing her arms over her chest, her eyes narrowed into lethal slits.
He didn't answer. Instead, he pulled a small, metallic device from a drawer and stepped toward her. Before she could react, his hand shot out, gripping the back of her neck with a bruising firmness. He swept her hair aside, exposing the pale skin of her nape.
"What the fuck are you doing?"
"Giving you a gift," he murmured, his voice dropping into a chillingly calm register.
"Talk sense, you bastard! Let me go!"
"Stay still. I'm implanting a micro-tracker. I need to know exactly where you are every goddamn second of the day, so quit squirming."
The fury hit her like a physical wave. She lunged forward, shoving him away with every ounce of strength she had left. "What am I to you? Your fucking pet? You think you can just tag me with your tech bullshit?"
He didn't budge. He caught both of her wrists in one hand, forcing her back into the chair. Between the hunger gnawing at her gut and the fire in her wounded shoulder, she was losing the fight for dominance.
"You have a goddamn track record for vanishing, Elena. What did you think? That I'd just let you walk out that front door and hope you'd come back for dinner?"
She snarled and drove her heel into his shin. He let out a sharp hiss of pain, his jaw tightening, but he didn't release her.
"Loosen your grip," she hissed, her voice cracking with pain. "My shoulder is injured, you prick."
His grip was a vice, his fingers radiating a searing heat against the ice-cold skin of her nape. She felt the metallic bite of the device—a clinical, sterile coldness that felt like a violation. "You're tagging me like a goddamn stray," she hissed, her voice vibrating against his palm. For a moment, the only thing she could focus on was the terrifying contrast between his calm, rhythmic breathing and the frantic, hollow drumming of her own heart.
"Oh..." she gasped, the world spinning for a jagged second.
"There," he muttered, his voice cold and clinical as he pulled away. "Done. Quick, wasn't it?"
She didn't explode in rage. Instead, she sat there for a heartbeat, the phantom sting still burning in her neck. Then, with a speed he hadn't anticipated, she lunged forward, snatching the applicator from his hand before he could react.
"What the hell are you doing with that?" he barked, his hand going for her wrist.
But she was faster. She grabbed a fistful of his expensive silk collar, jerking him toward her until their foreheads collided. With a sharp, vengeful motion, she jammed the device against the side of his neck and triggered the secondary chip.
She expected him to snap her wrists, to throw her back with the force of a man challenged. Instead, he stayed perfectly still. A flicker of genuine surprise crossed his features, quickly followed by a dark, shimmering amusement. He watched her with the predatory focus of a man who had just found a toy that actually knew how to bite back. He didn't just let her do it; he savored the audacity of it.
She pulled back, breathing hard, her eyes wide with a manic kind of triumph. "I can't fucking believe you just let me do that. You just let me tag you like a goddamn stray dog."
He reached up, casually rubbing the small red dot on his neck. "Well, as my wife, it's only fair you know exactly where I am at all times. Consider me a devoted, obedient husband."
"Hilarious. Truly," she spat, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "Now that we're done with this psychotic foreplay, I need to see my grandmother. I've been away from home for days—she's probably losing her mind with worry. I have to tell her about this 'blessed' marriage before she hears it from the morgue."
He straightened his cuffs, the embodiment of lethal elegance. 'After all, Elena... traditions are important in this family.' The way he said it—smooth, heavy, and dripping with an unspoken threat—sent a different kind of chill down her spine. He wasn't just paying a visit; he was marking his territory, and her grandmother was now the center of the bullseye.