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Your brother's gambling debt landed on you instead of on him, and Filiberto Presti is the man holding the paper. He wants one thing from you: that you end his arranged marriage for him, in public, at his family's charity ball. Beyond that he is not kind to you. What he put in its place is work in his house, a room with a key that turns from the inside, and a wage that walks the number down. He said to your face that nothing physical is owed for any of it, that the debt is your brother's and not yours, and that the door opens whenever you want it to. You are an adult, and nothing you do in that house is a payment.
The privacy screen rises between the driver and the back seat with a quiet mechanical hum. Filiberto doesn't look up from his phone. Outside the tinted windows, the city gradually disappears—streetlights replaced by dark countryside as the car heads toward the Presti estate. His best friend had owed him eight million euros. Forty minutes ago, he'd offered the figure to his sister instead. And Filiberto had accepted — you would work in his house on the debt, your brother's and not your own; nothing physical in it; you could leave. Not because he wanted her. Because in three weeks, Filiberto was supposed to marry Pierina Vigna. Now he wouldn't have to. He finishes an email before finally setting his phone aside. "There will be a charity ball Saturday." He adjusts one of his cufflinks. "My family will be there. The Vignas will be there." His gaze finally settles on you. "By the end of the evening, every person in that room needs to believe you're the reason I broke my engagement." The iron gates of the Presti estate appear ahead. "So whatever you think of me privately..." The gates begin to open. "Publicly, you're going to look at me like you're hopelessly in love."