Two days earlier they forcibly took me to marry, but on the wedding night Niko’s face lost its color

On my wedding night, they knocked on the door of my husband’s bedroom with such force that I struck the wooden edge with the hand resting against the headboard.

“Boss… We found a corpse.”

In that instant, everything that had been visible in Niko’s eyes a few minutes earlier disappeared from his face—irony, disgust, cold confidence. He stood at the door, his shirt sleeves rolled up to his elbows, holding a glass as if the coldness of the glass helped him not lose control.

I, meanwhile, still felt on my neck the thin edge of the silver hairpin my mother had left me before her death. It was made like a courthouse column, and since childhood she had told me that truth always had a support. That evening, for the first time, I thought that perhaps my mother had meant her own death by those words.

Niko opened the door slightly.

“Who did you find?”

The man standing in the corridor was pale. A phone trembled between his fingers.

“Arthur Shaw.”

The air froze.

My father.

Two days earlier I had been sitting in his office when he told me that I had to marry Niko Santoro. His hands had been trembling then, but I took it for fear. Now that same trembling had another meaning.

“Where?” I asked.

My voice sounded foreign to me.

Niko looked toward me.

“Sophia, you will stay here.”

“He is my father.”

“Precisely because of that.”

I tried to go out into the corridor, but he stood in front of me. He was standing close, though this time his nearness no longer held that rough confidence. Only caution.

“Tell me this is a mistake.”

Niko did not answer.

The man standing in the doorway added in a low voice:

“We also found a letter inside his jacket. Addressed to Mrs. Shaw.”

The word “Mrs.” sounded as if at that moment my surname itself was already a danger.

Stella’s voice came from the living room. She had been going to bring my bag, and as soon as she entered the corridor, she looked at my face.

“Sophia, what happened?”

“My father was murdered.”

Stella covered her mouth with her hand. My white glove was still in her hand, and one button hung from a thread, lightly tapping against the metal clasp of the bag as she moved.

Niko took the letter. The red wax seal had already been broken. The letter “S” engraved on it had been half scraped off.

“Do not open it,” I said.

“Why?”

“Because my father never wrote anything without creating danger for someone.”

For the first time Niko looked at me not as a rich, headstrong girl, but as a person who might be hiding an answer.

“Do you know something?”

“That your family bought my life? Yes.”

“I was not buying your life.”

“Then why did you marry me off?”

A muscle moved in his jaw.

“Because your father told me that, if I refused, you would die first.”

Stella held her breath.

And I understood that my father had not told me only about the marriage that morning. He had hidden something from me. Something for which he had needed to write a letter even before his death.

Niko pushed aside the remains of wax with his thumb and slowly opened the envelope. The rustle of paper filled the entire room. His gaze fell on the first line, then suddenly hardened.

“What does it say?” I asked.

He gave me no voice. He only raised a hand, as if before answering me he had to make sure one last time that no one was listening beyond the door, and moved his fingers toward the letter…

…Niko pulled out the sheet completely, but did not hand it to me immediately. A dark stain was visible on its edge. I could not distinguish whether it was blood or ink.

“Read it aloud,” I said.

“Sophia, first we must understand who in this house is trustworthy.”

“My father was murdered. Now I no longer have time to choose trustworthy people.”

Stella stood beside me. Her shoulder touched mine, and that small touch was the only thing that made me think I was still standing in a real room and not in a nightmare.

Niko opened the letter.

“Sophia, if you are reading this, my plan has failed.”

My knees gave way.

“Continue.”

“Do not trust Niko blindly, but do not run from him either. He is the only person who can protect you if the truth has already slipped out of control.”

Niko lifted his eyes from the sheet.

“Your father is asking me to protect you?”

“Be quiet and read.”

“I spoke to you about marriage two days ago in order to stop an attack planned against you in the Santoro family. But someone found out that I possess a recording. The recording contains names, transfers, and one voice that the whole city trusts.”

Stella whispered:

“A politician?”

The last part of the recording was faded. It was as if water had passed across the middle of the paper.

“The complete evidence is in the object your mother left you. Remember what she told you about the courthouse column. Show it to no one until you tell Niko the words: The night cannot erase the trace.”

My fingers touched the small silver hairpin. All my life I had thought it was only jewelry.

“What is inside it?” Niko asked.

“I do not know.”

“Did your mother leave you something?”

“Only this.”

“Take it off.”

“Why should I believe you?”

Niko took a step forward, but this time he stopped immediately when my shoulders tensed.

“Because I can enter your room by force, but I am not doing that.”

His words painfully reminded me of the conversation from a few minutes earlier. He thought he knew my past. He thought the photographs printed in the newspapers were the complete picture of my life.

“You know nothing about me,” I said.

“Now I know that your father entrusted your protection to me before his death.”

“And you still think I am a lost, headstrong girl?”

Niko fixed his eyes on me.

“No.”

That one word turned out to be heavier than any apology.

The lock of the door sounded in the living room. We all turned. The head of security entered, holding a small wooden box.

“They found this in the car, Mr. Santoro. Under your father-in-law’s seat.”

The same letter was engraved on the box as on the envelope’s wax.

Niko opened the box. Inside lay a small memory device and an old photograph of my mother. On the back of the photograph only one sentence was written: “Sophia must not know until she becomes strong enough.”

“This is my mother’s handwriting,” I said.

Stella looked at the photograph.

“Your mother died fifteen years ago, didn’t she?”

“Yes.”

Niko picked up the device.

“If this is a recording, we will now learn why Arthur was killed.”

“And what if my name is there?”

“Then for the first time we will hear why they made you part of this deal.”

He turned on the computer. A circular symbol appeared on the screen, and a low, distorted voice sounded in the room.

At the very first sentence, Niko froze.

The voice belonged to a person I saw every day in my father’s office. A person who always smiled calmly at me.

“This is impossible,” I whispered.

Niko stopped the recording.

“Sophia, you must leave here.”

“Why?”

He picked up the phone. A new message appeared on the screen, from an unknown number.

“If you listen to the recording, Stella will be the next corpse.”

Stella’s face went pale.

Niko stared at the message for a long time, then ordered security to lock the doors. But before anyone moved, the sound of a shot came from somewhere below…

…After the shot, the entire apartment fell silent for several seconds. Then screams and the heavy sound of footsteps came from the lower floor.

Niko pushed Stella against the wall, while I stood behind him.

“Do not move.”

“What is happening?”

“Someone knows the recording is here.”

The head of security looked into the doorway.

“Sir, one man was wounded downstairs. We could not find the shooter.”

Niko looked at the computer screen.

“Play the recording from the beginning.”

I pressed the button myself. The voice sounded in the room again.

“Arthur, if you do not agree to the marriage, we will kill the girl.”

My father’s voice was trembling.

“She has nothing to do with it.”

The second voice was calm. Too calm.

“That is precisely why she is the best leverage. Niko will marry her, and you will transfer the money to the account we give you.”

Stella gripped my hand.

“This is…”

“I know,” I said.

The third voice chuckled quietly.

I recognized that voice immediately.

“William Hale,” I said.

My father’s chief adviser. The man who ran his campaign, attended every meeting, and always told journalists about me that I was a “young woman who had lost her way.”

Niko looked at me.

“You knew him.”

“Since I was ten.”

In the recording my father said:

“I cannot do this to Sophia.”

Hale’s voice hardened.

“You already did. You opened an account in her name, used her inheritance, and now you need her marriage so the money can be hidden through the Santoros.”

No one in the room could breathe anymore.

My father had transferred money into my name. And the wedding had not only been a deal—my existence had been turned into part of a financial shield.

The recording continued.

“If anything happens to me, Niko must know that Sophia is innocent of this crime.”

Then came a heavy blow, the fall of a chair, and Hale’s final words:

“No one will believe her anyway. The whole city thinks she is a headstrong heiress.”

The recording cut off.

Niko stood at the screen, his hands clenched into fists.

“Did you know they were hiding money in your name?”

“No.”

“Your father hid everything from you.”

“Because he was trying to save me.”

Niko lowered his eyes.

“And I thought everything about you except the truth.”

His voice was tired for the first time, and not threatening.

I removed the silver hairpin and placed it on the table. Niko carefully opened its back. Inside lay a memory card so small that it was almost invisible.

“This is the master copy,” I said.

“And now Hale has a reason to kill you too.”

At that moment the phone rang. My father’s number appeared on the screen.

Niko and I looked at each other.

“Impossible,” Stella said.

Niko answered the call and put it on speaker.

For several seconds, only breathing could be heard.

Then my father’s voice sounded.

“Sophia, if you are alive, do not trust Niko.”

Niko looked at the phone as if he were holding a weapon.

“This is the voice of a living person,” I whispered.

The voice continued:

“I did not die in that room. That corpse is not mine. And if you heard this message, know that Hale was not acting alone.”

The call ended.

At that same moment, the head of security opened the door and entered holding a second envelope.

“This was left in your name, Mrs. Shaw.”

My mother’s handwriting was on the envelope.

Niko lost color in his face when he saw it.

“This is impossible,” he said. “This letter is dated three years after your mother’s funeral…”