A Deadly Pregnant Contract With The Ruthless Alpha

Ryker's POV

She was nothing but a bag of trouble.

And strangely, the delicious, unusually maddening kind, you have no control over how you wander in the land of imagination. The worst is that it has no timing, creeping into forbidden hours when one is supposed to be focused and tending to affairs concerning the empire, legacy, and power.

But no, I was foolishly buried in thoughts of her.

Or, more precisely, replace important files with hers.

Lucy Castellano.

I reread her name, repeatedly, my fingers drumming continuously against my silver-lined desk, not that I hadn't found out the truth, but because I was doing everything possible to find an escape from her. A reason for her to hate me, for us to hate each other.

Castellano wasn't just a name you hear regularly; it was more than a bloodline. It was a name that perfectly describes a ghost of the underworld-a dead, long-gone dynasty with more than enough buried gold to buy exactly half of Europe.

And she...my Lucy....

She has their name, meaning she's their last remaining heir. But unfortunately, it is hiding in plain sight. Wallowing in pain and dancing for pennies. Surviving not as it should, but like a shadow.

The most interesting part was that she obviously had no idea where she was coming from or who she was.

I leaned back comfortably, eyes locked interestingly on her photograph, from her hair, exactly like ink, the burning fire in those sexy eyes of hers, her mouth parted cutely as if in mid-sentence.

She was more than a flame.

And I, Alpha Ryker? I had every intention of not taking it easy with her, ensuring it gets burned.

"She doesn't have the slightest idea what is in her possession," my private investigator had said. "Her parents did everything possible to shield her from knowing the truth. Fortune was sealed temporarily, but with a secret clause: her inheritance to be unlocked exactly on her 25th birthday."

Which, conveniently for me, hasn't passed. It was still ahead.

Perfect, that's perfect.

I reached out to get the contract, not the regular one; it's my version. I haven't seen this one with the magical addendum, inscribed carefully and neatly between paragraphs, so good that only a team of lawyers and divine intervention would reveal the time bomb in between.

Clause 14C: All assets, acquired properties, or every inheritance in existence tied legally to the carrier's long forgotten lineage shall be, for security reasons, temporarily held and its affairs overseen by Alpha Ryker until deemed safe for release or contract is fulfilled to his satisfaction.

That was legal, though quiet, but very deadly.

She wasted no time in signing, not even glancing at it again. Desperation wasn't useless after all. It had a way of always making even the wisest people blind.

And right now?

I don't just have her womb, I own her.

I owned every fortune in her name, her future.

But then, as I quietly stared at her signature, rejoicing over my victory, I felt my mood shift. Something that had no business disturbing me on a normal day had no business disturbing me.

Was it pity? No, it wasn't.

Or should I call it lust? Maybe that's it

Curiosity, why would her parents wait this long?

Definitely, yes, definitely.

I was incredibly intrigued, not just because I discovered she was a heiress or a nobody I could easily exploit. She, for no reason, felt in danger, as if I should take one singular wrong move, she would unexpectedly flip everything upside down to her favor.

And God, I would like to push her hard to test her limits.

Later that night, I observed her from my room, sleep refusing to take its course on me. I watched as she hurried back to her room. She had no idea I had cameras on every corner to observe her movements.

She paused suddenly in front of her door.

She clutched something on her chest: a necklace, a pendant.

I narrowed my eyes, trying to view it clearly from the screen..

It was the one that belonged to her.

I cursed silently under my breath. Mayer didn't follow my instructions but returned it by mistake. I had instructed her to ensure its safety and keep it totally hidden until the appointed time. That necklace is rare and unique; it is the last piece recovered from the Castellano estate. It was luckily recovered, maybe because of its value, after the ruins caused by the fire outbreak.

If Lucy becomes curious and raises many questions too soon, things will not go as planned again, but will become complicated.

And I hate it when things get complicated.

I liked to be the one in control.

I turned away to get myself a drink, something to keep me calm and collected.

The deal came out very clean. She signed without question. The baby, my blood is growing in health.

The rest of it all? Details involved.

Emotions should be coming? That's very useless.

Still..., despite my stubbornness, and strong head....

I couldn't stop myself from wandering into strange thoughts about her. I smiled foolishly when I remembered how her face twitched when she glared at me. She can burn down everything in the kingdom just by glaring hard at me.

I shouldn't have let my arrogance determine who to choose. I should have gone with someone else-a faceless and harmless surrogate. That would have given me a clean transaction.

But instead, I knowingly walked into a storm dressed in silk.

And now that everything worked out, she's comfortable inside my house, eating when she wants, carrying my blood, my heir...

She had become mine.

Even if she had no idea of that, maybe not yet, but definitely.

I opened my laptop, prepared for that purpose, and typed in her details, her name first, just one last time.

Luciana Castellano. Middle name Mireille.

10 more days left...