They Sold Me in a Crate to Pay His Debt, and the Devil Knelt and Called Me Wife novel · Chapter 1 of 16
Chapter 1: Sold at Midnight
Shipped in a crate to pay her stepfather's debt, Eliza is opened by Elias Wolfe, who shoots the courier and calls her his wife under her mother's covenant, then learns Simone is marrying his brother.
They broke my ankle, burned my voice out of my throat, and sold me at midnight.
The buyer was supposed to ruin me.
Instead the most feared man in New York knelt in front of my crate and asked who had done this to his wife.
I didn't have a husband.
I had a wooden box.
I'd been in it for thirty-six hours.
Plywood on every side. A steel cuff on each wrist. A strip of light under the lid.
My right ankle had swollen so tight the skin shone.
Every time the truck hit a bump, I bit my lip until it bled.
Somewhere outside, men were eating sandwiches and talking about my price.
"Busted ballerina," one said. "Nice face. Legs are garbage now."
"Wolfe won't mind. Wolfe breaks all his toys sooner or later."
They laughed.
I knew that name.
Everyone in the city knew that name.
Elias Wolfe. The Black King.
He owned half of Manhattan and everything that ran underneath it.
People said he'd poured politicians into the foundations of his towers.
People said he hadn't let a woman touch him since his fiancée sold him out seven years ago.
People said anyone who walked into Black Harbor without his permission left in bags.
My stepfather had shipped me to Black Harbor to pay what he owed.
Three nights ago, my stepsister had knelt on my shin in an empty rehearsal studio.
She'd held my leg flat while two men swung a hammer.
Simone had been smiling.
Afterward she'd pinched my nose and poured a bottle of drain cleaner into my mouth.
"Now you can't tell anyone," she'd whispered. "Happy birthday early, Lizzie."
The truck stopped.
Chains rattled.
A crowbar bit into the lid of my crate, and the wood screamed open.
Cold air poured over my face.
I squinted into white warehouse lights.
A man stood over me in a black coat, black shirt, black gloves.
He was tall and wide through the shoulders.
He didn't move at all.
A thin white scar split his left eyebrow.
His eyes were so pale gray.
Elias Wolfe.
He took in the torn slip I'd been wearing since the studio.
He took in my ankle, fat and purple.
He took in the blisters at the corners of my mouth.
Then his eyes stopped on the gold ring hanging from the chain at my neck.
A small square emerald. My mother's ring.
His expression broke.
He reached for it.
I jerked back so hard the cuff sliced my wrist.
His hand stopped in the air.
Slowly, the Devil of New York lowered himself to one knee on the concrete.
"Eliza?"
Nobody had said my name gently in nine years.
I opened my mouth.
Nothing came out but a scrape of air.
His eyes went to my throat.
The gray went flat and cold.
"Who burned her?"
Nobody answered him.
Elias stood up.
Six armed men waited at his back.
In front of him stood the driver, my stepfather's man, twisting his cap in both hands.
"Mr. Wolfe." The driver licked his lips. "Mr. Prescott is very sorry. He can't make the full payment this month. So he sent the girl instead."
Elias said nothing.
The driver took that as permission.
"She's his stepdaughter. She's damaged goods, sure. Can't dance. Can't talk. But she does what she's told if you're firm with her, and she's still pretty enough to..."
Elias shot him.
The bang slammed off the metal roof.
The driver dropped beside my crate with his cap still in his hand.
Elias didn't look down.
He looked at his men, one at a time.
"Does anybody else want to call my wife damaged?"
Nobody breathed.
Wife.
I stared at him.
I had never met this man.
I had never married anyone.
Elias crouched again and pulled off his coat.
He laid it over me, then found the key to my cuffs in the driver's pocket and opened them.
When he slid an arm under my knees, I panicked.
My ankle lit up white.
A choked noise tore out of my ruined throat.
"I know." His voice dropped low and steady. "I know it hurts. Hold on to me."
He lifted me.
I shoved my palm against his chest to push him off.
Under my hand his heart was slamming.
I mouthed a single word at him.
Why?
He looked at the ring on my chain.
"Because Catherine Ashcroft saved my life twenty years ago," he said. "And she trusted my family with something worth billions."
He carried me past the driver's body.
"And because three months before she died, your mother signed a covenant. It names you as my wife."
My lungs stopped.
Elias bent his head until his mouth brushed my hair.
"You turned twenty-one yesterday, Eliza. It's in force."
Outside, rain was hammering a row of black cars.
His arms tightened around me.
"The second Conrad Prescott put you in that box, he declared war on me."
A phone buzzed.
The man holding Elias's umbrella answered it, listened, and lost all his color.
"Boss. Prescott just announced Simone's engagement."
Elias went very still.
"To who?"
The man swallowed.
"To your brother."
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