Page 7 of Lord of Obsession

A police siren wails in the distance, and neither of us flinches. We're too well-trained for that. But I catch the way his fingers twitch toward his holster, an instinct bred into both of us before we could walk. The gesture creates an unwanted moment of kinship that turns my stomach.

The autumn wind tears across the rooftop, scattering my papers. I let them fly. Moving to catch them would mean stepping closer to Dario, and we both know it's a trap. He watches them dance away, lips curving into something that isn't quite a smile.

"Your analysis of prosecution strategies is thorough," he says, producing one of my notebooks. The sight of it in his hands makes bile rise in my throat. "Especially the sections onwitness intimidation. Speaking from experience?"

"Give it back." The words emerge in a voice I haven't used since leaving the family—low, dangerous, pure Sicily.

"Make me." He thumbs through the pages with deliberate slowness. "Wonder what Uncle Salvatore thinks about his nephew's particular academic interests? All these notes about dismantling power structures from within..."

Red bleeds at the edges of my vision. "You broke into my locker."

"I go wherever I want." He slides my notebook into his jacket, the movement smooth as a knife between ribs. "While you hide up here with your books and your herbs, I move through the world and take what's mine."

"Nothing here belongs to you." The “including me” goes unspoken, but hangs heavy in the air between us.

He moves toward my study space, each step measured. His fingers brush my laptop's surface. "Then why look at me like that? Like you're calculating exactly how many bones you'd break before I hit the ground?"

My mouth goes dry because he's right. I'vealready mapped it all out: the exact angle to take him down, the pressure points that would render him unconscious, the way his blood would look against the concrete. The knowledge sits in my gut like lead.

"Some of us found better solutions than violence," I say, but my voice betrays me, rough with possibilities.

His laugh cuts through the air. "Better? Is that what you call this masquerade?" He gestures at my clothes, my books, everything I've built. "Your professors might believe it. Your study group might buy the act. But I see what's underneath. I see the war you wage every minute of every day."

"You don't see anything." Even I don't believe the lie.

He closes the distance between us, each step eating away at my carefully constructed walls. "I see how you catalog exits before sitting down. How your fingers curl when you're angry, muscle memory reaching for a weapon that isn't there. The way you stand now, balanced on the balls of your feet, ready to move. Just like they taught us."

Us.The word hits like a body blow. Different families, same education. The art ofviolence passed down through generations. How to hurt, how to survive, how to own the darkness instead of fearing it.

"I chose a different path." My words ring hollow in the autumn air.

"Did you?" His voice drops to a whisper. "Or are you banking that fire, keeping it contained until it explodes? All that capacity for violence, for dominance..." He reaches for my collar. "The weight of restraining it must be crushing."

I catch his wrist before he makes contact. Lightning arcs through my veins at the touch. His pulse hammers against my fingers, fast and strong, betraying the adrenaline beneath his calm facade. We freeze in this moment of barely contained violence, neither willing to break first.

"Careful," he breathes. "Your heritage is showing."

I shove him back, the movement sharp with years of training I can't erase. He doesn't stumble, doesn't retreat. Just stands there radiating heat and danger and dark promises.

"Get out." The words emerge in Italian, my mother tongue claiming me despite mybest efforts.

"I think I'll stay." His eyes gleam with satisfaction. "The view up here is…educational."

The city sprawls beneath us, unaware of this rooftop dance of threat and counter-threat. Church bells echo across campus. Three chimes until my next class. Time slips away while Dario systematically strips away my defenses.

"This ends badly," I warn, despising how it sounds like an invitation.

His eyes darken to midnight. "That's exactly the plan."

The space between us crackles with unspoken threats. A helicopter thunders overhead, casting shifting shadows across the rooftop. Neither of us flinches at the sound, another shared tell of our upbringing. His fingers brush the outline of his holster, a deliberate reminder of what he brings to this game.

"You know what fascinates me?" He gestures at my scattered notes and abandoned laptop. "How hard you work to build this facade. All these hours studying laws written by men who've never had blood on their hands. Never understood real power." He picks up one of my textbooks, weighs it like a weapon. "But you understand it, don't you?It's in your bones. In your blood. Just like it's in mine."

The comparison makes my skin crawl, mostly because it rings true. I think of my classmates and about their simple concerns about grades and interviews. None of them dream in red. None of them wake reaching for weapons that aren't there.

"We're nothing alike," I say, but the words taste like ash.

His smile says he hears the lie. "No? Then why do your eyes keep tracking my movements? Why does your breath quicken when I step closer? That's not fear, Rafael. That's recognition."

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