Page 40 of Lord of Obsession

"Did you?" I trace the line of his jaw, feeling how he fights not to lean into the touch. "Or did you just choose a different angle of attack? Trading bullets for paperwork, violence for litigation?" My lips brushhis ear. "But the intent is the same, isn't it? The need to dominate, to control, to win at any cost."

He tries to step back, but I hold firm. The wind picks up, carrying the scent of approaching rain and inevitability. Far below, cars weave through streets that belong to families like ours, their drivers oblivious to the power plays happening above their heads.

"Drink." I lift his hand holding the whiskey, watching his throat work as he swallows. The amber liquid catches dim light, like the fire burning in his eyes. "Now tell me what you see. Not what your professors taught you to see. Not what your carefully constructed worldview allows. Tell me what your blood recognizes in this view."

His resistance wavers, just for a moment. Just enough. "I see...opportunity. Weaknesses in security. Angles of approach. Entry and exit routes." The words spill out like the confession they are. "Everything they taught us to analyze before we could walk."

"Exactly." Satisfaction curls through my chest as I turn him to face me, keeping him pinned between my body and thirty stories of empty air. "You can't escape what theybred into us. What they carved into our bones before we could speak." My hand finds his throat, feeling how his pulse races beneath expensive cotton. "Up here, you can finally stop pretending to be something you're not."

Thunder rolls overhead, nature's percussion building toward crescendo. Rafael's carefully maintained space crumbles as I press closer, using the height and isolation to strip away his defenses. Every breath carries the weight of inevitability, of truth too long denied.

"Each light down there marks a lesson." I guide his attention to a particular block in Old Harbor, where streetlamps cast sickly yellow circles on cracked pavement. "That alley by St. Michael's, that's where I learned how power really works in this city."

I release my grip on his throat, letting him step back from the edge. The whiskey burns sweet as I take another sip. "I was thirteen. Some rival family's enforcer thought targeting Antonio Greco's son would send a message."

Rafael stills, his deep brown eyes caught between curiosity and revulsion. He watches me, riveted, as I unbutton my jacket and shirt,revealing the knife scar that curves along my ribs.

"He caught me walking home from school and dragged me into an alley near St. Michael's." My fingers trace the old wound. "Amateur mistake. Should have checked if I was carrying."

Lightning illuminates the tension in Rafael's jaw. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Because you need to understand." I move closer, forcing him to look at me. "Your uncle waited until you were sixteen for your first kill. My father believed in earlier education."

His breath catches. The crystal tumbler trembles slightly in his grip. "I never?—"

"Don't lie." Wind whips between us as I cut him off. "Not about this. Not up here. Not to me." My hand finds his chest, feeling how his heart races. "The DiMarco heir. Senior year of high school. Your uncle made it look like an overdose."

Color drains from his face. "How do you..."

"I make it my business to know everything about you. Including the parts you try to bury under your legal texts and perfect grades." I finish my whiskey, letting thecrystal catch moonlight. "The difference is, I don't deny what I am. What our families made us."

The storm edges closer, pressure dropping as clouds swallow stars. Rafael's tie whips in the wind, his carefully constructed image fraying at the edges. "You're sick."

"I'm honest." I set down my empty glass. "Unlike you, hiding behind civil procedure and constitutional law while dreaming about the weight of a gun in your hands. The satisfaction of domination. The pure fucking clarity of violence."

His fist flies without warning. I let it connect, tasting copper as my lip splits. The blow carries years of training—precise, controlled, devastating. Perfect.

I wipe blood from my mouth, satisfaction burning in my chest. "There's the killer they built you to be."

"Shut up." But his accent bleeds stronger with each word, Sicily claiming him syllable by syllable.

"You were good at it too." I press closer, backing him toward the utility wall. "Your uncle's reports were very detailed. Perfect aim. Clean kills. The kind of efficiency that only comes from naturaltalent."

His hands curl into fists at his sides. "Those files were destroyed."

"Nothing's ever really destroyed in our world. Just buried until someone needs leverage." I trap him against rough brick, one hand braced beside his head. "Want to hear about my second kill? Or my tenth? I lost count somewhere after twenty."

Thunder cracks overhead, swallowing his sharp inhale. Rain starts to fall, fat drops that darken his suit and plaster his shirt to skin. I catch his wrist before he can throw another punch, using his momentum to pin him more firmly against the wall.

"You see it now?" My grip tightens as he struggles. "Why I chose you? Why I had to strip away all that pretense?" Lightning turns his face stark with revelation. "Because we're the same. Built for this life. Bred for violence and power and everything you try so hard to deny."

"I'm nothing like you." But the words lack conviction, undermined by how his body responds to my proximity.

"No?" I lean closer, letting him feel the weapon concealed beneath my jacket. "Then why does your pulse race when I mentionkilling? Why do your pupils dilate at the memory of that perfect first kill shot?"

The rain falls harder, soaking us both as nature mirrors the storm building between us. Rafael's resistance wavers visibly, his careful walls cracking beneath the weight of shared truth. Every drop of rain strips away another layer of denial, leaving him raw and exposed.

"Tell me about the DiMarco hit." My voice drops lower, intimate despite the thundering sky. "Tell me how it felt to watch him fall. To know your action changed the world in that moment. To feel pure, perfect power for the first time."

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