Page 8 of Lord of Obsession

The wind carries the scent of his cologne, mixing with herbs and autumn air. Everything about him is a challenge—to my restraint, to my choices, to the walls I've built between past and present. My fingers ache with the urge to answer that challenge with violence.

He sees it. Of course he does. We speak the same brutal language, no matter how I try to forget the words.

My hand moves before my mind decides, and I shove my laptop into my bag, gatheringthe papers still within reach. The sun dips behind the business district's glass towers, casting long shadows across the rooftop. Time to retreat, to regroup, to?—

"Running away?" Dario blocks my path to the door, his stance wide, challenging. "That's not very Valenti of you."

"Move." One word, but it carries the weight of every lesson I've tried to unlearn.

"Make me." He steps closer, into the space I've marked as mine. "Come on, Rafael. Show me what they taught you before you decided to play scholar."

The distance between us shrinks to nothing. This close, I can see the faint scar above his left eyebrow, the way his pupils dilate with anticipation. His cologne mingles with smoke and aged leather, a scent that speaks of home in ways I've tried to forget.

"Last chance," I warn, but my voice has gone rough, hungry.

His smile turns sharp. "To do what? Call campus security? Tell them the big bad Greco is bothering you?" His fingers brush my collar, testing. "We both know you won't. Can't. Because the minute you involve their authorities,your carefully constructed world starts to crack."

He's right. God help me, he's right. I can't report him without risking exposure. Can't fight him without proving every word he's said about my nature. Can't walk away without showing weakness.

"The funny thing is," he continues, voice dropping lower, "I bet you miss it. The weight of a gun under your jacket. The rush of power. The simple clarity of violence instead of all these"—he gestures at my books with contempt—"complex legal theories."

"You don't know anything about me."

"No?" His hand shoots out, grabbing my wrist. The contact burns. "Your pulse is racing. Your muscles are coiled for action. Everything about you screams fighter, not scholar. You can dress it up in expensive clothes and hide it behind textbooks, but you're still what they made you. What we both are."

I could break his grip. I could put him down on the concrete in three moves. The knowledge hums in my blood, muscle memory warring with carefully constructed restraint.

"The difference," Igrit out, "is choice."

His laugh holds no humor. "Choice? You really think youchosethis? Think you can just decide not to be what you are?" His grip tightens. "Your hands remember, don't they? The feel of a trigger. The impact of a punch. The satisfaction of making someone bleed."

My free hand clenches, and his eyes track the movement with savage pleasure. He's winning, drawing out the violence I've buried beneath years of studied civility.

"That's it," he murmurs. "Let it surface. Let it breathe."

The city spreads out below us, glass and steel catching the dying light. Somewhere down there, my classmates are filing into lecture halls, discussing precedents and procedures. Their world feels impossibly distant from this rooftop, this moment, this choice.

His thumb brushes my pulse point, intimate as a lover. "Tell me you don't want to hurt me right now. Tell me you don't ache for it."

I move without thinking. One twist, one step, and suddenly he's against the wall, my forearm at his throat. The violence rises so naturally, so easily, it terrifies me. Hiseyes gleam with triumph even as he gasps for breath.

"Beautiful," he chokes out. "Fucking beautiful."

Horror floods me as I realize what I've done. What I've revealed. I release him and step back, but it's too late. He's seen beneath my mask, seen the killer I've tried so hard to bury.

"Don't leave on my account," he says, rubbing his throat. "We're just getting to the good part."

I grab my bag and run. His laughter follows me down the stairs, echoing in my head long after I've left the building behind. My hands shake as I push through crowds of students, their innocent chatter a mockery of what just transpired.

He's won this round and proved his point. The monster I've caged still lives, still hungers, still knows exactly how to hurt.

And God help me, some part of me gloried in letting it out.

My shoes hit each step with military precision as I descend, the stairwell's fluorescent lights flickering in time with my racing pulse. Sweat soaks through my shirt—expensivecotton gone damp with fear or excitement or both. The taste of violence lingers on my tongue, metallic and familiar.

The evening air hits me like a slap as I burst out of the building. Students mill around the quad, their faces blurring into a mass of innocent normalcy. A girl laughs at something on her phone. A professor juggles an armful of papers. A couple shares a coffee on a bench. All of them ignorant of the dangerous current running through me, the way my hands still remember the feel of Dario's throat.

Behind me, the rooftop looms against the darkening sky. My sanctuary, violated and transformed into something else entirely. Tomorrow, I'll have to find a new place to study, establish new routines to replace the ones he's tainted. But tonight…tonight, I taste copper and adrenaline, and part of me wants to turn around, to climb those stairs again, to finish what we started.

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