Page 101 of Obsession & Oath

I rest a hand against my stomach, fingers splayed protectively over the barely-there curve. My child.Dante’schild. The only thing left that I’m sure is real.

They want to take the baby away from me. They want to hurt us.

What is there left to do?

I close my eyes and let my mind drift to a dream I have no right to hold onto—a room bathed in golden light, somewhere far away, warm and safe. A garden that smells of familiar rosemary and warm earth.

I imagine sitting beneath the shade, my child laughing as they run barefoot through the grass. Strong hands settle on my shoulders from behind, familiar lips pressing a kiss to the side of my neck.

As sweet as it feels in the moment, it hurts like a bitch when I shake myself out of it. I swallow the lump in my throat, forcing myself not to cry.

I’ve done that enough.

All that’s left to do now is?—

BANG.

My tiny little world erupts.

Gunfire. Shouting.

A shrieking alarm splits through the walls, echoing down the stone corridors.

My heart hammers against my ribs as I scramble upright.An attack. Someone is attacking the mansion.

A foolish, reckless hope flares to life in my chest.

Dante.

I let myself believe it, just for a moment. That he’s come for me. That he’s tearing through these halls with fury in his eyes, the way I remember, the way I dreamed.

Footsteps pound outside my cell.

The door swings open.

And Hernando Lacruz steps inside.

Fuck.

The air is sucked from my lungs.

He fills the doorway, broad-shouldered and imposing, dressed in pristine white that looks almost blue under this shitty lighting.

I was thirteen the last time I saw him, just another man brought to heel by my father. Ambition had been evident in his gaudy rings, envy written in the wrinkles of his plastered-on smiles.

It doesn’t look like he’s aged a day.

Could be the botox, though.

“Well,” he murmurs, stepping forward as the cell door slams shut behind him. “Looks like I finally get to meet my future wife.”

I press myself back against the far wall to get away from him. “What the hell is going on out there?”

Lacruz steps further into the cell, his movements slow and deliberate, like a predator savoring the moment before the kill.

The dim light sharpens the lines of his face, deepening the creases at the corners of his mouth, the hollows beneath his sharp cheekbones. His dark eyes rake over me with something colder than disdain.

“I expected more,” he murmurs, ignoring my question entirely.

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