PREQUEL

THE OBSESSION

~ALESSANDRO POV~

I have been watching her for eleven years.

Sounds crazy when you say it out loud. Like something a serial killer would admit in a police interrogation. But I'm not a serial killer.

I am worse.

She's over by the champagne fountain right now—red dress that clings to curves she didn't have at twelve. Hair pulled back so tight it has to hurt. She keeps touching her throat. Nervous habit. She does it when she's uncomfortable.

I know all her habits.

I know she drinks her coffee black with two sugars. I know she studies at the library every Tuesday and Thursday from 3 to 6. I know she sleeps on her left side. I know she has nightmares about her father.

I know because I am the reason she has them. She doesn't recognize me from the charity gala six months ago. Good. I wasn't ready then. Now I am.

The bastard next to her says something. She laughs. It's fake. Her real laugh is different. Louder. Messy. I heard it once when she was with her friends at that cafe on Fifth. Some guy told a stupid joke and she threw her head back and laughed so hard she snorted.

I broke his arm two days later, not because of the joke because he touched her shoulder when he said goodbye.

My phone buzzes. Julio.

"When do we finalize?"

I text back fast.

"Tonight."

"She doesn't know yet."

Better, I want to watch her face when she finds out. I want to see the exact moment she realizes her life just got sold out from under her.

My hand shakes as I put the phone away, I hate that. I have gutted men without flinching. I have pulled triggers on people begging for their lives. But this girl in a red dress makes my hands shake.

She makes me feel fifteen again.

**********

The rain was brutal that night. The kind that soaks through your jacket in seconds.

"Do it." My father's voice cut through the storm. "Make your bones, boy."

The man was on his knees in the mud. Bleeding already. My father's work. But the killing shot? That was supposed to be mine.

"Please." The man's voice cracked. "I have a daughter. She's just a kid. She's right there."

I looked.

She was hiding behind a dumpster. Twelve years old. Her pink backpack is getting soaked. Brown eyes so wide I could see the whites even in the dark.

She was staring right at me.

"Alessandro!" My father grabbed my shoulder. "Now. Or I do her too."

My stomach dropped. "She's a kid."

"She's a witness."

I looked at the girl. Then at her father. Then back at her.

I raised the gun.

"I'm sorry." I don't know who I said it to.

The sound was huge. Bigger than the rain. The man fell backward into a puddle. Red spread out from under him. Fast.

The girl screamed.

Not a movie scream. A real one. The kind that tears your throat. The kind that stays in your head forever, I wanted to go to her. I wanted to tell her to run. Wanted to do literally anything except stand there like a coward.

But my father was already dragging me to the car.

I looked back once.

She was gone.

But I never forgot her face.

***************

I blink. The ballroom comes back into focus.

Giselle is moving toward the exit. Julio is following her. His face is doing that oily smile thing. The one he uses when he's about to screw someone over.

Time to move, I step out of the shadows. People see me coming and just... move. Nobody makes eye contact. Julio sees me first. His smile gets bigger, Faker.

"Don Romano! I was just about to…."

I pull out my phone. Show him the screen, Fifty million. Transferred. Done.

"She's mine," I say.

Giselle's head snaps up. "What?"

I don't look at Julio anymore. I look at her, up close, and she's even better. Her perfume is something light. Jasmine maybe. Her lipstick is dark red. There's a tiny scar on her chin I never noticed from far away.

I want to trace it with my thumb.

"Papa?" Her voice shakes. "What is he talking about?" Julio won't look at her. Of course, he won't. The coward can't even face what he did, so I do it for him.

"Your father sold you," I say, simple, clean. "Fifty million to clear his debts. We will get married in three days."

The color drains from her face. "No."

"Yes."

"I will run." She takes a step back. "I will go to the police. I will…."

"Run where?" I move closer. She backs up until she hits a pillar. I put my hand on the marble next to her head, not touching her, no not yet. "I own half the police. The other half knows better than to cross me."

"Why me?" She's trying not to cry. I can see it in how she's blinking. "Why would you do this?"

Because I killed your father. Because I have been trying to fix it for eleven years and this is the only way I know how. Because watching you isn't enough anymore and I'm selfish enough to take what I want even though I don't deserve it.

But I don't say any of that.

I lean in close. My lips almost touch her ear.

"Because you're mine, Giselle. You've always been mine.” Her breath hitches, I feel it against my neck, and I pull back. Look at her face. Those same brown eyes from the alley, much older now, Harder, but still the same underneath.

Does she remember me? Some part of her brain that blocked out that night?

No. She just sees the monster, She doesn't see the boy who's been trying to protect her from every other monster in this city.

"Three days," I say. "The dress is already picked out. The church is booked. Don't try to run. I'll just bring you back." I turn to leave.

"I hate you," she whispers behind me.

I stopped, I did not turn around.

“That's better than nothing, Amor," I say. "Hate is honest. We can work with hate." I walk away. Past Julio who's sweating through his tuxedo. Past the other families who suddenly find their champagne very interesting.

I don't look back. If I look back I will see her crying and I will want to fix it and I can't fix it because I'm the problem, I have been the problem for eleven years.

My driver's waiting outside. He opens the door. I slide in.

"Home, Boss?"

"No." I pull out my phone. Open the security app. The one connected to the cameras I had installed in the Castellano mansion six months ago. "Drive around. I need to think." I pull up the camera feed for her bedroom.

The room is empty. She's still at the gala. Probably crying in a bathroom somewhere.

In three days she will be at my house. In my bed. In my life, in three days and I can stop watching her through screens. Three days and I can finally have what I have wanted since that rainy night when I destroyed both our lives.

Redemption? No. I gave up on redemption when I pulled that trigger.

This isn't redemption. This is possession.

And I have waited long enough.