The Maddest Obsession by Danielle Lori

I JUMPED TO MY FEET. “GO, BLACKIE, GO!”

The grandstand rattled and roared as the horses closed on the finish line. Ears pulled back, hooves pounding into dirt, muscles sleek with sweat. Adrenaline saturated the air, like the heavy humidity the dark clouds had brought in a moment ago. The end of August was upon us, but the heat didn’t want to let go.

My look was inspired by Clueless star Cher Horowitz’s closet—the small white dress her daddy had refused to let her leave the house in without a coverup. I had some issues with daddies, so here I was, in a small white dress—even sans sheer cardigan—as the clouds grew heavy with rain.

It fell from the sky the moment the horses crossed the finish line. I sat, watched the jockeys lead their horses off the track. Watched the dirt turn to mud.

A hand rested on my shoulder, a gaudy sapphire ring attached to the third finger. “I’m sure you’ll have better luck next time, dear.”

“I knew he wasn’t going to win.”

Patricia, a seventy-year-old widow, grabbed her purse. “What did I tell you about betting with your heart? It doesn’t win you a dime.” She patted my arm. “Well, I’m sure you’ll learn someday. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go collect my winnings.”

A little girl with big blue eyes stared from a seat in front of me, while her parents conversed with another couple. She had to hold her fountain soda with two hands it was so large. “Why would you bet on him if you knew he wouldn’t win?”

“Wouldn’t you want someone to believe in you, even if you knew you couldn’t do it?”

She nodded. “Uh huh.” She slurped her soda, looking me over. “You’re gonna look silly when you get rained on.”

I sighed and stood. Tugged my dress down my thighs and braced myself for New York’s unpredictable weather.

I had just reached the overhang outside when I stopped, seeing a familiar face.

“Gianna.” Vincent’s smile was small. “I didn’t know if I’d find you here.”

“Of course I came. It’s Blackie’s last hurrah. I had to wish him well in his retirement.” I bit my lip as the soft drip of rain sounded between us. “I thought you had a trip to depart on today?”

“The weather put it off until tomorrow.” He looked embarrassed, his gaze dropping to the pavement. “I was going to invite you—”

“You don’t have to explain, Vincent. I get it.” I shouldn’t have been upset—I couldn’t have gone even if I wanted to—but I still felt the sting of rejection.

I walked out from under the overhang and toward the sidewalk to catch a cab. The rain was a welcome relief from the heat, falling to my skin in fat drops.

“Gianna, wait.”

I turned around.

He ran a hand through his hair and sighed. “I don’t like feeling like a coward.”

I blinked. “Why would you feel like a coward?”

He opened his mouth, closed it.

An unsettling feeling expanded in my stomach. “Why would you feel like a coward, Vincent?”

“I haven’t invited you to anything lately because I didn’t want to get you into trouble, but . . . I’d be a liar if I said it didn’t have to do with self-preservation as well.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I realize now . . .” He grew distracted as his gaze ran down my body, down the dress that was probably transparent by now. “Here.” He slipped his suit jacket off and rested it on my shoulders—as always, an exemplary gentleman. “I’ve known you’re a little out of my league when it comes to your family, but now, I get why you’re so cautious of them.”

Embarrassment warmed my cheeks. Someone had visited him. Had threatened him, most likely.

“Who was it?”

He rubbed the back of his neck, understanding what I was asking him. “I didn’t ask for his name. He was a bigger guy, intimidating.”

Luca.

I gritted my teeth to calm myself.

“He had a badge on him, made me feel like a criminal just for liking you, if I’m being honest.”

Wait, what?

My breath stilled, and I asked my next question very slowly. “Did you say he had a badge?”

“Yeah, FBI, if you can believe it or not.”

My laugh was dark. “Oh, I can believe it.”

That son of a bitch. I was going to kill him. Murder him in cold blood. Toss his body to the sharks.

Was my life an amusement to him? A game, just like all the others we played? Frustration bubbled up my throat.

“I want you to know I wasn’t ignoring you, Gianna. I just think it’s better if we . . . part ways.”

Great. I’d been exiled from an entire group of friends. Vincent was the ringleader—without him, one simply didn’t get an invite. On the other hand, I could say I’d never been more turned off in my life. How easily he’d conceded to one measly threat.

“I agree, Vincent.”

“You agree,” he said, like he was confused.

Did he think I would beg him to keep me in the loop? I’d been a Russo for the last eight years of my life. We wouldn’t beg with a gun to our heads.

“I have to go now. Thanks for the jacket.”

I turned around and raised my hand to hail a cab.

Rain poured from the sky, weighing down my hair. Soaking my clothes. But doing little to cool my ire.

“Where to?” the cabbie asked.

I rattled off the address to Ace’s club.

My hands shook with resentment and something pent-up I couldn’t even explain. All I knew was that I couldn’t keep playing games with this man. I was going to wave the white flag to our rivalry, because in the end, I’d never win.

I stepped out of the cab in front of the club. It was only two o’clock and currently closed, but I’d been informed of a meeting happening here this afternoon, only because Elena had told me why they’d put off their honeymoon until tomorrow.

Angelica stood in front of the basement door looking at her nails. Her gaze came up, and she pursed her lips. “You can’t be here.”

“Well, I am. Move.”

Her eyes fell down my body. “You know, some of us girls actually use a mirror when getting dressed in the morning.”

“Some of you also drop to your knees for a twenty-dollar bill,” I retorted, as I pushed past her and opened the door.

Being careful not to get my strappy white heels stuck in the steel staircase, I didn’t notice the large meeting currently taking place in the middle of the room until I stepped off the last stair.

I looked up and froze.

Twenty male pairs of eyes pinned me to the spot. All of them filled with the darkness of the Cosa Nostra.

I swallowed.

Meetings were always in the conference room.

Why weren’t they in the conference room?

Nico sat at the front of the room next to his uncle and Luca. Jimmy looked like he was trying to hold back a low chuckle, but the other two, not so much. Ace’s expression said he would strangle me if I was in reach.

Black suits, testosterone, and a thick tension eating away at any oxygen filled the area. Nothing but Abellis seemed to be sitting or leaning against the card tables on one side of the room, including their don, Salvatore, while Russos sat on the other. And smack dab in the middle of them sat a special agent who used his badge to threaten law-abiding citizens for catching feelings for the wrong woman.

His eyes were on me, simmering with an anger that told me I was in deep shit if he caught me alone after this. I was suddenly more worried about his reaction than having to face Ace.

Christian’s fury cooled and burned my skin as his gaze skimmed down my body.

And then I remembered my dress. My very white, very wet dress.

My cheeks grew warm, but I refused to show my embarrassment by pulling Vincent’s jacket closed.

The words were filled with arrogance and amusement. “A hundred bucks says I could make her that wet.”

It was a stupid bet and an even stupider joke, but the fact it came from an Abelli mouth only amplified the tension. Something shifted in the air. The slight lift of a murderer’s lips after a kill. A starving dog catching the scent of blood.

“Watch your goddamn mouth,” Luca snapped. “That’s the wife of a capo you’re talking about.”

The Abelli who sat toward the middle of the room, his ankle resting on his knee, scoffed. “A capo on his deathbed. She’s practically fair game now.”

I shifted on my heels, waiting for the smallest cue to get the hell out of here.

“Touch one of our women against her will and see how fairly we’ll treat you,” Ricardo growled.

“Against her will?” The Abelli laughed. “I could have her begging for my cock in no time.”

Hardly.

Salvatore Abelli appeared almost amused at the exchange, and Ace only sat there, leaning back in his chair, not in any hurry to stop the words from being hurtled back and forth. His eyes expressed how ridiculous he thought this was, but he seemed resigned to let it play out. And I knew why: I was the perfect experiment to see how the families would react to the other’s taunts.

“Keep laughing,” said someone else. “Everyone knows you have to pay for any of the pussy you get.”

A few laughs broke out.

The Abelli’s face reddened. “I’d get more than that. I’ll tell you how her ass feels, Rus—”

Without a look in the Abelli’s direction, Allister pulled a pistol from his jacket.

Pop.

The gunshot reverberated off the walls and rang in my ears. Everything but my heart went still. I stared, watched the Abelli slump from his chair to the floor.

It was so quiet I could hear each drop of water falling from my dress to the concrete floor. Drip . . . drip . . . drip.

A chill passed through me as Christian put the pistol away without a flicker of emotion.

Tony Abelli wiped blood splatter from his face. Luca shook his head. Ace looked at his watch.

“What the fuck, Allister?” growled Salvatore.

The fed’s response was as dry as his eyes were cold. “He was annoying me.”

Strained silence reigned for a moment, and then Jimmy’s booming laughter filled the room, parting the tension like the Red Sea.

My God, this was madness.

I stepped back when everyone’s gazes suddenly came to me. “Um . . . I’m just gonna . . . yeah.” I took the stairs two at a time and disappeared out the door.

I practically ran through the club, my racing heart pushing me outside and back into the rain. It fell on my overheated skin like a cool caress.

The sky was dark and the streets were quiet. Not seeing a single cab, I crossed my arms and headed down the sidewalk to the next block over.

The club door slammed shut behind me. I halted where I stood, feeling his presence before he’d even said a word.

His cold and brutal slaying still played in my mind, sending a shiver of alarm down my spine. Christian Allister didn’t think twice about taking someone’s life. I suddenly feared the day he’d decide mine was too great of an inconvenience.

I turned around, thinking that here, on the street, was the best place to face him rather than anywhere else.

The rain blurred the broad span of his shoulders, the blue hue of his suit, the handsome lines of his face, but the anger in his eyes shone through like a flash of lightning in the distance.

The longer he stared at me, the further the tension stretched, wrapping around my lungs and tightening. His gaze descended over my dress. The look burned, from my breasts, to the wet material sticking to my midsection, to my smooth, bare thighs. It was as real as a rough hand sliding down my body; as tangible as the cool drops of rain on my skin.

He broke the silence. “I’ll take you home.”

It could have been a generous offer, but the displeased edge in his voice, as if he’d rather be doing anything else, ruined it.

Shaking my head, I opened my mouth to refuse—

“I’m not asking you, Gianna.”

I bit my tongue. If I argued with him, I had no doubt he’d carry me kicking and screaming to his car. And I didn’t have the energy to fight him anymore.

We walked side-by-side into the parking garage. My skin lit like a beacon to each move he made. My pulse played in tune with his steps. My breath faltered with every minuscule touch of his arm against mine. The tension that lay between us grew tauter with every second that passed. Pulling and pulling, until it threatened to snap.

“What are you wearing?” He said it calmly and slowly, but the anger was laced too finely to be masked.

“Dolce and Gabbana.”

“The jacket?”

I sawed my bottom lip.

“Let me guess, it’s from the Vincent Monroe Collection.”

I didn’t deny it.

He shook his head, letting out a sardonic breath between his teeth.

Uncertainty slid down my back. He was mad at me for interrupting his stupid meeting no doubt, yet I couldn’t seem to hold onto any frustration in return. Not with this pressure in my chest that seemed to expand from a single look from him.

He twisted his watch on his wrist, once, twice, three times. “As much as everyone enjoyed that little show back there—A-plus on the entrance, by the way—I’m still trying to figure out if you’re an attention-seeker, or just an idiot.”

I flinched, knowing it hadn’t been my finest moment.

“My guess is the former. Trying to reel in a crowd for your next husband audition?”

Anger finally lit in my stomach, but I quelled it before it could escape. He was trying to goad me. He wanted me to respond, and I wouldn’t give him that satisfaction. This rivalry with him didn’t make me feel good. It often left a regretful and restless feeling in my chest for days after our exchanges. It couldn’t be healthy. I was dropping Christian Allister, just like blow.

“There isn’t a man on this earth I would ever marry again.”

“But somehow Richard Marino passed muster?” His words were a vicious bite against my skin. “Call me crazy, but I don’t believe you.”

“Believe whatever you want, Allister. I don’t care what you think about me.”

“Just everyone else, huh?”

I couldn’t tell if he was mocking me, or if he was angry I didn’t hold his opinion in high regard. I tried to gauge his expression, but it was just as cold as a Siberian winter.

“You’ll marry again, Gianna, because that’s what good Italian girls do.”

“I’ll run before I’m ever forced to marry again.” The unwavering words shocked me as they hit the air because every one of them was true. I had never admitted it to myself out loud, even as I’d begun to collect a sizeable nest egg to start over wherever I wanted.

“Ah, sweetheart . . .” He let out a bitter noise as we reached his car. “We both know you weren’t reluctant to wed Antonio.”

I faltered. I hadn’t yet met Christian at that point in my life, so how did he know what opinion I’d held about my marriage? My heart beat, fast and unsure. Did he know why I hadn’t been reluctant? Did he know more about my childhood than I would ever tell him? A cold sweat drifted through me. He was so much smarter, so much more perceptive than me, and I despised him for it. I would never beat him.

“I’m done playing games with you.”

He opened the passenger door for me like the quintessential gentleman, his words amused and cynical. “Is that what you think we do? Play games?”

“I don’t care what you call it. I’m done! With this.” I gestured between us. “With you.”

Like the set of the sun, his eyes filled with darkness. A merciless darkness that wrapped around my soul and pulled.

The force of the snap made me fall back a step.

He slammed the car door. Stalked toward me.

“You’ll never be done with me.”

He grasped me by the throat, pushed me back against the car, and swallowed my next breath in his mouth.