Bound By Obsession

The Cold CEO

Marco’s hand was still wrapped around mine when the air changed.

I felt it, That weight, that shadow.

You ever get that feeling like the temperature just drops out of nowhere? Yeah. That. My whole body went stiff because I knew before I even looked…

Matteo.

Didn’t need to see him. Didn’t need to hear him. The shadow was enough.

“Marco.” His voice. Ice cold. Sharp enough to cut my skin just by existing.

Marco didn’t even twitch. Like, hello? Big scary brother in the room? Nope. He just grinned wider, the cocky bastard. “Brother,” he said, all lazy and smug, like the word itself was a joke only he found funny. “You didn’t tell me you were hiding new staff in here.”

I ripped my hand back so fast my knuckles cracked. My heart was hammering so loud it was embarrassing, like it wanted both of them to hear.

Matteo looked at me and, God, I almost collapsed right there. He didn’t shout. Didn’t even move. Those storm grey eyes just drilled straight through me like X-rays and stripped me naked without touching me.

“She’s debt,” he said. Like I was a piece of furniture.

Marco tilted his head. “Debt with a name, I hope?”

Ugh. I hated that. Hated how he made me sound like some object they were passing around. But also… when his eyes flicked to me, his voice went softer. And my stupid broken heart noticed.

“Isabella,” I whispered, because apparently I love volunteering my own noose.

Marco’s grin curved slow. “Beautiful name.”

Matteo’s jaw flexed. Just this tiny twitch, but I saw it. The storm behind his mask.

The rest of the day was torture. Silent torture. Matteo barking orders, voice sharp like knives. Marco lounging in the office like it was his personal stage, cracking jokes, throwing me looks that made my stomach do this awful twisty thing.

Couldn’t decide which was worse,

Marco’s smile or Matteo’s scowl.

Both burned, just in different ways.

By evening, I was packing up my stuff, thinking maybe they’d let me breathe for two seconds. Wrong.

“My office. Now,” Matteo said. His voice left zero room for arguing.

The second the door closed behind me, my chest went tight. The skyline glittered outside like the whole city was laughing at me. Matteo stood by the window, hands in his pockets, like some untouchable statue.

“You will stay away from Marco,” he said, not even looking at me.

I froze. “I..he came to me. I didn’t…”

“Stay. Away.”

My throat was sandpaper. “Why? Because he’s your brother?”

He turned then. And oh God. His stare slammed into me so hard my knees almost buckled.

“Because he destroys everything he touches.”

And I didn’t know if that was him protecting me… or just him calling dibs.

My mouth betrayed me. “And what about you? You think you’re any different?”

For a split second, his mask cracked. I saw something, pain? Regret? Who knows. Then it vanished like it was never there.

“I don’t pretend to be different,” he said, quiet but lethal. “But at least with me, you’ll know the cage you’re in.”

Ouch. That honesty stung more than any lie ever could. My chest squeezed, and I hated myself for it. Because damn it, he was right. At least he wasn’t sugarcoating it with fake smiles like Marco.

And somehow that made it scarier.

Silence stretched. I should’ve bolted. Should’ve said anything. But I just stood there, stupid, frozen, drowning in his storm-grey stare.

Then, God help me, he moved closer.

The space shrank. His cologne hit me, sharp cedar and smoke, and my brain just… died. His eyes dragged over my face, down to my mouth.

My pulse was slamming so hard it hurt.

For one insane, reckless second, I thought he was gonna kiss me.

But no. Of course not.

He stopped an inch away, lips curling in this ghost of a smirk. “Don’t make the mistake of confusing survival with choice, Isabella.”

And just like that, the spell shattered. Heat exploded across my cheeks, shame crawling up my throat like fire ants.

I hated him. God, I hated him. For making me feel this. For making my body betray me.

I hated him, except my body hadn’t gotten the memo.

I stumbled out of his office shaking, head spinning. And who was waiting right outside? Marco.

Leaning against the wall, grin plastered on his face like he had front-row seats to my breakdown.

“So,” he said, eyes glinting. “How was round one with the ice king?”

I didn’t answer. My lips wouldn’t move.

His grin softened though, turning almost gentle. “Don’t let him crawl inside your head, bella. He breaks people for fun. But some of us know how to put them back together.”

The way he said it, like he was offering me a savior complex on a silver platter? I should’ve laughed in his face. Walked away.

Instead I just stood there, stupid again, caught between fire and frost, wondering which one was gonna burn me worse.

That night, lying in the tiny shoebox room they shoved me into on the thirty-second floor, I stared at the ceiling and realized something awful.

Alejandro’s betrayal had broken me. Carmen’s betrayal had gutted me. My family’s betrayal had sold me.

But none of that terrified me as much as the Romano brothers.

Because with them, it wasn’t just betrayal at stake.

It was my freaking soul.