The Mafia Obsession:Bound To Him

Chapter one The rain was hitting the car so hard it sounded like gravel. Lucien sat with his arm thrown over the leather seat, not moving. Not talking. The city outside was a mess of red brake lights and blurred umbrellas. Water pooled on the road. Cars crawled. “East route might be faster,” Matteo said from the driver’s seat. “Traffic’s choking up.” Lucien didn’t answer. The car had stopped at a red light by the old Rossi estate, and something outside the window caught his eye. The gates were half open, swinging in the wind. The garden behind it was ruined. Mud everywhere. Flower pots shattered. White roses bent over, half-drowned. And standing in the middle of it was a girl. No shoes. Hair plastered to her face. White dress soaked through, sticking to her skin. She wasn’t running for cover like everyone else. She was kneeling in the mud, tying a broken rose stem back onto the bush with fingers that kept slipping. Lucien frowned. The light turned green but Matteo didn’t move. “Who’s that?” Lucien asked. “Rossi’s daughter, I think.” Lucien didn’t look away. She didn’t belong out there. The city ate girls like her alive. She looked like she’d cry if someone raised their voice. Rainwater dripped from her hair down her jaw. She pushed it back with the back of her wrist, then went right back to the flowers. One of the roses snapped clean in half. Her face fell. Not dramatic. Just… quiet. Like it actually hurt her. Lucien almost smirked at that. There were people dying three streets over tonight over a shipment. And she was upset about a flower. Something uncomfortable pulled at his chest. “Find out who she is,” he said. Matteo hesitated for half a second. “Right.” Lucien kept watching. The girl looked up then, like she felt someone watching. Her eyes met the tinted glass of the car. She couldn’t see him. He knew that. But for a second, it felt like she did. Her eyes were too bright for this place. Too clear. Like she hadn’t learned yet what the world was. Lucien leaned back in his seat, jaw tightening. That was a problem. He didn’t know her name. Didn’t know her voice. Didn’t know if she was smart or annoying or kind. All he knew was that she was standing barefoot in freezing rain trying to save something that was already dead. And it made him want to keep her away from everything. Everyone. The rain got heavier. The girl gathered the remaining roses into her arms and ran for the house. The front door slammed behind her. Only then did Lucien look away. “Drive,” he said. The car moved. But his eyes stayed on the house for another five seconds too long. Two days later, Matteo dropped a thin folder on Lucien’s desk. “She’s clean,” he said. Lucien set down the pen he’d been holding. “Name.” “Elena Rossi. Eighteen.” Lucien went still. Eighteen. Too young. He knew that immediately. Knew he shouldn’t be thinking about her at all. Knew the kind of man he was and what happened when he started wanting things he couldn’t have. Matteo kept talking. “University student. Lives with her parents. No police record. No scandals. Nothing.” Lucien stared out the window at the city below. Cars moving like ants. Lights like veins. “She volunteers at the children’s hospital twice a week,” Matteo added. “And she gardens. A lot.” Lucien could picture it without trying. Wet hair. Bare feet. White roses. He hated how easy that image came. “Boyfriend?” “No.” “Anyone pursuing her?” “A few. Nothing serious.” Lucien tapped his fingers once against the desk. “Keep it that way.” Matteo’s brows pulled together. “Lucien—” “I said keep it that way.” Matteo nodded and didn’t argue again. Lucien stood up and walked to the window. Below him, the city kept moving like nothing had changed. Like he hadn’t just decided to keep tabs on an eighteen-year-old girl. He should drop it. A normal man would. But he wasn’t normal. He’d known that since he was sixteen and he’d put a bullet in a man without losing sleep over it. The first time he saw Elena Rossi, he felt something else entirely. That was the issue. Men like him didn’t fall carefully. They didn’t court. They didn’t wait. They took. They held. They ruined. He should wait. Give her time. Let her grow up. Let her forget he existed. Five years. Maybe more. Long enough for her to stop being a kid. Long enough for him to convince himself this wasn’t an obsession. But even as he thought it, he knew it was a lie. Once he decided he wanted something… he didn’t let it go. Not ever. That night, Elena sat on her bed with dirt under her nails and a towel wrapped around her hair. Her mother knocked and came in without waiting. “You were out there again.” Elena smiled, guilty. “The roses would’ve died.” “You care more about those flowers than yourself.” “Not true.” Her mother brushed Elena’s hair back from her face. “One day, someone’s going to love you properly.” Elena laughed. “Where? At the flower shop?” “You never know.” Thunder rolled outside again. Neither of them noticed the black car parked across the street. Neither of them noticed the man inside it, sitting in the dark with his eyes locked on Elena’s bedroom light. Lucien loosened his cuff and said it quietly, to no one but himself. “Five years.” His gaze didn’t move from the window. “Then you’re mine.”