Forbidden Obsession (Book 1)

Chapter 3-Dante.

The docks smell like rust, salt, and old secrets. Midnight wraps the port in a velvet hush, broken only by the low hum of diesel and the slap of waves against steel. Floodlights bleach the yard in a hard white that makes every shadow look like a threat. Tonight, threats aren't theoretical.

Sal and I hold south access, backs to the sea. He leans against the hood of the blacked-out SUV, eyes split between the tablet and the security feeds. I stand a few feet away, arms crossed, watching the trucks snake through the checkpoint one by one. No problems yet, no delays. Massimo and Angelo are inside, checking seals and logging plates. Vito and Marco have the snipers locked. Everyone is tight and exactly where they should be.

Still, my jaw is clenched like a vice, because no matter how clean the op runs, my head doesn’t. She said she’d be busy. Worship the lace. I grind my teeth and shove the images away. I try to focus on math, wheels, and timing. But like a scratched record, my brain flicks back with her, on a bed that isn’t mine, that ink curling up her thigh, his hands there, his mouth. Her voice, small sounds leaking out of her throat, sounds I should not want. I bite so hard my jaw aches. The thought comes uninvited, the college prick moving down that lace, mapping her skin with his mouth, taking the sounds out of her—moans, whispers, little names—sounds that belong to her and, by right, to no man in particular. Only I hear them and translate them into ownership, and that translation makes me sick. I hate myself for it, I hate the want that claws through me like an animal.

“You wound tight tonight,” Sal mutters without looking up.

“I’m always tight before a big haul,” I reply.

“Bullshit. You don’t twitch before raids. You don’t blink during firefights. But you’ve checked your watch six times in ten minutes,” he snarks. I keep my eyes on the convoy, the trucks move, the night breathes.

“She got under your skin, huh?” Sal says, lazy grin pulling at his mouth.

That earns him a slow look. He adds, “Not judging. She’s got a mouth and legs like war crimes. I’d be homicidal too.”

“She’s Silvio’s sister,” I say.

“Sure,” he shrugs. “Doesn’t mean your blood runs colder.”

I look away as the third truck passes and the checkpoint clears. The fourth truck creeps through, no red flags.

“Status?” Massimo’s voice in my earpiece.

“South access is clean. Four through. Fifth approaching.” I tap the feed.

“Copy,” Angelo answers. “Inside’s clear. Seals match.”

I watch the next rig roll in, headlights feathering the pavement, the engine low, wheels smooth, like clockwork. Precisely how I want it. Because if something goes sideways tonight, I know exactly where my rage will land. Not on a container, not on a crooked inspector, but on the soft-jawed college prick in a dorm room, kissing down that tattoo as if it’s a trophy.

Do I imagine the sounds? Yes.

Do I imagine that I should be the one taking them out of her? Also yes.

The latter is the part that makes me want to claw my skin off. To want those sounds is to betray my father’s memory, to betray the rules I built my life around, to want them is grotesque. To hate myself for wanting them is worse.

Truck five clears, the gate closes. Sal gives a short nod. “That’s all of them.”

I let air out slowly. “Package secured.”

“Rolling,” Angelo confirms. “Escort in place. ETA thirty.”

“Move smoothly. No detours.” My voice is flat, cold.

“Always, Don,”

Sal shuts the tablet and stands, dusting his sleeves. “Another night, another miracle. You ever let yourself feel good about a job well done, or is that dragon on your chest the only thing that gets to feel heat?”

I give him a look that lets him know the dragon will indeed be the only thing feeling anything from me tonight.

The trucks disappear into the dark, and the gates lock. Everything is secure, everything is handled, except what roils in my gut.

Back in some dorm room, some college boy is probably kissing his way down her thigh, tasting that lace, hearing her breath hitch. He’ll say her name like he owns it. He’ll make her do sounds that I have a stupid, ugly urge to make my own.

I light a cigarette, slow drag, but the smoke that fills my lungs does nothing to cool the burn.

I am a Don. A ghost in a tailored suit. A man who can kill with a look, and she’s turned me into something I hate—a man who spends a night on the docks wondering whose name her voice breaks under. Goddamn it, Nina.

The villa is quiet when we finally walk in. Silvio’s first through the door, pulling off his jacket and tossing it over a chair like the house owes him rent. Massimo follows, face flushed from the night air. Angelo trails behind, shoulders stiff, eyes still wired from adrenaline. I’m last, the door clicks behind me.

Home. Or whatever passes for it.

The living room lights are low, someone—probably Vera—left jazz playing low through the speakers, the kind of smooth, lazy piano that makes you want to drink something expensive and forget why your hands shake.

“She texted an hour ago,” Silvio mutters, pulling out his phone. He holds up the screen.

Nina: I’m home. Time-stamped at 11:30 p.m.

Massimo grunts. “She'd better be in bed.”

“She'd better be alone,” Angelo adds darkly, flopping onto the couch.

I say nothing, don’t need to. She’s home. The tattoo worship has apparently ended, and I try not to think about what that means.

Silvio heads to the bar cart, pours bourbon into four glasses, and hands them out like communion that nobody refuses.

“Well,” he says, sinking into the armchair across from me, “we pulled it off.”

Massimo raises his glass. “No losses. No mistakes.”

“No noise,” Angelo adds.

“No drama,” I finish. My voice is flat, steady. I take a sip, the burn slices through the static in my chest.

“That was a f**k-ton of product to move in one night,” Massimo mutters. “We haven’t run that clean since Milan.”

“Because we didn’t micromanage Milan,” I say. “We trusted our men. Same tonight.”

Silvio tips his glass. “To trusting the right people.”

“And torching the wrong ones,” Salvatore adds, stepping in from the side hall, cuffs loose, grinning lazily.

I stand first.“Good work tonight. Get some rest.”

“You heading up?” Silvio asks.

“Yeah. Got sea air all over me.”

Massimo smirks. “That and your brooding probably needs space.”

I don’t even smile, just turn away. The villa is dark upstairs, except for a faint strip of light bleeding out from under Nina’s bedroom door. I don’t look at it long. She’s home, and that’s supposed to be enough.

I shut my door, strip, and walk straight into the shower. The water hits hard and hot, steam clouding the glass, burning the night off my skin, but not her. My head tilts back under the spray, my hands brace against the tile. The sound of the water is too close to her voice, low and soft and alive. Every time I close my eyes, I see her, red hair spilling across a pillow, that damned tattoo curling up her thigh, the smile she wears when she knows she’s pissing me off and does it anyway.

Had she smiled like that for him? Had he kissed her slowly? Traced the ink with his tongue? Pulled sounds out of her throat, she doesn’t give away easily?

A growl tears out of my chest, my fist hits the tile, and the sound echoes off glass and steam.

She isn’t mine. She. Isn’t. Mine.

I tell myself that again and again, but it doesn’t take. The truth burns through every denial. I dry off without thinking, pull on sweats, and drop into bed, staring at the ceiling.

The room is dark, the air hot, and my blood won’t settle. She’s here, safe and asleep down the hall, but I still can’t f*****g breathe. Because her ghost is in every corner of this house, because every time I close my eyes, I hear her laugh, and I remember the day I told myself I should stop wanting it. Because I still see her that way, the girl who smiled at me like I hung the stars, and I hate her for making me want. Because wanting her cost me everything in the past, and that makes me hate myself more for wanting her anyway.