Forbidden Obsession (Book 1)

Chapter 2- Dante.

She walks out like she doesn’t leave blood in her wake in her black leather shorts, all thigh and attitude, with her hips swaying like she owns the f*****g villa. And that mouth, that smirk, that last wink she tosses over her shoulder like it doesn’t gut me. She doesn’t look back. Good, she doesn’t need to see what’s written all over me.

Her brothers filter out slowly, Silvio muttering about meetings, Massimo still grumbling about the tattoo, Angelo stealing another croissant like he didn’t just see the storm brewing. And just like that, I’m alone, and the silence presses in.

I tap the ash into the sink, drag another pull from the cigarette, and let the burn settle in my lungs. Smoke curls up past my face, carrying her scent with it, vanilla lotion—danger wrapped in soft curves and cherry-glossed lips.

I hate mornings like this, when the house is too quiet, when the past won’t stay buried, when she makes me feel things I shouldn’t feel. Seraphina Monticello. The girl I used to call kiddo, the girl who chased me down hallways in mismatched socks and bubblegum-stained teeth, the girl who looked at me like I hung the f*****g stars.

Until she didn’t. Until that summer when she was sixteen, flirty, and reckless. All long legs and unspoken questions, the kind that dared you to cross a line and smiled when you almost did. But I was already twenty-one. Too old for her, too stupid, and too caught up trying to prove I could run an empire without getting anyone killed.

Didn’t work, though; all it took was one mistake, one leak, one ambush. Three ended up dead, including my father, Enzo. And it was all thanks to a flash of red hair and a laugh in the garden with Luca f*****g Vitale. One moment of softness and a girl who didn’t know when to keep her mouth shut.

I never told Silvio, never told Massimo or Angelo, and sure as hell never told her. I just changed, became colder, harder, and made distance my armor. Because if I let her close again—if I saw anything in her face except guilt—she’d destroy what little restraint I had left.

And yet, damn it, one look at her still, and I’m undone. A garter-belt tattoo inked into her thigh, roses curling up her skin, peeking out when she reaches for an apple. What the hell was she thinking? No, what the hell was I thinking, letting my eyes linger? She’s forbidden; she is my best friend's little sister, family, and worse—she’s the girl who cost me my father. I should hate her. I do. I remind myself every day that she’s poison. That she laughed with the son of the man who put my father in the ground. That she handed the devil the match that burned my world. So why do I want her like this? I want to ruin that tattoo; I want to put my mouth on it, taste the skin she’s never offered, find out if the lace goes all the way up, and then I want to hate myself for it.

I stub the cigarette out in the sink, watching the ember hiss and die. My chest is tight, and it isn’t from the smoke. I tell myself she’s a liability, but the truth is, Nina Monticello isn’t just a problem I can’t solve; she’s the problem I don’t know how to kill.

A dragon inked across my chest, scars down my side, yet the worst wound I have walks on two legs and wears perfume, and I can’t stop watching her walk away.

The office is thick with testosterone and tension, the same as any morning on the estate. My desk is a battlefield of blueprints, burner phones, encrypted tablets, and a bottle of Glenfiddich no one has touched yet. Sunlight cuts through the tall windows in jagged bars, slashing the leather furniture like God is checking the ledger.

Silvio stands by the liquor cart, sleeves rolled, a vein pulsing at his throat. Massimo sits on the couch, legs spread, jaw a rigid line. Angelo leans against the bookshelf, knuckles tapping out a rhythm only his nerves understand. Salvatore eases into an armchair, tablet in hand, one leg tossed over the other, like we aren’t about to move twenty million in product under half the continent’s nose.

“The layout changed last month,” Salvatore says, scrolling through images. “Customs added a third checkpoint. We need to scrub the containers before they roll.”

“We scrub nothing under pressure,” I cut in.“If anything goes wrong on the ground, it’s on us. This isn’t street-level bullshit.”

Massimo nods. “Which means we go ourselves.”

“Personally,” Silvio adds, tone flat as rust, “I want eyes on every f*****g inch—snipers on the grain silos, spotters in the cranes. Nobody new and nobody twitchy.”

“Vito and Marco already have north secured,” I say.“Sal and I will handle south access. Massimo and Angelo will take the trucks once they clear.”

Angelo finally stops tapping. “And if we smell heat?”

“We torch the cargo,” Silvio states it like an incision.

There is a moment of silence. Torching means failure, and failure means money gone.

Silvio’s phone buzzes. He glances down; his eyebrows pinch. “It’s Nina,” he mutters, unlocking it. He squints at the message aloud,

Nina: I will be late tonight. Have a thing. Vera will be back at seven.

Sal snorts. “A thing? That sounds suspiciously like a dick.”

Massimo groans. “Oh, for f**k’s sake.”

Silvio’s fingers already fly over the screen.

Silvio: What thing? Where? With who? You’re not staying out alone.

The phone buzzes again. He reads slowly, like each word is f*****g with his head.

Nina: I’m going to my boyfriend’s tonight. He volunteered to inspect my tattoo. Someone has to worship the lace. Don’t call, big brothers. Save your sermons for Sunday.

There it is, her usual sassy behavior that drives her brothers crazy.

Massimo rockets up like someone shot him. “What the f**k does that mean?!”

Angelo nearly trips over the rug. “She did not just say that.”

Silvio goes pale, like the blood’s left his face. Sal is wheezing with laughter that he tries to choke away.“I’m sorry, I know I shouldn’t, but Jesus Christ. That girl will be the death of you.”

I don’t move, I don’t blink, but every inch of me is on fire. Boyfriend’s house. Inspect my tattoo. Worship the lace. My brain fills with scenes I don’t want—legs, ink, hands, a mouth that isn’t mine. Jealousy cuts like a clean blade through my gut, and it's not just a flame. This is sharp and surgical. I keep my face neutral, trying not to twitch, not to shift an inch. Instead, I run a hand over my jaw and say flatly, “Didn’t know she had a boyfriend.”

“She’s had him six months,” Silvio snaps.“Smart girl. Stupid choice.”

Massimo looks like he wants to punch a hole through the wall. “I’m going to his house. Now.”

“No, you’re not,” Silvio says. “We are going to the docks tonight. We don’t have time for this.”

“Then I’m sending someone to his house.” Massimo’s voice trembles from his rage.

Sal c***s his head, amused.“You going to have him shot or just cockblock him?”

“Either works,” Massimo snaps.

I stay silent, but my hand is itching to light another cigarette, and my chest is tight as a fist. The thought of someone else touching her makes bile rise in my throat; the thought that I want to be that man makes my teeth ache with shame. She is the girl whose laugh in the garden I can’t forget, the same laugh I remember around Luca Vitale. She’s the face I blame for my father’s blood. But then she sends a message like that, and something in me snaps sideways. Desire bleeds into guilt until I don’t know which is more dangerous. “Let her be,” I say finally, voice low. “She wants space? Give her space.”

Four faces turn toward me like I’m speaking a foreign tongue.

“You serious?” Massimo asks.

“Dead serious,” I say.“We have a shipment to protect. Let her play house. She’ll come home when she’s bored.”

Silvio narrows his eyes.“Are you good, man?”

I nod once.“Fine.”

But I’m not fine. Someone out there has their hands on Seraphina Monticello, and a part of me wants to rip that someone’s throat out for touching her. Another part wants to be the one with his hands and mouth on her, for all the wrong reasons, and I hate myself for both.