The Mafia King’s Obsession

The Man Hell Rejected.

(Aria-Present Day)

The gallery smelled like oil paint and varnish. A scent I had grown to find comfort in. Sometimes, I could swear I could still smell the scent of blood underneath it, but I knew it wasn’t real. It was just the ghost of memory past clinging tightly to an iota of comfort I had managed to find.

It kept me awake on nights like this.

I adjusted the frame of a crimson-streaked canvas for the fifth time, my fingers trembling only slightly. Perfection was my shield. I had somehow convinced myself that if the lines were straight, the shadows controlled, maybe I could hold myself together.

“You’ll wear a hole in that painting.” I heard Clare say from behind the reception desk.

She leaned on her elbows, elegant as always, a glass of red wine in her hand. Her bracelets tinkled like tiny chimes. “It’s a gala, darling, not a burial. Stop fussing.”

“I’m not fussing.” I straightened my spine as I caught her eyes eyeing my slouched figure. Smoothing my black dress, I continued. “Just making sure.”

She chuckled. “You always say that.”

I smiled. It was small and polite, nothing real. That was the version of Aria I had built for four years: She was composed, harmless, a woman who could blend into any crowd. Aria Moreau. Not Aria Romano, not the pampered mafia daughter who had lost everything on a Persian rug stained with her brother’s blood.

Four years. I had run far enough to build a new name, a new life. I ran until the girl I had been blurred into a myth. And yet, in the quiet of the gallery, I still heard Matteo’s last breath. I still saw Luca’s gun.

And I still woke up aching for a boy who no longer existed.

Claire flicked her eyes over a clipboard. “Our guest list is obscene. Senators. Princes. Billionaires. I even heard a whisper of…” she lowered her voice until it was almost a whisper, “…a few of Italy’s finest families.”

My stomach turned.

“Which families?” I asked, praying she didn’t confirm my fears.

She shrugged. “You know how these things are. Money attracts money. Power attracts power. Be polite, pour the champagne, and smile. We’re not the ones dancing with the wolves.”

But I had danced with wolves once. I had bled for it.

I gripped the frame until my knuckles whitened. “Right,” I said lightly. “Smile.”

I stayed back late at the gallery after Claire left, alone with the paintings and the hum of the lights. The gala was tomorrow. The city outside pressed against the glass… wet streets, glimmering neon lights.

Routine was my anchor. It made me feel like I was in control, unlike the time I had been helpless. I locked the front doors, double-checked the alarms, counted my steps down the sidewalk. Eleven blocks to my apartment. I would walk past the bakery, past the fountain, past the bookshop. Every night, it was the same.

It was Safe.

Predictable.

But tonight the air felt heavier.

It felt like something was going to wreck my life forever. Who knows? Maybe this gala will change my life… for the better, I hope.

Halfway down the second block, I paused.

I could hear footsteps. It was soft, measured, calculative even.

Following me.

I glanced back at the empty street. The city hummed, but no one was there. My heart picked up anyway.

It’s nothing.

I walked faster, my eyes now fixed on the pavement. Past the bakery, which was closed and dark. Past the flickering streetlamp that always buzzed.

The footsteps quickened.

I reached into my bag, fingers brushing my phone. Claire’s number hovered under my thumb, but I didn’t press it. This was my life now. Calm. Order. No monsters.

My apartment building loomed ahead. Relief swelled in my chest. I fumbled for my keys, cursing softly when they slipped from my hands. The clatter echoed far too loud in the night.

“Breathe, Aria,” I said to myself.

I bent to pick them up.

A voice cut through me like a blade. Smooth. Familiar. Cutting straight through four years of silence.

“Did you miss me, Aria?”

I froze in place. The keys slipped from my hands again, bouncing on the stone steps.

It can’t be.

No. Not him. Not here.

I turned slowly.

He stood in the half-light, taller than my memories. His shoulders were broader, he was dressed in black like the night had built him. His dark hair was slicked back, his jaw carved sharp enough to draw blood. His eyes… God, those eyes… still the same deep, merciless brown that had once looked at me like I was his entire world.

Luca Moretti.

The boy I had loved. The man who had haunted every nightmare since. The Mafia King.

My breath hitched in my throat. My pulse thundered so loud I couldn’t hear the city anymore.

Four years hadn’t dulled him at all. Instead, they had made him lethal. He was beautiful and terrifying.

And even as terror clawed at me, my body betrayed me… remembering the warmth of his hands, the taste of his kiss, the boy who had once promised me forever under the Romano fountain.

But that boy was gone.

All that stood before me was the man who had put a bullet through my brother.

“No…” My voice cracked. “You’re not real.”

His mouth curved, humorless.

“Oh, I’m very real, tesoro.”

The nickname landed like a slap. Once sweet, now venom.

I fumbled with the lock, my hand trembling so hard I couldn’t fit the key. “Stay away from me.”

He stepped closer to me, each step slow and deliberate, each stride swallowing the space between us. “You’ve been hiding a long time,” he said softly. “But you didn’t really think you could run forever, did you?”

“Stay away,” I hissed, but my voice shook in fear.

His eyes flickered—just for a heartbeat—with softness, regret, something I couldn’t name. Then the shutters slammed down.

“I told you that night,” he murmured, voice low, edged with darkness. “It wasn’t what you thought. But you ran before I could make you listen.”

“I saw you!” My hands curled into fists. “You killed him. You killed Matteo!”

Silence.

It pressed against me harder than any confession.

His jaw tightened. He didn’t deny it. He didn’t explain.

And that silence was worse than words.

“Go to hell,” I whispered, shoving the key into the lock at last.

Before I could turn it, his hand slammed against the door above my head. The sound vibrated through me. I gasped, body jolting as his scent—smoke, leather, danger—wrapped around me.

His lips hovered inches from my ear, his voice a dark whisper.

“Hell doesn’t want me, tesoro. But you—you’re mine. And I’ve come to take you back.”

The key slipped from my fingers.

The door stayed locked.

And my nightmare… my obsession… had found me.

God help me.