Sinful Obsession

Chapter 7: Blood Debts and Buried Truths

The SUV’s tires screeched as we tore out of the underground garage.

Damon’s jaw was set tight, his grip on the wheel white-knuckled. Two black cars trailed us his men, loyal and silent. I sat in the passenger seat, heart pounding, clutching the duffel bag like it could shield me from what was coming.

I wasn’t the same girl who walked into that club days ago.

Now, I was the girl being hunted.

“Start talking,” I said, my voice rough. “You don’t get to go silent now.”

Damon didn’t look at me. His eyes stayed locked on the road ahead.

“Mateo and I ran ops together when I was twenty-two. Arms, intel, muscle. Colombia. He was like a brother.”

“What happened?”

“I found out he was selling intel to enemies for cash. People started dying. Good people.” Damon’s voice was low, lethal. “So I confronted him.”

“And?”

“We fought. I left him bleeding in a jungle bunker, gun jammed, storm coming. I didn’t stay to make sure he was dead.”

“Jesus, Damon…”

He glanced at me. “I made a mistake. And now you’re paying for it.”

We drove for hours, leaving the city and its high rises behind. Eventually, we turned off a dirt road and pulled into the gated entrance of a safe house a glass and stone cabin tucked deep in the forest. Isolated. Secure.

But I’d never felt more exposed.

Inside, the lights flickered on. Damon’s men ran perimeter sweeps. I wandered the living room, staring out at the dense trees beyond the window. The silence felt… wrong. Too still.

“Eva,” Damon called softly.

I turned to see him standing in the doorway of the bedroom. “Come here.”

He stripped off his jacket and holster, setting the gun on the nightstand.

“You’re shaking.”

“No, I’m not,” I said quickly.

He walked to me, slow and careful. “You’re terrified.”

I broke.

The tears came out of nowhere silent and hot, sliding down my cheeks as I tried to blink them away. “I didn’t ask for this,” I whispered. “I didn’t want to be part of some mafia vendetta. I was just trying to get through life.”

“I know.”

“I didn’t want to fall for you either.”

His eyes softened. “But you did.”

I nodded. “And now I’m scared that if I keep falling, I’ll land in a grave.”

He didn’t speak. Just pulled me into his arms, held me like something fragile and flammable.

Then he kissed me slow at first, then with growing urgency, like he needed to remind me we were still alive.

I kissed him back. Hard.

It wasn’t about s*x this time it was about escape. About taking back control.

He lifted me onto the bed, peeled the fear off my skin with every touch. His mouth traced the bruises life left behind. When he entered me, it wasn’t soft it was desperate. Like we both needed to feel something real before the world caved in.

And when we came apart in each other’s arms, I realized something:

I was already too far gone.

After, we lay tangled beneath the sheets, the night pressing in around us.

“I need to end this,” he said, eyes on the ceiling.

“With Mateo?”

He nodded. “He won’t stop. Not until one of us is dead.”

A chill slid through me. “So kill him.”

He looked at me the really looked. “And if I do… will you still stay?”

I didn’t answer right away. My mind screamed run. But my heart whispered stay.

“Yes,” I finally said. “But only if you promise this life won’t swallow me whole.”

“I’ll burn it all down before it does.”

At 3:47 AM, the alarm tripped.

Damon shot out of bed, gun already in hand. I followed, heart hammering.

“Stay here,” he ordered.

“The hell I will”

Gunfire cracked outside.

I ducked low, crawling to the window just in time to see one of Damon’s men go down.

“s**t Damon!”

He kicked open the back door, firing into the trees. Men in black charged from the darkness four of them, maybe five.

I grabbed the backup Glock from under the bed like he’d shown me and slid behind the couch, breath shaky but ready.

And then the front window shattered.

A man crashed through the glass with a roar, gun aimed at my chest. I didn’t think.

I fired.

Once. Twice.

He dropped.

Blood sprayed across the floor, and the room rang with silence.

I stared at the body. My hands shook, the gun heavy.

I’d killed someone.

Before I could spiral, Damon rushed in and pulled me into his arms. “Are you hurt?”

I shook my head, numb. “I shot him. I didn’t even… think.”

“You did exactly what you had to,” he said fiercely. “You survived.”

The other attackers retreated into the forest.

By dawn, Damon had five more guards stationed outside. I sat on the edge of the bed, still in my underwear and his bloodied shirt, staring at my shaking hands.

Damon crouched in front of me, gently prying the gun from my grip.

“You did good,” he murmured.

“I didn’t want this,” I whispered. “I didn’t want to become this.”

“You haven’t,” he said. “You’re still Eva. You’re still mine.”

But even as he kissed my palms, I wasn’t sure he was right.

Because something in me had changed tonight.

And in the last five minutes of dawn, the phone on the dead attacker’s body buzzed with an unknown number.

A message appeared on the cracked screen:

“Tell Moretti his queen dies next.”