BOUND BY OBSESSION

chapter 7

CHAPTER 7: MY MOTHER'S SECRET

Maya POV

I stared at Dominic.

"The truth about me?"

Nobody spoke.

The room felt impossibly quiet. Like all the air had been sucked out of it. Like we were underwater and nobody was coming to save us.

My heart pounded so hard it actually hurt. Physical pain. Like my chest was going to explode from the inside out.

"What does that mean?" I asked. My voice sounded small. . "Tell me. Right now."

Dominic looked at his mother. Then he rubbed a hand over his face like he was exhausted. Like he'd been holding his breath for years and was finally letting it out.

"I wanted to tell you differently," he said.

"When?" I snapped. "After another explosion? After another lie? After more people die?"

His mother stood up slowly.

"Enough."

She walked across the room toward an old wooden cabinet. The kind of thing that belonged in museums. The kind of thing that screamed money and history and secrets.

She pulled out a small silver key from somewhere I didn't see and unlocked a drawer.

From inside, she removed something.

A journal.

It was old. Like it has been kept there for years

. The leather was cracked and worn. The pages looked like they might fall apart if you breathed on them too hard.

She carried it to me carefully. Almost like it was sacred. Almost like it was made of glass.

"I've kept this for twenty-three years," she said.

My hands were shaking as I took it from her.

I could barely hold it.

The cover was falling apart. The binding was coming undone. There was no title written anywhere.

Just one name.

Inside the front cover.

In handwriting I recognized but hadn't seen in years.

Elena.

My breath caught.

"That's... that's my mother's name..."

"You remember it."

"Barely," I said. And it was true. I barely remembered her. I was so young when she left. I had more memories of the idea of her than actual memories of her. Like I'd created a version of her in my head to fill in the gaps of what I'd forgotten.

Dominic's mother sat down beside me on the couch.

She smelled like expensive perfume and something else. Something old. Something sad.

"Your mother left you because she wanted to save your life."

I laughed.

It came out bitter and wrong and nothing like a real laugh.

"That's ridiculous," I said. "That doesn't even make sense. If she wanted to save my life, she wouldn't have left me with a man who sold me off to a mafia boss."

"He already did that before she left," Dominic's mother said quietly.

The words were quiet but they hit like she'd physically pushed me.

I couldn't speak.

Couldn't breathe.

"What?" I whispered.

"He told you she abandoned you."

I nodded slowly. That's exactly what my dad had told me. Over and over. Your mother left because she couldn't handle being a parent. Your mother didn't want this life. Your mother chose to leave us.

I'd grown up believing that. Believing that I wasn't enough. That something about me was unlovable enough that my own mother just... walked away.

"He told everyone that," Dominic's mother continued. "He built this entire narrative. This story where Elena was irresponsible. Selfish. Abandoning."

"The truth is..." She paused and looked at me with eyes that were sad. Genuinely sad. Like she actually felt sorry for me. "The truth is that she disappeared because people were hunting her."you

"Hunting her for what?" I asked. But even as I said it, I didn't want to know. I could feel it. The answer was going to destroy something inside me. Some version of my past that I'd spent years building.

Dominic finally spoke.

"For something she took."

I looked between both of them.

"What did she steal?" I asked. "Just tell me. What the hell did my mother steal that's important enough to hunt her for twenty years?"

Neither of them answered.

Instead Dominic placed a photograph on the table between us.

A real photograph. Not digital.

It showed a woman.

My mother.

But younger than I'd ever seen her. The few memories I had were of someone older. Someone is tired. Someone like a ghost already.

But in this photo she was alive.

Actually alive.

She was smiling.

Her whole face was different when she smiled.

And she was standing beside someone.

Not as strangers.

Her hand was on his shoulder.

His arm was around her waist.

Like they were close.

Like they mattered to each other.

Like they had history.

It was Dominic.

Younger. Maybe ten years younger than he was now. But definitely him.

"What is this?" I whispered.

I couldn't look away from the photo.

It didn't make sense.

None of this made sense.

"You've never met me before," Dominic said quietly. "Not really. Not that you'd remember."

"But I knew your mother," he continued.

I looked up at him.

"You knew her?"

"I owed her my life."

The words just hung there.

"I don't understand," I said. But I was starting to. Or at least I was starting to be afraid that I understood.

"Years ago," Dominic said slowly, "your mother saved me."

"From what?" I asked.

He hesitated. Like he was deciding how much to tell me. How much truth I could handle.

"From the people chasing us now."

Every single hair on my body stood up.

"Wait. What? So this has been happening for years? Since before I was even born?"

He nodded.

"They never stopped looking for her," he said. "And when they couldn't find her... they started looking for you."

I felt like I was drowning.

"So my entire life..." I said slowly. "My entire life has been about this? About running from people I didn't even know existed?"

"Your father didn't tell you because he was trying to protect you."

"By lying to me? By letting me think my mother abandoned me?"

"By keeping you alive," Dominic said.

There was something in his voice. Something that said he believed this. That he actually thought lying to someone for their entire life was protection.

"They never stopped looking for her," Dominic continued. "And now they're looking for you."

"For me?" I said. "But I don't have anything. I don't have whatever she stole or took or whatever this is. I've never had anything."

"I know."

"So why do they care about me?"

Dominic met my eyes.

"They believe your mother left something behind."

"What?"

"They think she gave it to you."

"But I don't have anything!" I shouted. My voice cracked. I was shaking now. Actually physically shaking. "I don't have money. I don't have information. I don't have anything anyone would want. I'm nobody. I'm just... I'm just a person who showed kindness to some stranger years ago and that was apparently enough to orchestrate my entire marriage and my entire"

A loud alarm suddenly cut through the house.

Loud. Piercing. Wrong.

Red lights started flashing in the hallway outside the sitting room.

The alarm was so loud I couldn't think.

Couldn't breathe.

Couldn't do anything except cover my ears.

One of the guards burst through the door so hard it slammed against the wall.

"They found us!"

His expression was terrified.

Actually terrified.

And if Dominic's security was terrified, then we were in trouble.

Real trouble.

Dominic was already moving. Already shifting into that other version of himself. The dangerous one.

"How many?" he asked.

"Over twenty vehicles. They're surrounding the property."

"How long do we have?"

"Minutes. Maybe less."

My stomach dropped.

It literally felt like it fell out of my body and hit the floor.

"How is that possible?" I whispered. "We drove for thirty minutes. We got away. How did they find us?"

Dominic looked toward the window.

Then his expression changed.

Hardened.

"They didn't follow us," he said quietly.

His mother's face went pale.

"No," she breathed.

"They had help," Dominic finished.

Someone inside the mansion.

Someone we thought was safe.

Someone we thought was loyal.

Had betrayed us.

The overhead lights flickered once.

Then twice.

Then they went out completely.

The entire house fell into darkness.

Complete darkness.

The kind where you can't see your own hand in front of your face.

For a second there was just silence.

Just the sound of everyone breathing.

Just the sound of my heart slamming in my chest like it was trying to escape.

Then...

Somewhere upstairs.

A little girl screamed.

Not a scream of fear.

A scream of terror.

Raw and high-pitched and absolutely broken.

Like something had found her in the dark.

Like something was hurting her.

Like she was dying.

Dominic grabbed my arm.

"Stay with my mother. Don't move. Don't leave this room."

"Where are you going?" I demanded.

But I already knew.

He was going upstairs.

Toward the screaming.

Toward whatever was happening in the dark.

Toward his daughter.

"Dominic, wait"

But he was already gone.

I heard his footsteps pounding up the stairs.

Heard shouting from somewhere in the house.

Heard gunshots.

Multiple gunshots.

Everything was chaotic.

Everything was violence.

Everything was burning down.

His mother grabbed my hand in the darkness.

"We have to go," she said. Her voice was steady. Controlled. Like she'd been preparing for this her entire life.

"He said stay”

"He said that because he knows I'll get you out of here alive," she said. "That's his only concern now. Making sure you survive."

Another scream from upstairs.

Different this time.

Dominic's voice.

Shouting something I couldn't hear.

"Come," his mother said. She pulled me toward a different door. One hidden in the shadows. One I hadn't even noticed before.

"What about his daughter?" I asked.

"Dominic will get her," she said. "But he can't protect you and protect her. So he's chosen to trust me with you."

She pulled a hidden panel open.

It led to darkness.

A tunnel maybe.

A secret passageway.

Of course he had a secret passageway.

Of course nothing about this man was simple.

"I don't understand any of this," I said. "I don't understand my mother. I don't understand you. I don't understand why everyone is hunting me."

His mother pulled me into the darkness.

"Your mother had something they wanted more than life itself," she said as we moved through the passage. "Something valuable enough to destroy families for. Something valuable enough to hunt a woman across continents."

"What?" I asked. "What did she have?"

"That's the real question, isn't it?" his mother said. "And the only person who can answer it is locked in a safe somewhere in this mansion."

"My mother?"

"No," she said. "Your father."

And then we were in complete darkness.

Moving blind through passages I couldn't see.

Running from people I didn't understand.

Toward a truth I wasn't sure I wanted to know.

Somewhere behind us, Dominic was fighting.

Somewhere above us, his daughter was screaming.

Somewhere in all of this chaos and darkness and lies...

My entire life was being rewritten.

And I had no choice but to follow.