Chapter 5- New Obsession
1474 Words
Dante’s POV
“Heard you have a new obsession,” Leo said.
His voice was smooth, the kind of calm that always came just before something exploded. I didn’t turn around at first. I just kept pouring the bourbon, letting the ice clink softly into the glass.
The sun had already dipped behind the city skyline, casting long shadows across the marble floor of my penthouse.
Everything in the room was quiet—too quiet for a man like him to just stroll in like he owned the place.
He never knocked. Leo Varela didn’t believe in doors or boundaries. He just showed up.
I took a slow sip, then turned.
He was already leaning against the edge of the glass wall, the whole damn city of Novalon stretching behind him like a living threat. The skyline reflected off the lenses of his sunglasses even though it was already evening. That was Leo—always hiding something, even when he didn’t need to.
His suit was deep grey, wrinkled in places he didn’t bother to fix.
Hair slicked back but just messy enough to look unintentional. There was a cigarette tucked behind his ear, though he’d quit years ago. It was a habit he never shook. Like smiling when he was lying. Like calling someone “friend” when he meant “target.”
Hence his nickname in our world is called the snake. Cunning.
Leo and I grew up in the same hellhole—same bloodstained alleys, same rules of survival. We fought our way through the underworld together. I took the throne. He stayed close enough to whisper into the ears of enemies if he ever needed to. He was the kind of man you could trust with your life—until he decided it was more fun to watch you bleed and die.
And he was my friend.
“You break into my place just to talk s**t?” I asked, walking past him and settling on the black leather couch. “Are you that bored that you finally decided to watch over my life?”
Leo grinned, that same tilted smirk that never reached his eyes. “No breaking required. Your guy downstairs owes me a favor. And I was curious. Word on the street is Marino’s finally found a girl he doesn’t want to toss away by morning he went so far to reach out for an insignificant debt. I won't say watch, I will just say you need a better leech on your private life.”
My jaw clenched.
He noticed. Of course he noticed.
“Stripper, right?” he continued. “From Mirage. Sienna something.”
“She has a last name,” I said flatly.
Leo’s eyebrows lifted. “Touchy but I don't care if she does.”
I didn’t respond.
He pushed off the glass and wandered further into the room, like it was his. That was the thing with Leo—he could walk into a burning building and still act like he paid the rent there.
“She any good?” he asked, stopping by the decanter and helping himself to a drink without asking. “Or is this more of a… rescue fantasy? To suot your ego.”
I said nothing.
“Because let me tell you, Dante,” he went on, “you don’t usually keep them around. You f**k, you forget. This one… you’re watching her. Closely. Obsessively. And we don't do that here. It's weakness. So what's this shit.”
His eyes darkened. That part wasn’t casual. He was pissed.
We built what we have. And me finding anything that goes against that. Didn't sit well with him.
I met his stare. “She’s under my protection from now on, I will treat her and deal with her as I deem fit.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
I didn’t blink. “She’s not your business and there is no way in hell she would creep into mine.”
Leo’s smile faded just slightly. “Everything you touch is my business, old friend.”
That word. Friend. I hated how it sounded coming from him now.
He sat down across from me, glass in hand, fingers tapping against the rim.
“You ever wonder why she’s still breathing?” he asked quietly.
My spine stiffened.
“She’s pretty,” Leo said. “Too pretty for her own good. And she’s yours now. But there are rules, Dante. Ones you taught me. Weakness makes you bleed.”
“She’s not a weakness.”
Leo’s nose scrunched slightly. “No? You’re keeping her in the mansion. Is there a reason that why you are moving her with our exclusive cars? Why you’re snapping at people who so much as talk about her?”
“She’s paid for. Her father’s debt.”
“Yeah,” he said, leaning forward, “and her body too, right? f**k Dante. Don't love or keep.”
I was on my feet before I realized it. Glass on the table, forgotten.
“Careful,” I said, voice low.
Leo raised his hands lazily. “Just asking questions.”
I walked to the window, back turned, trying to drag my temper down.
“You like her,” Leo said after a moment. “Onky when you like that's when you keep.”
I stayed silent.
“That’s dangerous.”
I turned halfway toward him, catching his reflection in the glass. “Since when do you give a s**t who I like?”
Leo’s lips twisted. “I don’t. I care about what it does to you.”
He stood again. His eyes met mine—cold, sharp, unreadable.
“I’ve seen what happens to men like you when they get sentimental. First, they slip. Then they break. Then someone like me picks up the pieces.”
I didn’t move.
Leo took a long sip of bourbon and set the empty glass on the table.
“Question is,” he said, already heading for the door, “what are you gonna do when the whole world realizes she’s not just another girl in your bed?”
He opened the door.
“When they realize she’s the one thing you’d burn everything for?”
I didn’t answer.
Didn’t have to.
Leo paused in the doorway, glancing over his shoulder.
“Be careful, Marino. You don’t get to love something without consequences.”
Then he left.
I clicked my tongue.
Love? As if.
Leo was always the dramatic one. Out of the two of us, he was the one who fell hard, bled for it, and came out softer. He called it passion. I called it weakness.
The bastard had the audacity to stand in my space, drink my bourbon, and act like I was the one spiraling. As if I’d be dumb enough to fall for someone I bought.
Jesus. Who does that?
I leaned back in my leather chair, letting the cold glass press against my palm. The city lights flickered through the windows, golden and violent like always. Sienna’s face flashed in my mind—not the stripper version of her, all smoke and skin—but the real one. The one who looked at me like she hated me more than she hated herself.
I shook it off.
I wasn’t keeping her. That was never the plan. I didn’t do forever. She’d dance, she’d obey, and eventually, I’d get bored.
And when I did?
She’d be out.
The s*x? That was inevitable. The kind of thing that built itself up with every second she tried to look away. I’d f**k her—wild, messy, probably too hard—and when I was done, I’d move on. That was always the plan. She’d serve her time, and I’d forget her name.
But Leo had planted a question I didn’t like.
That alone pissed me off more than anything.
I grabbed my phone, dialed quick.
“Send someone to her place,” I said, voice low. “Check the perimeter. No contact. Just eyes on.”
“Understood,” the voice replied.
I hung up. If Leo was snooping, someone else might be too.
I wasn’t taking chances.
The ice in my glass clinked as I leaned forward, elbows on my knees. I stared at the city like it owed me something. Maybe it did. Maybe I’d taken so much from it, it was finally planning to bite back.
My phone buzzed again.
It was Nate—my second-in-command.
I answered. “Talk.”
“You sitting?” His voice was clipped, tense.
“I’m always sitting.”
“You’re gonna want to stand for this.”
I rose from the chair without thinking, glass forgotten.
“What is it?”
There was a beat of silence.
Then Nate’s voice came through.
“Sienna has cancer.”
- Writer
