The Moretti Obsession

FIVE

*Vivienne*

Mateo didn’t wait outside.

The door exploded inward before Lucien could move. Wood and steel, gone in one kick. Three men. Not cartel. Cops. Tactical vests. FEDERAL.

“¡Manos arriba!”

Lucien moved faster than I could blink. He grabbed me, spun me, put my back to his chest. One arm across my throat — not choking, shielding. The other hand had a gun again. Where did he keep getting them?

“Easy,” he told the feds. Voice calm. Bored, even. Like they’d interrupted dinner. “She’s with me.”

The lead agent’s eyes flicked to me. To my bare feet. To Lucien’s blood on my shirt. To the bandage I’d just tied on his arm.

“Vivienne Rossi?” the agent said. My name. In his mouth.

Ice went down my spine.

Lucien’s arm tightened. Not enough to hurt. Enough to say _mine_.

“She’s dead,” Lucien said. “Died ten years ago with her parents. Check your files.”

The agent smiled. No teeth. “We did. Then her face showed up on Mateo’s phone twenty minutes ago. Standing over a body outside your penthouse.”

Mateo. His #2. The text. _She’s here._

He sold us out.

Lucien didn’t flinch. “Mateo’s a liar. You want him, I’ll give you him.”

“We want you,” the agent said. “And her. Accessory to three homicides this morning. We have witnesses.”

I couldn’t breathe. Three? The bedroom, the alley, the street. They were counting all of them.

Lucien’s mouth was at my ear. So low only I heard. “Trust me.”

Then he did something insane.

He let go of me. Stepped back. Raised both hands, gun clattering to the floor.

“I surrender,” he said. Clear. Loud. “For her.”

The agents moved. Two went for him. Cuffs. One kept his rifle on me.

Lucien didn’t look at them. He looked at me.

And he mouthed one word: _Kiss me._

I understood.

If I was his, they couldn’t take me without taking him. Cartel law, fed law, didn’t matter. The photo op had to be real. Witnesses. Proof. Blood oath.

I hated him.

I stepped forward.

He was cuffed, on his knees, and I bent down and kissed him.

His mouth was blood and salt and smoke. His eyes stayed open, watching the feds, watching the door, watching me. It wasn’t a kiss. It was a contract.

I felt the camera flash before I heard it.

One of the tactical team — not a fed, I realized too late — had a phone up. Recording.

The lead agent turned. “What the hell—”

The man with the phone bolted. Out the broken door. Gone.

Lucien swore. Vicious. In Spanish.

The agent grabbed me. “She’s coming with us.”

“No,” Lucien said. From his knees, cuffed, bleeding, he still sounded like a king. “You touch her, I stop talking. Forever. And I have names. Dates. Judges.”

The agent hesitated.

That’s all it took.

The kitchen filled with smoke. Not fire. Grenade. Non-lethal. My eyes burned. I couldn’t see.

Hands grabbed me. Not the feds. Someone else. Rough. Familiar.

Mateo.

“Jefe says run,” he hissed in my ear.

Then we were moving. Through smoke, through shouting, out the back.

Lucien. I twisted, trying to see.

“Go!” Lucien roared from somewhere in the smoke. “Now!”

Mateo didn’t let go. He dragged me into an alley, into a car. Slammed the door.

We were driving before I could speak.

“He’s still in there,” I said. Gasped. “With them—”

“He planned it,” Mateo said. Eyes on the road. Knuckles white. “Smoke was ours. Feds weren’t ours. The video was.”

Video.

My stomach dropped.

“They’ll leak it,” I said. My voice was hollow. “My face. With him. Kissing him.”

Mateo nodded once. “Already done. Every channel. Every news site. Every enemy your father ever had.”

Ten years hiding. Gone in six seconds.

I touched my mouth. His blood was still there.

“Where is he?” I asked.

Mateo didn’t answer.

He turned on the radio.

“—breaking news. Lucien Moretti arrested in cartel raid. Woman identified as Vivienne Rossi, daughter of slain associate Eduardo Rossi, seen aiding his escape—”

My photo filled the screen on the dashboard. Me. Barefoot. Blood on my face. Kissing a handcuffed cartel boss.

The newscaster kept talking.

“—sources confirm Rossi family was executed ten years ago by Moretti. If this is the same Vivienne Rossi, questions arise: victim or accomplice?”

Mateo turned the radio off.

He looked at me in the rearview.

“Jefe said to tell you,” he said. “Welcome to the family.”