Owned By His Obsession

The night I met Alexander Blackwood, I learned two things. Some men enter your life to save you. Others enter it because they've already decided you belong to them. I didn't know which kind of man he was. Not yet. But I would soon learn that the most dangerous secrets weren't the ones people kept from you. They were the ones they kept because of you. Rain poured over the city, turning the streets into rivers of black and gold. I pulled my coat tighter around myself and hurried down the sidewalk, clutching my bag against my chest. My phone was almost dead. My shoes were soaked, and my bank account contained seventeen dollars. It had been a terrible day. Then again, terrible days had become normal for me. I had learned not to expect too much from life. Expectations only gave disappointment another way to hurt you. I turned into a narrow street and stopped beneath a flickering streetlight. Something felt wrong. For the past ten minutes, I had heard footsteps behind me. Every time I looked back, the street appeared empty. I told myself I was imagining things. Then I heard them again. Step. Step. Step. I stopped walking. The footsteps stopped, too. My fingers tightened around my bag. "Who's there?" No answer. I pulled out my phone and pretended to make a call, although the screen showed only three percent battery. "Hello? Yes, I'm almost there." A lie. I had nowhere to be except my tiny apartment, and suddenly, I wasn't sure I wanted to go there. An engine roared behind me. I jumped as a black luxury car turned sharply into the street. Its headlights illuminated the wet pavement before it stopped a few feet away. The rear door opened. A man stepped out. He wore a perfectly tailored black suit. His dark hair was damp from the rain, but he didn't seem to notice. He stood beneath the streetlight with the confidence of someone who had never needed to ask permission for anything. Then he looked at me. And my breath caught. His eyes were dark, cold, and strangely familiar. I had never seen him before. At least, I didn't think I had. "Get in," he said. I stared at him. "Excuse me?" "The car. Get in." "Do you always talk to strangers like you're ordering them around?" "Only when they're in danger." I almost laughed. "That's a convenient excuse for kidnapping." His expression remained unchanged. "Three men have been following you since you left the building on the next street." My smile disappeared. "What building?" He glanced over my shoulder. "The one where you work." I turned. Three men stood at the end of the street. One held a phone. Another had his hands buried in his pockets. The third was already walking toward us. My stomach tightened. I looked back at the stranger. "Who are you?" "Alexander Blackwood." For a moment, I forgot about the men. Everyone in the city knew that name. Alexander Blackwood was the billionaire chairman of Blackwood International. Newspapers described him as brilliant, ruthless, and impossibly private. Business rivals feared him. Employees obeyed him. And according to the gossip columns, he had never loved anyone enough to let them close. Yet here he was, standing in the rain, looking at me as though my appearance had ruined a perfectly planned evening. "Why would someone like you be here?" I asked. His gaze dropped briefly to my bag. "Because someone made a mistake." "What mistake?" "Thinking you were unimportant." Before I could respond, one of the men shouted. "Blackwood!" Alexander's expression changed. Only slightly. But I noticed the sudden tension in his jaw. He turned toward them. "Walk away." The man in front laughed. "This has nothing to do with you." Alexander took a step forward. "You're standing in front of me, threatening a woman I've spent years trying to find. I suggest you think very carefully before you speak again." Years? My heart began to pound. The three men exchanged glances. Then the one holding the phone lowered it. "This isn't over," he muttered. Alexander's expression didn't change. "It never is." The men disappeared into the rain. I waited until they were gone before turning on him. "What did you mean when you said you've spent years trying to find me?" He didn't answer. "Mr. Blackwood?" "Get in the car, Isabella." My blood ran cold. I hadn't told him my name. "How do you know that?" Instead of answering, he reached inside his coat and pulled out a small white envelope. My name was written across the front. ISABELLA ROSE. I recognized the handwriting immediately. My mother's. My fingers went numb. "Where did you get that?" "It was delivered to my office this morning." "Why would my mother send you a letter?" "She didn't." He held the envelope toward me. "Someone left it for me." I snatched it from his hand. The envelope was old, its edges yellowed with time. My mother's handwriting crossed the front in the same elegant curves I remembered from childhood birthday cards and notes tucked into my school lunchbox. But my mother had been dead for six years. I opened it with trembling fingers. Inside was a photograph. A younger version of my mother stood beside a tall man in front of an iron gate. She was smiling, one hand resting on the shoulder of a little girl. The girl looked about five years old. She had dark hair, a small nose, and a silver pendant around her neck. I stared at the photograph. The little girl was me. I turned it over. Three words had been written on the back. Keep her safe. Below them was a date. Twenty-three years ago. I looked up at Alexander. "Why do you have this?" He studied my face. "Because your mother asked me to protect you." A bitter laugh escaped me. "My mother died six years ago. And as far as I know, she never met you." "She knew me very well." "That's impossible." "Is it?" His quiet question unsettled me more than an argument would have. I looked at the photograph again. "Who is the man standing beside her?" Alexander didn't answer immediately. When he finally spoke, his voice had lost some of its coldness. "Edward Blackwood. My father." I looked from the photograph to him. "Your father knew my mother?" "Yes." "How?" "That is one of the questions I've been trying to answer." I shook my head. "No. You don't get to show me a photograph and expect me to believe your mysterious billionaire story. Why would my mother ask you to protect me?" "Because she knew what would happen if the wrong people discovered who you were." "And who am I?" For the first time, Alexander looked almost uncertain. Then he said, "You're the daughter of a man who died because he knew too much." The rain seemed to grow louder. "My father died in a car accident." "That's what the police report says." "And you think it was murder?" "I know the official story doesn't explain everything." "How convenient. You have no proof, no answers, and apparently a talent for making strangers terrified." Something flickered in his eyes. It might have been amusement. It might have been respect. "You're braver than I expected." "And you're more annoying than I imagined." For a moment, neither of us spoke. Then, unexpectedly, the corner of his mouth lifted. It wasn't quite a smile. But it changed his face enough to remind me that there was a man beneath the cold reputation. A dangerous man, perhaps. But a man all the same. I hated that I noticed. I hated even more that he seemed to notice me noticing. "There's something else," he said. "Of course there is." He ignored my sarcasm. "Your mother wasn't the only person who asked me to keep you safe." "Who else?" "Someone who disappeared seven years ago." I frowned. "Who?" "Elena." He spoke the name as if it still hurt. "She was the closest person I ever had to family. Before she disappeared, she was investigating something connected to my father." "What happened to her?" "No one knows." "Didn't you look for her?" "Every day." The answer came too quickly to be a lie. For the first time, I saw something beneath Alexander's controlled expression. Not anger. Not arrogance. Grief. It was there and gone so quickly that I might have imagined it. "What does Elena have to do with me?" I asked. He looked at the photograph in my hand. "Before she disappeared, she told me that if anything happened to her, I should find a girl named Isabella Rose." My heart skipped. "She knew my name?" "Yes." "Why?" "I don't know." I stared at him. "So let me understand this. My mother knew your father. My father supposedly died in an accident that might have been murder. A woman named Elena disappeared, and she somehow knew about me. And now three men are following me because of a secret nobody will explain." "That's correct." I closed my eyes. "Wonderful." "Isabella—" "No. I need a minute." I turned away from him, trying to breathe. Nothing made sense. But one thing was becoming painfully clear. My mother had known far more than she had ever told me. And whatever she'd hidden, it hadn't disappeared with her. It had followed me into the rain. "Come with me," Alexander said. I turned back. "Where?" "Somewhere safe." "I don't even know you." "You know my name." "That isn't the same thing." "No," he agreed. "It isn't." His unexpected honesty caught me off guard. He glanced toward the end of the street. "The men who followed you know where you work. They may know where you live. Until we understand what they want, going home alone isn't a good idea." I hated that he was probably right. But I hated the idea of trusting a stranger even more. "Why are you helping me?" His gaze held mine. "Because I promised your mother." "That's all?" A strange silence settled between us. Then he answered. "No." My pulse quickened. "What does that mean?" "It means there are things about your family that I haven't told you." "Then tell me." "Not here." I folded my arms. "You're very good at giving orders, aren't you?" "I'm better at keeping people alive." "And I'm supposed to be impressed?" "No. You're supposed to use your judgment." For the first time, he stepped back, leaving the car door open without blocking my way. The choice was mine. I studied him carefully. He was powerful. Mysterious. Possibly dangerous. But he had also stopped the men from approaching me, and he had given me information that could change everything I believed about my family. I didn't trust him. Not even a little. But I needed answers. "One condition," I said. His eyebrows lifted slightly. "Name it." "You tell me the truth. No threats, no games, and no deciding what I can or cannot handle." He considered me for a moment. "Agreed." "And if you lie to me?" "Then you walk away." I searched his face for signs of mockery. There were none. I finally climbed into the car. Alexander entered after me, leaving a careful distance between us. The door closed. As the car pulled away from the curb, I watched the rain blur the city outside the window. Then my phone vibrated. An unknown number. One message. YOU SHOULD HAVE LEFT THE PAST ALONE, ISABELLA. A second message arrived before I could react. ASK ALEXANDER WHAT HAPPENED THE NIGHT ELENA DISAPPEARED. I slowly turned toward him. He was watching me. "What is it?" I showed him the screen. The moment he read the message, every trace of warmth vanished from his face. "Who sent that?" I asked. "I don't know." "But you know something about Elena's disappearance." He looked away. "Yes." "What?" For several seconds, he said nothing. Then he reached into his jacket and pulled out another photograph. It showed a young woman standing beside Alexander outside a grand building. She was smiling at the camera, but Alexander wasn't looking at it. He was looking at her. The woman wore a silver pendant. The same design as the one around the little girl's neck in my mother's photograph. My breath caught. "Who is she?" "Elena." I stared at the picture. "Why does she have the same pendant?" "Because she told me it belonged to someone she had promised to protect." "Who?" Alexander turned the photograph over. On the back, someone had written a name. ISABELLA ROSE. My hands began to shake. "She knew me?" "I believe she was trying to find you." "Why didn't you tell me this before?" "Because I didn't know whether I could trust you." Anger flared inside me. "You brought me into your car, told me my father might have been murdered, and showed me photographs of my dead mother and a missing woman. But you were worried about trusting me?" His expression hardened. "You're not the only person with secrets, Isabella." "Then perhaps you should start sharing yours." He looked at me for a long moment. Something in his gaze made my anger falter. It wasn't desire. Not exactly. It was recognition—the unsettling sense that he had been looking for something for a very long time and had finally found it. But whatever he saw when he looked at me, I wasn't going to let it define me. "My life belongs to me, Mr. Blackwood," I said quietly. "Whatever happened in the past, you don't get to decide my future." His eyes darkened. "I know." "Do you?" He leaned back against the seat. "That's what I'm trying to learn." My phone vibrated again. This time, the message contained only six words. HE IS THE REASON SHE DISAPPEARED. I looked up sharply. "Who is 'he'?" Alexander read the message. For the first time that night, he looked genuinely afraid. Then he whispered a name. "Edward." "Your father?" He nodded. "But he died three years ago." Alexander looked out at the rain. "That's what everyone believes." The car turned through a pair of enormous iron gates. Beyond them stood a mansion surrounded by dark trees and carefully trimmed gardens. Warm lights glowed behind tall windows, but the house looked less like a home than a place where secrets had learned to survive. Blackwood Manor. I had seen photographs of it in magazines. I had never imagined I would enter it. As the car stopped, Alexander turned toward me. "Once you step inside, Isabella, there's no guarantee your life will ever be the same." I tightened my fingers around the photographs. "My life changed the moment you said my father's death might not have been an accident." "Then you understand the danger." "No," I replied, opening the door. "But I'm done being afraid of questions." I stepped out into the rain. Alexander followed. For a moment, we stood beside each other beneath the towering entrance, two strangers connected by a past neither of us fully understood. Then he spoke. "There's something else you need to know about Elena." I turned. "What?" He hesitated. "She wasn't just the woman I spent seven years searching for." My stomach tightened. "Then who was she?" His gaze held mine. "She was the last person to see your father alive." The mansion doors opened behind us. And somewhere inside the house, a telephone began to ring. Alexander went completely still. I looked at him. "What is it?" He didn't answer. He was staring into the dark hallway. Then a woman's voice came from inside. "Alexander?" It was old, trembling, and painfully familiar. I knew that voice. I had heard it in my childhood memories. In the few dreams I still had about the mother I had lost. It couldn't be possible. My mother was dead. Yet the voice spoke again. "If you've brought Isabella here, then the nightmare has started all over again." And Alexander Blackwood—billionaire, stranger, and the man who seemed to know more about my life than I did—looked at me with an expression I would never forget. Because for the first time, I understood the truth. He hadn't brought me to Blackwood Manor to protect me from the past. He had brought me here because the past was waiting for me.