Blood & Obsession

The city at night had its own heartbeat — a pulse that quickened in the dark, where sins were committed and whispered, and the shadows heard crimes that would never make the news.

Isabella Romano knew she had no business being here.

She clenched the strap of her camera bag as she breathed shallowly by the entrance of a dark alley. The bloodless atmosphere pressed to her skin, thick with the smell of rain-sodden asphalt, of distant cigarette smoke, and something metallic — blood.

The tip has been too precise to ignore.

A secretive source had told of an high-profile arms deal happening in the shadows, in the center of town’s underworld. If she got the evidence, it could be her way up — her ticket out of writing puffy pieces for the local paper.

But something went wrong.

This wasn’t a deal. This become Anything But That.

The SUV idling on the cut back turned into matte black, its home windows tinted so darkish they concept not anything. A group of men formed a half of a circle, their high-priced suits appearing out of place in the dust of the alley. It wasn’t them who made the air weightier. It became the the man on the center of all of it.

Luca DeLuca.

His name was whispered, a myth made of blood and electricity. He wasn’t just the head of the DeLuca crime own family — he become the king of the town. Ruthless and untouchable, a person whose mere presence was a call for submission.

And right now, he was looking down at the man kneeling before him.

A man who was pleading for his life.

Isabella felt her heart pounding inside her chest.

She clutched her digital camera with sweaty hands, raising it just enough to zoom.

Luca raised his head, examining the person as even though he have been little more than a little bit a malicious program under his boot. His in shape turned into perfectly tailor made, as his jet-black hair slicked returned, highlighting the factor angles of his face. He became unnervingly calm.

Then—a gunshot.

The sound ripped through the night, echoing in the narrow alley.

The man pitched forward, his body striking the wet pavement with a sickening thud. Blood pooled under him, soaking into the fissures between the bricks.

Isabella’s breath caught.

Oh God.

Ice unfolds through her veins.

She had to go. Now.

But before she could become, before she was even supposed to be — he was.

Their eyes locked.

A slow, deliberate moment.

Luca DeLuca saw her.

And in that instant heartbeat of unmarried, she knew — she became no good}

One of his men shifted. "Boss?"

Luca didn’t speak. Didn’t pass.

He changed into assessing. Calculating.

Then, in deadly comfort, he arched his head as if making an unspoken determination.

A flick of his wrist.

His men moved.

Sh*t.

Isabella’s paralysis snapped. She turned on her heel and sprinted, the sound of her sneakers thudding against the pavement drowned out by adrenaline rushing through her body.

She sprinted down the alley until the city opened out in front of her like a puzzle, but the sound of footsteps behind her got closer. Faster.

She widened to be the corner, almost losing her grip on the rain-slicked pavement. Her heart became a hammer in her chest.

Just a few more blocks. If she should just—

Big hands grabbed her from behind.

A strangled gasp tore its way out of her throat as she turned into yanked backwards — her body slamming into something stable, immovable.

Heat. Power. Him.

Luca DeLuca corralled her into a deserted alley, ironclad grip compelling her toward the dark mouth of a rough brick wall.

The international tilted.

His scent came to her first — deep spice, fresh cologne, gunpowder.

Her pulse roared in her ears as his hand closed on her jaw, angling her face upward.

Dark eyes bore into hers. Unrelenting. Unreadable. Unforgiving.

She was drowning in them.

His touch was warm, the contrast to her trembling skin causing her to shiver.

“Well, properly,” he murmured, his voice nothing but a deadly caress. "What do we have right here?"

Isabella’s belly clenched.

“I—I didn’t see whatever,” she lied, her voice just above a whisper.

His mouth nook twitched. Amused.

"Liar."

The unmarried word slithered across her skin, made her shiver.

He was playing with her. Seeing her go to town like a cat with a trapped chook.

The strap of her digital camera dug into her shoulder, a nagging reminder of the evidence still in her possession. Her one lifeline.

Luca’s gaze flickered down. He knew.

His hand moved, fingers brushing over the strap too soon before he unfastened it with the maddening serenity.

He pick the digicam up among them.

Her belly plummeted.

Luca skimmed over the pictures, his face impossible to read but the air around them became charged.

Then—snap.

The digital camera exploded against the head wall behind her, its plastic and glass raining down to earth as if broken dreams.

Isabella gasped. "That—" Her voice wavered. "That turned into—"

"Evidence?" he finished smoothly.

Tears scorched the perimeters of her dreamlike imaginative and prescient. "Please. I won’t say anything."

He emitted a silent, humorless snicker. “Did you think I believe the word of a scared little journalist?”

The streetlight overhead flickers, and twisted shadows dance across his face.

And then she caught it — the moment he made up his mind.

“You shouldn’t have been here, bella.”

The puppy call slipped his lips effects, gentle, almost tender. But there has been nothing gentle about the metal in his grasp.

She tried once more. "I swear, I received it—"

"You swear?" he mused. “And then while you are scared, what happens? When the police stress you? When your conscience begins whispering in your ear?”

Her silence was her solution.

His breath was warm against her skin as he leaned forward. “I don’t deal in possibilities, Isabella.

Her throat went dry.

His thumb brushed her pulse.

“So that leaves us with options,” he went on, the clean silkiness of his voice—and as potentially dangerous.

Her heart stalled.

One option became demise. She knew it. She felt it gut-deep, in the way his fingers trailed at her throat, in the way his men only stood a few steps away, ready and waiting at his command.

Her lips parted. "And the second choice?"

Luca smiled. A gradual, planned thing.

"You're mine now, Isabella."

A shudder ripped via her.

“Whatever or you concept your life turned into earlier than this moment? His voice was low and possessive. "Forget it."

Her breaths came shallow. "You can’t just—"

Her grip tightened, just enough to steal her breath.

"Watch me."

And with that, Luca DeLuca had sealed her fate.

It was a night that smelled of rain and blood.

Isabella didn’t dare pass, now no longer with Luca DeLuca’s hand nevertheless wrapped around her throat, his grip mild enough to permit her to breathe but company sufficient to remind her who became in command.

The city hummed behind them, filled with distant horn blasts and the voices of people who didn’t know a predator waited in the shadows.

Luca had stuck her.

He had stolen her breath from her, crushed her resistance in his palm; and shattered the only thing that offered her protection, her—digital camera, her proof, whatever else that would protect her.

“You’re mine now, Isabella.”

The words sang against her skin like silk, but their weight was chains.

Her pulse surged wildly beneath his thumb, and she should see i