Page 28 of Frozen Obsession

Her eyes, those stunning brown eyes, glisten with unshed tears. Slowly, a single tear slides down her cheek. I lean in and lick it from her skin, savoring the salty taste. She shudders, melting into me. I bet she’s soaked, but she can wait. She’ll wait like a good fucking girl, and then she’ll be rewarded. It’s been ten long years without her, and I intend to savor every second when the time comes.

The music on the TV shifts, and an unfamiliar song starts playing. She glances at the screen, where "Star Shopping" by Lil Peep lights up. "This song remindsme of us," she whispers, almost to herself.

I listen to the lyrics, and I get it. The words echo our past—the turbulence, the fights, the twisted love, and the heartbreak. "Look at the sky tonight; all of the stars have a reason," the singer croons. I look down at Xena, her eyes reflecting the flickering TV light. I lean in to kiss her, but she pulls away, her gaze softening.

"Let’s decorate." She whispers as she bends over the box and begins to work.

I don’t stop her, even though every fiber of my body screams at me to. I watch her walk over to the TV, grab the remote, and switch the music back to Christmas songs. Silently, we pull out the old decorations—faded relics from a time when things were good. Pops was alive, happy, and in love with her mom. We were still twisted, but there was a semblance of normalcy.

Do I regret killing the golden boy? Hell no. Watching him inside the only woman I ever loved? He’s lucky I made it quick.

Thing is, Xena was my first everything—my first love, my first pussy, my first obsession. She’ll be my last too. Always hers. But I can’t take back the past. Maybe I should’ve shown her more back then, given her everything I wanted to now. But we were kids, and all I had to offer was possession and anger. I still have those emotions, but now, I can control them. Mostly.

I stand there, holding a strand of red tinsel, my mind drifting back to my first Christmas in prison—the night it all went down. The night he found me, sobbing, covered in blood, naked. And he helped me.

I hated Christmas, but she always loved it, and I took that from her. Just like I took everything else.

"Ro?" Xena’s voice pulls me from the spiraling darkness of my thoughts. Her hand cups my cheek, warm against the cold chill that’s settled into my skin. There’s a softness in her touch, one that contradicts the hardness of the life we’ve led. "You okay?"

I force a smirk, shrugging off the weight that’s been pressing on my chest. "Yeah,I’m good." I reach up and hang the tinsel along the wooden shelves Pops built years ago. Shelves meant for pictures and trophies—only he never got any.

Pops tried to build something, but just like everything else in his life, it went unfinished, incomplete. I hated pictures anyway. And trophies? Well, those weren’t for people like us. His wife—my mother—was a whore, plain and simple. More interested in getting high and sucking dick than raising a son or being a wife.

Stepping back, I stare at the shelves, at the space we’ve tried to make festive. The tinsel looks out of place, too shiny, too fake against the rough wood. Above, the mounted heads of animals stare back at me with glassy eyes—souvenirs from a time when Pops and I bonded over the only thing we ever connected on. Hunting.

I was good at hunting.Real good. It’s the only thing that ever-made sense to me. The thrill of the chase, the stillness before the kill. That’s how I was raised—tracking, stalking, taking down my prey. I didn’t need trophies for that. The heads on the wall told the story. But it’s the empty spaces between them that catch my attention, stark voids where trophies and pictures should’ve been but never were.

Those gaps haunt me, a reminder of everything we were supposed to be but failed to achieve. Pops never filled those spaces, just like he could never fill the emptiness inside himself. All his failures, all his regrets—he wore them like chains until they dragged him down. In the end, it wasn’t age or illness that took him. It was the weight of his own shame.

I guess I inherited that, too.

Xena’s fingers brush my jaw, bringing me back. Her eyes, searching mine, reflect the blinking Christmas lights behind us. "You sure you’re okay?" she asks, her voice softer this time, cautious.

I don’t answer right away. Instead, I turn my gaze back to the wall of dead animals, their glassy eyes staring back at me like ghosts from the past. "I took this from you, didn’t I?" My voice comes out low, heavy with the weight of theadmission. "Christmas. You loved it, and I ruined it. Just like I ruin everything."

She shifts uneasily in front of me, her brows knitting together. "Roman, are you seriously okay?" Her question hangs in the air, pressing for an answer as I move away and glance over my shoulder.

I force a smirk, deflecting her concern with a wink. "Was I ever okay, Xena Bean? You think a man who kills is okay?"

Her flinch is almost imperceptible, but I catch it, the way her lips press into a thin line. I don’t take the words back, though. It’s the truth, and she knows it. I’m not a good man. I’ve never been. But I love her, and that love is the only thing that keeps me tethered to whatever humanity I have left. My black heart has her name carved into it, and it beats only for her.

She stays silent for a moment, her eyes flicking to the blinking lights, then back to me. There’s an unspoken understanding between us, a fragile connection built on years of shared pain and twisted love. I may not be a good man, but I’ll stop at nothing to keep her.

Create new memories. Fuck breaking her—I’ll rebuild her, piece by piece.

I slowly turn towards her. "How much do you hate me, little sister?"

Xena takes a step back. "Stop calling me that. I’m nothing to you, Roman Delgado."

My cock stirs. She’s going to fight me, and I fucking want that. I want her to fight, to put all her pain and anger into me because I can bear it. "How much did it hurt, huh? Tell me, little sister, how much did your life go to shit because of me?"

Xena laughs—a harsh, bitter sound. "You killed my boyfriend for fucking me. You went to prison. Your dad killed himself. I don’t know, Roman. Life was shitty for me, so I hope it was shitty for you in prison."

Each word is like a knife in the gut, but all I feel is pride. My Xena Bean is a fighter. She’s always been a survivor. Life threw her to the wolves, and she didn’troll over. She survived. Just like me.

"That’s my girl," I say, my voice low, laced with the dark affection I’ve always had for her. "Always putting things in perspective. You’re right—prison was hell. But you? You were worth it."

She snorts, crossing her arms over her chest, eyes sharp and defiant. "Fuck you, big brother."

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