Page 20 of King of Obsession

They were the color of fire, flames, and incandescent cinders, burning through, scorching me.

When our gazes had met that fateful night in Naples all those years past, I’d been hit with a jolt throughout my body by the heated blaze radiating from his intense stare.

Damn him and his freakin’ flaming eyes, which up close sent the fear of Dio through me.

They were now shut, but I still re-imagined their intensity and shivered.

I kept peeking at his supine form in the backseat of his high-spec 4X4.

Given the quality of the armament in his vehicle, his gear, his rugged fighting style, and his knowledge of weapons, he was a badass.

I wagered he gave zero fucks most days, a fuckin’ monster when he wanted to be.

I recalled his threat to Nonna if I didn’t do as he said, and a shiver of panic went through me.

It was clear he was ruthless and a freakin’ inconvenience appearing now in the weeks leading up to my ultimate revenge.

For years, I waited, planned, and trained for the momentwhen my monster would return to claim me.

I had vowed vengeance when he did. I had learned hate. I had sworn to destroy the evil soul who’d ruined my life and go down in flames with him.

After all this time, why had the man behind me shown up when I was on the verge of enacting my plans?

Why, when I’d sensed his far-off presence in my life, had he chosen to step out of the shadows now?

I’d had eyes on his ride early this morning when I spotted the dust from his fancy wheels roar up the gully.

I’d considered leaving him in the hands of fortune when I’d spotted the pitiful Caputo cunt capos hunting him down.

I hadn’t heard the nature of their discussion being so far downwind, only that they were on my side of the fence line, and I’d needed them fuckin’ gone.

Their Contis and, recently, the Caputos have terrorized me for years, trying to wear me down.

They were always pushing the boundary lines and bullying me along with the farmers that bordered mine to handing over our land to them for their hemp fields.

It was all taking its toll, and I was at the end of my rope. I had just enough in me to take out my monster, anything more, and I’d implode.

The man in the backseat was the icing on my nightmare cake.

For a moment, I contemplated stopping the car and rolling him down a steep gully, never to be seen again.

Except he’d unveiled Nonna Guilia’s name and that his minions had her in their sight. If anything ever happened to her, I’d never live with myself.

So I shelved my murderous thoughts and drove on, handsshaking with rage, until I pulled up to an armed gate.

It led to my daydream-perfect, 100-acre, off-grid, cozy, and self-sustaining acreage nestled at the crook of a mountain valley.

I unlocked the secure barrier, steered the car into my property, and turned back to lock up again.

I headed for the side lean to, unbolting that too to ease the vehicle inside, out of view.

After pulling the roller door down, summing up all my strength, I nudged the man awake.

His leonine eyes opened, dilated, and then refocused in seconds. They locked on me as he let me maneuver him out of the car.

Half-dragging his heavy frame through the connecting doorway into my primary shed, I brought him into my one-bedroom, corrugated iron home.

It featured a decent-sized singular kitchen, small bath, study nook, and a native-timber veranda overlooking a sandstone escarpment plus thousands of trees across the valley. Beyond the treelike were open fields where my windmills stood like silent guardians against the skyline.

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