Page 99 of Divine Obsession

There’d been a lot of crying and hugging after three years of no contact. But the moment I was holding her in my arms –safe, alive, healthy, happy– nothing else mattered.

The explanation for everything had broken my heart. It still did.

At sixteen, at eleven at night, on her way back home from the gym she worked at downtown, Maria was abducted and trafficked. But she killed her way out and saved the other women too. She’d always been a fighter. Standing up for herself.Surviving. Protecting those around her.

And when she was offered the opportunity of a lifetime – to join the CIA as an agent in training – she couldn’t say no.

So, they declared her deceased on all government records and gave her a new identity since she had no roots; no family –she hadn’t told them about me.

The only reason she’d managed to get away at nineteen was because she went rogue and ended up working for the Family instead – more specifically Cosa Nostra’s Francesca DeMone, hence how we got in contact again.

I wasn’t upset. I understood.

I always knew Maria was meant for more than a regular life.

And she was back. But she was different. There was something dark about her. She wouldn’t talk about the things she’d seen or done, but I could only imagine.

I wasn’t one to judge.

Over the years, I’d welcomed my own dark side.

“I missed you, Nat,” She mumbled, her voice muffled in my hair.

“Missed you more. I got your dress upstairs in my room.”

She scrunched her nose. “I don’t know… I don’t want the Cosa Nostra to see me as an actual woman. It’s better if they just see and think of me as their assassin.”

“You could slit someone’s throat with your Louboutins.”

“Weknow.Theydon’t.”

“Nuh-uh. They know what you’re capable of. It’s why you’re the Family’s top contractor.”

She sighed, but I caught her small smile. “If you say so…”

“There you two are,” Francesca’s voice caused both Maria and I to look over as she approached us, her platinum blonde hair catching the light. Dressed in a tight, red gown that hugged her curves, her mask – a glittering silver piece adorned with tiny black feathers – barely concealed her sharp, confident features.

Her black, doe eyes sparkled with amusement as staff hurried around the penthouse. “Meticulous as ever, I see.”

I shrugged, a playful smile tugging at my lips. “Can you blame me? I like it when things are perfect like me.”

Francesca let out a soft laugh before all three of us girls started complimenting outfits.

Over the past years, Francesca and I had grown closer than I’d ever expected. It wasn’t just that we moved in the same circles or that our families were deeply entrenched in the same world. It was that we understood each other in a way few people could.

She knew what it was like to carry a name that came with expectations and power. To live by a code that demanded absolute loyalty.

Francesca had taken theOmertàat only fifteen. The youngest woman in the Italian-American Mafia to date to take it.

I enter alive and will leave dead.

I too had sworn two years ago, my voice steady even as the gravity of those words settled over me.

Honor. Respect. Loyalty.

It was a moment I’d never forget.

For the first time, I’d felt like I truly belonged. Like I wasn’t just a Moretti by my father’s blood, but by choice. Byloyalty.

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