Page 116 of Unholy Obsession

“Look, I’m sorry, baby girl, but I need you to break it off with the priest. For your brother’s sake.”

What the actual fuck?

I sit up straighter in my chair, eyes narrowing. “What the fuck does that mean?”

Mads gives me a look like she’s debating throwing her drink in my face.

“Bad guy math,” she says. “You had to go play hero at that dumb Christmas thing and drag your big dumb boyfriend into the spotlight with you and me. Well, guess what?”

She leans back, arms crossed. “Some not-so-nice people saw that photo. People I’d rather keepavoiding.”

I blink. “We were only out there because ofyou!” I wave my arm for emphasis.

“I had it handled!” She waves hers evenmoredramatically. “Before you brought the fuckingAvengersoutside and made a front-page-worthy spectacle.”

“Who even are these people?” I demand. “And why the fuck would they care aboutme?”

Mads levels me with a look so flat it could be a table. “They don’t care aboutyou, dumbass. They care abouthim. Heir to the richest man alive? Ring any bells?”

Oh. Right.That.

“But he gave up his inheritance,” I argue, grasping at straws that are rapidly turning to dust in my hands.

Mads laughs, a sharp, unpleasant sound. “Is that what he told you? Because Daddy Warbucks apparentlydisagrees. Bane is still the heir apparent.”

I shake my head. “Okay, fine. Still don’t see what any of this has to do withme.”

Mads exhales like she’s talking to a particularly stupid puppy. “I don’t know,blackmail? Someone else wants you out of the way so they can marry their pet chess piece off to Bane? There could be a hundred reasons.”

She leans in, voice dropping lower. “All Idoknow is that the charming sociopaths my father used to make me work for have now tracked me down. And they’re working for someone who wantsyouout of the picture. They’ve given me a nice littleultimatum: get you to dump the priest and disappear, or they kill me, Domhnall, andyou.”

I stare at her.

She stares back.

“I’m thinking we call it ‘rehab,’ and you go sip piña coladas on a beach somewhere. Maybe the Riviera. I hear it’s nice in the spring.”

I let out a laugh, short and disbelieving. “Kill us?”

Mads doesn’t even blink. “Did I fucking stutter?”

But I was just… I was just putting on apretty outfitthis morning so Bane would notice me. I was worrying about stupid shit like whether I shouldget out of bed, not fuckinglife-or-death decisions.

I slam my hands on the table. “What the fuck did you get us into?!”

Mads just shakes her head, mouth a hard line. “Oh, you got yourself into this one all on your own, baby girl. You should be grateful for my connections. At least I’ve got a way to get us out.”

I glare at her. “You’re not who I thought you were.”

Her face stays hard. “I never am.”

I suck in a breath, my heart pounding. “Do you even love Domhn?”

Her hand whips out, a sharp forefinger in my face. “Don’t you ever question my love for that man. He’s theonlything I’ve ever loved in this whole blood-fucked world.”

Then she pushes back from the table, chair scraping. “Now come on. Time to go break up with your boy toy.”

I stay frozen, my brain short-circuiting. It’s all movingwaytoo fast. But Mads is already grabbing my arm andhaulingme up like I weigh nothing.

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