Page 55 of Lord of Obsession

Marco hesitates, his loyalty to his boss warring with tactical necessity. "Sir, theFerraras have at least eight men approaching. You can't possibly?—"

"I can." The words slip out in pure Sicilian, my American accent abandoned like the pretense of normalcy. "And I will."

The medical equipment's rhythmic beeping fills the silence as I move to the door. Each step carries the weight of choice—not just about tonight's violence, but about who I truly am. What I'm willing to do.

Who I'm willing to become. For him.

"Go," I tell Marco, not looking back at Dario's still form. If I look, I might falter. I might remember all the reasons I tried to escape this life of brutality. "Keep him safe."

The hallway stretches empty ahead as I advance, my footsteps silent against polished floors. The private clinic's night shift has already been evacuated—another contingency planned for scenarios like this. Only the essential medical equipment is kept running, creating a baseline hum that helps me track movement through the building.

A whisper of fabric against the wall. A boot scuffing tile. The Ferrara soldiers move well, but they're used to overwhelming brute force rather than subtle infiltration. I countheartbeats between their positions, mapping their approach through sound alone.

The first one dies silently, my knife finding the sweet spot between ribs before he registers my presence. I ease his body to the ground, the movement smooth as silk. The training I've tried so hard to forget flows like muscle memory, each motion precise and deadly.

His partner turns the corner just as I retrieve my blade. The surprise on his face lasts only a fraction of a second before my hands find his throat. Something cracks beneath my grip—hyoid bone or trachea, it doesn't matter. He drops without a sound.

Two down. Six to go.

Gunfire erupts from the east stairwell, Marco's team creating a diversion to cover their exit. The remaining Ferrara soldiers react exactly as expected, moving to flank what they assume is the main threat. Their adherence to tactical doctrine makes them predictable. Vulnerable.

I flow through shadows like smoke, each kill cleaner than the last. One drops from a precisely thrown scalpel. Another falls to wire pulled taut around his throat. A third barelyhas time to register my presence before I snap his neck, quickly and quietly.

The violence feels horrifyingly natural. All my careful walls, my years of pretending at being normal, crumble beneath the weight of blood and necessity. Each death strips away another layer of deception until only the truth remains.

I am exactly what they made me. What I've always been.

The thought should terrify me. Instead, it brings a kind of peace. Like finally stopping the exhausting charade of being something I'm not.

A phone buzzes. Mine, still synced to the clinic's security feeds. Marco's message is brief: "Package secure. Secondary location prepped."

Relief floods my system, making my next kill slightly messier than intended. Arterial spray paints the wall as the body drops, but I barely notice. Dario is safe. Everything else is just cleanup.

The last two Ferrara soldiers prove more challenging. They're older and more experienced, and they've realized something is wrong. I find them in defensivepositions near the main entrance, their weapons trained on likely approach vectors.

Unfortunately for them, I was trained to be unlikely.

The fight is brief but vicious. My suit jacket tears as I roll under their first volley. My knuckles split on teeth as I disarm the nearer one. Blood—mine and theirs—makes the floor slick as we grapple. They're good. Professional. Lethal.

But I'm better.

When it ends, I stand alone in the corridor. My clothes are ruined, my carefully maintained image shattered like the bones beneath my feet. The precise number of dead bodies doesn't matter. What matters is the message this sends: someone touched what's mine.

The thought freezes me mid-step. Mine. When did I start thinking of Dario that way? When did this twisted game of hunter and prey transform into something deeper?

My phone buzzes again: coordinates for the new secure facility. A private hospital on the outskirts of the city, bought with money that doesn't officially exist. I should feel disgust at how easily I've slipped backinto my family’s methods. Instead, I feel only certainty.

I survey the scene one final time, evaluating what evidence needs to be cleaned and disposed of. The clinic's owner will handle most of it; that's what the offshore accounts are for. But certain things require a personal touch.

As I work, my mind keeps returning to Dario. To the way he took those bullets with my name etched on them without hesitation. To everything of mine that he's stripped away, every truth he's forced me to face. To the realization that I can't walk away. Not now. Maybe not ever.

The night stretches endless as I finish securing the scene. Dawn will bring new complications, new threats, and new choices to make. But for now, there is only the drive to the new facility. Only the need to see him, to verify with my own eyes that he's safe.

Only the growing certainty that some chains, once acknowledged, become a kind of freedom.

The new facility rises like a fortress from manicured grounds, its modern architecture disguising state-of-the-art security. Everywindow is bulletproof, every door reinforced, every sight line calculated for maximum defensive coverage. The kind of place that understands exactly what sort of patients need treatment without official records.

The eastern sky glows red and gold as I approach the entrance. My borrowed clothes still carry evidence of the night's violence, but the security team's eyes slide past the stains with detached indifference. They're professional enough not to react when they scan my ID—a perfect forgery courtesy of connections I shouldn't still have.

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