Page 36 of Marked for Life

I’m falling for him.

It’s not shame that heats my skin, not disgust. It’s the knowledge that this…this is the final step. The moment where I stop fighting and start accepting it—accepting him. His obsession. His control. His twisted version of love.

But…maybe it’s not so twisted. Maybe it’s just a higher form of love. It’s something some girls probably dream of—having a man so obsessed with them he’ll do anything for them.

Maybe it’s time I stop fighting it and embrace it. I’ve already felt the peace that comes with being willing.

Stockholm syndrome, trauma bonding…the words swim in my mind, but they don’t mean anything anymore. Not when I’m being consumed by something else. Something beyond fear, beyond hatred, beyond everything I once believed about myself.

Because I’ve started to see his obsession as love. Twisted, controlling, suffocating love. But love, nonetheless. And as much as it disturbs me, I can’t deny it. It’s devotion. His love for me is all-consuming. He’s claimed me, body and soul. And in some dark corner of my mind, I realize that I’ve started to like his claiming.

Could I….love Dante Severino? Despite all his flaws?

The door opens without a sound, but I feel the rush of air as Dante steps into the room, and everything shifts—everythingalways shifts when he walks in. His presence fills the space, the air turning thick, making the room seem too small, too fragile, as if it couldn’t possibly contain the weight of his attention, his obsession, the undeniable way he’s claimed everything in this place, everything about me, and made it his own.

“Hannah,” he says my name, but it’s not just a word—it's an anchor. Possessive. Careful. As if it holds the weight of everything he’s taken from me and everything he’s bound me to. And once, it would have repelled me. But now, it pierces through me in a way I can’t escape. In a way that feels like surrender, even when I fight it. Something dangerous. Something dark. It coils around my heart and pulls—because I’m his. Completely. In every way that matters. And I don’t know how to stop it.

And I’m not sure I want to anymore.

“Dante,” I say, my voice steady—more steady than I feel. Beneath the control, beneath the carefully guarded calm, something threatens to break wide open. I’ve learned how to play the part. How to comply, how to survive in the cage he’s built around me. But tonight, there’s no denying the cracks. Not in the way he looks at me. Not in the way my heart races at his proximity. Not in the way his touch ignites something raw and real inside me.

He’s standing right in front of me now, his hand finding my face with a possessive tenderness that has become so familiar it almost feels like home. He tilts my chin up, his gaze locking with mine.

“You’ve been crying,” he says, his thumb gently sweeping across the tears I didn’t even know were there, tracing them like they’re the last remnants of something he’s already claimed. The evidence of the cracks in me that he’s been watching for, waiting for. He sees it all, and it makes me feel naked—exposed. Vulnerable.

“Yes,” I whisper, the sound escaping me before I can stop it. And then the floodgate opens. “I’ve been thinking, Dante. About us.”

His touch deepens as he listens. His fingers linger at my skin, tracing the path of my pulse, his eyes never leaving mine as he waits.

"About us," I say again, this time louder, more desperate. "About you, and me. What you’ve made me feel. What you’ve made me become.” The words are raw, like jagged shards of glass ripping through my chest. “What I’ve let you do to me." The confession is like a wound, a painful truth I’ve tried to bury but can’t any longer. It’s so much more than just us. It’s the realization that he’s rewritten my entire existence, and I’ve let him. I've surrendered in ways I never thought I could.

Dante’s breath catches, his eyes darkening with something I can’t quite place—victory, hunger, maybe something deeper. He steps closer, his voice soft, almost a command. "Tell me."

And I can’t hold it back anymore. Not when he’s this close—when I can feel his need, his obsession, his desperation winding its way around me like a vice. Fuck, I feel his hope in this moment. He’s desperately been waiting for me to give myself fully—completely—to him, and it’s part of what’s been driving him mad.

“I surrender,” I say, the words tearing themselves from my throat. “Not just my body. Not just my obedience. But my heart. My mind. Every single piece of me that was once mine. You’ve taken it, and I’ve let you. But now…” I swallow and look him straight in the eye, “now I give it all to you willingly.”

His hand tightens on my chin, his grip fierce now, as though he’s trying to pull the truth from my soul itself. His breath is heavy, his gaze searing into me, and I feel everything shift.

“Mine,” he murmurs. The word vibrates through me, an affirmation of everything I’ve just said, everything he’s taken.And I feel it, deep in my bones—his ownership, his victory. “Completely. Irrevocably.Mine. All of you.” His voice is more than just possessive now—it’s triumphant, a declaration that echoes through every corner of my being.

“Yours,” I whisper back, the truth hanging between us, heavy and suffocating. “Whatever that means. Whatever that makes me.”

His mouth crashes down on mine. But it’s not the same kiss as before. It’s something different, something deeper. It’s not just claiming me anymore. It’s acknowledgment. It’s understanding. It’s the moment where everything changes.

When he finally pulls away, his eyes still burn into mine, not with the cold, calculating intensity of before, but with something else—something almost tender.

“Say it,” he demands, his voice low and insistent, a command that has me trembling. “Tell me what you’ve realized, Hannah.”

I can feel the weight of his words, the heavy expectation, but I can’t hold back anymore. In the space between us, I find the words that have been trapped in my throat, locked away for so long.

“Love,” I breathe. The word is a surrender. The word is everything. It’s twisted, broken, suffocating, but it’s love. "It’s love, Dante. Even if it’s nothing like what I thought love should be. Even if it’s messed up, and painful, and…and everything in between."

And in the quiet after those words, something shifts. Something inside of me settles, even though the world around us is anything but peaceful. It’s an uneasy peace, a peace born of a brutal acceptance.

I’m his. Completely.

And even though I feel like I’ve lost everything, there’s a strange sense of freedom in that surrender. Because in Dante’sworld, there is no room for resistance. There’s only him. Only his love, twisted and obsessive and all-consuming.

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