Page 74 of Sweet Obsession
I thought she’d run because of our fractured marriage, because I kept her locked behind silence and steel. But it wasn’t just that.
It was him. The dead lover.
Yuri.
She came for him. And that made the burn worse. Deeper.
She’s mine.
I never wanted to admit it, not to myself, not to her. But I’ll claim her today. Every piece of her. She doesn’t get to stand over another man’s grave and pretend she’s not still bound to me.
And God help her if she’s even remotely involved in what happened to Stepan. I’ve buried the suspicion under layers of loyalty and want, but it lingers. Quiet. Like a bomb waiting to detonate.
The graveyard sat on the edge of a hill. Beautiful and sacred. Too clean for men like Yuri.
I stepped from the black car as the procession knelt by the fresh earth.
I sighted my wife. Luna, standing near the headstone, black veil covering her hair, hands gripping the edge of her shawl.
She didn’t see me. But the others did.
My men moved in perfect silence, five hundred brutal and well trained Bratva soldiers lining the edges of the burial site like shadows. No weapons drawn. No threats made.
Just presence. Overwhelming. Inescapable.
As soon as we appeared in sight, Yuri’s mother gasped. A priest muttered something in Latin and stepped back. Even the Rojas guards flinched.
I walked the center aisle, every step deliberate.
And then she saw me.
Luna’s eyes widened. Just slightly. But she didn’t move. She stood taller.
Good girl.
Her father started toward me, hands raised. “Misha...”
“Don’t speak,” I said flatly.
And the silence that followed split the air in half.
I didn’t look at Yuri’s body. Didn’t glance at his grieving mother. My eyes were only on one thing.
Her.
She looked like a ghost in black. A dagger with a soft heart.
I stopped in front of her. “You ran,” I said quietly.
She didn’t answer.
“You embarrassed me. You endangered our alliance. You abandoned your vows.”
Still, she didn’t speak.
I stepped closer. “Do you have any idea what I gave up for you?”
Her lip trembled. But only once.
