Page 34 of Secret Obsession

My blood boiled with rage, thinking my father might have been right. Would this have happened if I had killed Bob when he betrayed me instead of just giving him a beating? Maybe. Maybe not.

I’d led this organization successfully for years without a single kill. Had my savage and unforgiving reputation been so ingrained in everyone’s mind that I had coasted on that instilled terror? No one had challenged me, attacked me, stolen from me, ratted on me… Nothing.

But this year I’d had two betrayals from within and three attacks from a gang I had a working agreement with. It didn’t make any sense. I controlled everyone’s money. The threat of losing access to that should have been enough to control everyone.

I guessed the only fear that mattered was the threat of death. Nothing else could inject the level of intimidation needed to stay on top. “I went easy on Bob, and now look what’s happening. Someone else in my crew thinks they can cross me.”

“Easy on him?” Finn gaped at me. “The guy is still in the hospital and has to eat out of straw.”

A normal person would feel guilty about that. I didn’t. I still loved to beat the shit out of people when they deserved it. But there was something about ending a life that changed me. It didn’t make me feel guilty but…numb. As if a part of my life died along with each one I ended. A black hole eating away at my soul.

“When you leave them with a heartbeat,” said Denzel, “it’s not a message worth listening to.”

I hadn’t killed in ten years since Pop went to prison. Was I delusional in thinking I would never have to again? I thought I had made a choice. To be a better leader than him. To make everyone rich without my bullet penetrating someone’s skull. Turned out this life only gave me two options: survive by any means or be destroyed.

I’d have to tap back into that murdering monster deep within me. “I’ll find out who did this.” Would I be able to pull the trigger again? And if I did, would I lose the shred of humanity I had left? Living on the outside but dead on the inside, existing in darkness for the rest of my days.

“Maybe no one betrayed you, but the Devil’s Eyes tortured someone for it,” said Finn optimistically. “Why don’t we do a roll call first and find out if anyone’s missing?”

I nodded my answer, and everyone went to work on their phones, going through the emergency call tree.

But I knew he was wrong. I had been so focused on my hedge fund company that I had been blind to what was happening in my organization. I was losing my touch, and there was only one way to fix it.

Bile rose up my throat as the realization of what I needed to do crashed into me. I would have to blow someone’s brains out.

Fuck this business. And fuck you, Pop, for dragging me into it. I had seen dozens of men butchered by my father in my childhood. Brutality was the norm. I might have made my first kill at thirteen, but my immersion into the savagery of this life started years before that. I didn’t even flinch at it. Pop had beaten that reflex out of me fast enough.

I used to think this was the best life, getting drunk on the violence. Relishing the intoxicating power I had on the men around me, all of them terrified of me. Respecting me.

I still couldn’t believe how normal it all seemed to me back then. Until I went to college and met regular people. That was where I learned that fear and respect weren’t synonymous.

What would Stephen and John say if they knew about all the horrible shit I did? Sure, they suspected I dabbled in shady dealings, especially once the news of my audits came to light, but I hid my true self from them well. I would not let my world trespass into theirs.

If they found out, I doubted they’d let me back in Titan’s Club. I was sure they’d look at me the same way everybody else did. How foolish of me to think I could lead a semi-normal life with real friends and maybe even a…

No, never that. No decent woman could ever want a vile prick like me.

I was kidding myself when I thought I could escape this life and go legit. It was still dirty money even if I didn’t kill. My entire business depended on criminal organizations. Even the hedge fund.

Sure, the company was legit and legal, but I had been audited more times than any other investment firm in the country. When you had a clientele list like mine, it was inevitable. And news of those audits spread to the rich crowd everywhere from the new money tech whizzes to the old money farts.

Pop had laughed at me when I told him I could make us richer without ever killing again, money enough to go legit and retire from the crime business. I vowed to prove him wrong. And I had for nearly ten years. But he’d known this day would come.

Was he right all along? There were no retirement options in the mafia, no matter how much money you had. Even with my billions, I couldn’t turn the key in the lock of our operation and escape to a beach, sipping Mai Tais for the rest of my life.

In this world, the only way out was in a coffin. And the only way to stay out of one was to put your enemies in the ground first. My life depended on it. And my father’s life.

Things were about to get really bad in my organization. And I couldn’t risk Lila’s identity being discovered by Butch or his spies. Or by Fiona, that psycho bitch. I’d have to cancel my therapy sessions for the next few weeks and stay away. I’d protect Lila, no matter what.

But before disappearing from her life, I needed to make sure she got home safe.

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