𝐈𝐧 𝐰𝐡𝐢𝐜𝐡 𝐬𝐡𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐜𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐃𝐨𝐧.
ꙬꙬꙬꙬ
All that Yara Morello was told all her life was that she was the shame of the family. She was a mistake that was never supposed to happen, a disgrace to be shunned and cast...
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Patience was never my thing. I was a kill-first, ask-questions-never kind of man. It worked. Always had. I didn't deal with bullshit, didn't tolerate anyone or anything that rubbed me the wrong way.
But then the universe decided to screw with me.
It threw her into my life, flipping everything upside down. Suddenly, I was doing things I didn't even recognize—waiting, listening, giving a shit.
It was foreign, unsettling, and frankly, I hated it. I didn't know what the hell to make of her or the way she was rewiring my brain, but I was stuck in the chaos she brought.
Obsession.
That's what I thought it was at first. Simple, morbid curiosity, nothing I hadn't felt before when it came to enemies. I'm thorough, meticulous even, when it comes to analyzing threats.
But this? This was no fucking obsession.
I wanted her in my sight every goddamn second, yet the thought of being near her made me insane. How could one woman, a single fucking woman, have this much power over me?
At first, I thought it would all click into place once I had her under my control. I'd be the one calling the shots, bending her to my will. Easy. But no. The tables turned, flipped, and fucking shattered under me.
She didn't know it, but there wasn't a single thing I wouldn't do for her. And that scared the hell out of me. I wasn't ready to test that boundary, wasn't sure I wanted to find out just how far I'd go.
She was making me vulnerable.
So fucking vulnerable that when I found her a week ago, curled up in the corner of a dark room, trembling and clutching a broken lamp like her life depended on it, my chest started to ache. Like something inside me was splitting open.
She wouldn't tell me what happened. Of course, she wouldn't. That was Yara. Always carrying her shit on her own shoulders, even if it was dragging her into the ground. And maybe that's what pissed me off the most. She didn't trust me enough to let me carry it for her.
But again, I'm not a patient man.
I was going to figure it out, one way or another.
It took hours of combing through security footage, but I finally saw it. Her being dragged by a hand from the elevator into that room. There were no cameras inside the rooms. I didn't need them. I knew that hand.
He'd managed to disappear before anyone could pin him down and blow his fucking brains out. But that didn't matter. Marco Morello wasn't just a dead man.
No, I had plans for him far worse than death.
He hadn't shown his face all week, not at the house, not even at the funeral. The fucker knew I was onto him. But it didn't matter, his days were numbered.
The fact that he had put his hands on her, right under my nose, almost pushed me off the brink. It wasn't just rage or the kind of murderous intent I was used to feeling. No, this was something darker.
He was the reason for her nightmares, the shadow in her every step. The reason why she walked around like a ghost, barely holding herself together. Why she woke up screaming most nights, and why I couldn't fucking sleep anymore.
And now, here I was, standing outside the bastard's room. I didn't know why the fuck sneaking into my enemy's house felt like a solid plan, but my gut had never steered me wrong before. Something was here. Something that would help me understand Yara's demons better.
Everyone downstairs was too busy putting on their best Oscar-worthy performance for Alfonso's funeral, muttering about how they never saw it coming like every made man wasn't enshrouded in death. It give me the perfect distraction for me to slip in unnoticed.
I'd already memorized the layout of this place the last time I followed Yara here, the image of the bruise on her cheek burned into my mind. I still regretted not finishing Federico off when I had the chance. Stabbing his hand was too mundane, I should have cut it off.
Breaking into his room was almost too easy. I drew my gun from my holster as soon as the door creaked open, ready for anything. If the son of a bitch was hiding in here, he wasn't walking out. I would make sure I put a bullet in each of his legs.
The room was pitch black, the heavy drapes shutting out any light. I moved farther inside, my hand sliding along the wall until I found the switch. It took fifteen seconds, but it felt like a lifetime.
I flicked it on.
My eyes trace the trail of disturbingly nude paintings and sketches lining the walls like twisted trophies. Faceless. Just silhouettes of a woman's body.
My gaze lands on one, a backside drawn in obsessive detail. Faint, thin scars mark the skin, the image cut off at the hands and thighs.
Something dark churned in me. The psychopathic fuck hadn't drawn just anyone. He'd drawn one woman. I didn't need a signature to know. I'd memorized this body with my hands, every curve.
But the scars—those were new to me. Scars I'd never seen before because she always kept her back hidden from me. Now I understood why.
Then I see something, a larger piece hidden behind a sheet of red fabric. My knuckles tighten as I step closer, grip the edge of the cloth, and slowly pull it down.
What I saw made my blood freeze. It was a full, detailed drawing of Yara lying upright, completely naked and exposed. Unlike the other sketches, her face was drawn with haunting precision, every freckle painstakingly rendered.
Her expression was twisted in fear, her wide eyes filled with the same terror I'd seen when she woke from her nightmares. Her body was rigid, captured in a way that made her look helpless, vulnerable. Her lips were parted, as though she was trying to speak but couldn't.
And there were tears.
They streaked down her cheeks, etched in charcoal like a mark of her suffering. The fear, the pain, the humiliation—it was all there, staring back at me in graphic detail.
My hands shook at my sides as the sickening reality of it all sank in. This wasn't just vile. It was pure, unfiltered depravity.
Everything around me dulled, fading into the background like static noise. A cold calmness settled over me, unnatural in its stillness. My hand slipped into my left pocket, pulling out the lighter I always carried. My gaze didn't waver, locked on the signature at the bottom of the painting as I flicked the flame to life.
