Page 111 of Deadly Obsession

“Speaking of torture...” I glance over my shoulder and see two of my soldiers bringing an unconscious man up from the basement. Lenetti’s head of security. “I have some business to take care of. I probably won’t be back until tomorrow morning.”

I devour my futurewifewith a kiss that leaves her panting when I pull away. I call over Jax, who cringes as he gets close.

“Jax is going to take you back to the penthouse. Try not to hit him over the head with another vase.”

“Sorry about your balls,” Sage says with a wince.

What?

She must see the shock on my face. “I kinda kicked him in the nuts when he wasn’t going to let me go inside.”

“It wasn’t kinda,” Jax mumbles. “Youdidkick me in the nuts.”

I lean in.

“I’m proud of you,” I say and place one last gentle kiss on her lips. “But maybe stop injuring my head of security.”

“I did it because nothing or no one was stopping me from getting to you,” she whispers, her breath sweet and tempting on my tongue. “Because I love you.”

Chapter 27 – Elias

Alot can happen in a day… or two.

Like the downfall of the Empire.

And the death of Giovanni Lenetti.

Noah confronted him at his Lower East Side townhouse, and the moment he confessed, she put a bullet through his head.

Fitting that I had done the same thing to my own father just hours before.

After years of chasing evidence to pin the deaths of the mafia wives and children on Lenetti, we finally got our reason why.

It was all a power move. It was about weakening the other mobs, to have them fear him so the Empire could rise to the top.

Noah’s mother overheard this plan, and she was terrified. She tried to escape and take Noah away from Lenetti, but when he found out she was trying to leave, he panickedand hired some men to scare her. But the men weren’t professionals. He hired them off the black market and they went off orders and killed Noah’s mother instead.

They’re the same men who forced Lance to slit our mother’s throat. They’re the same men who set fire to the Lords Mansion and killed Finn O’Connor’s wife and daughter. And they’re the same men Lance later tracked down, captured, tortured, and killed.

Then there’s my father.

His lies.

His betrayal.

Lance told me everything.

How Percy received a large manilla envelope shortly after our mother’s death with information on the men Lenetti hired. When Percy faked his death, he left us that envelope—but without anything connecting Lenetti to it—so we could only seek our vengeance on those men, buthewanted to be the one to kill Lenetti.

Percy claimed it was revenge for killing Imogen, but he didn’t love our mother. He didn’t mourn her. He mourned his toy. He mourned the control he had over her.

He was pissed because Lenetti took something that belonged to him. So he planned to target Lenetti through Noemi, the little girl who saw her mother killed. Lenetti let everyone believe she died that night too, but Percy had spies embedded in the Empire. He knew she was alive.

Percy’s plan was to kill Noah, then lure Lenetti to our former home in Fresh Meadows and set off the explosives. With Lenetti dead and no heir to leave his Empire, the QBM could rise to the top, especially after the Lords were dismantled.

I may have wanted the Empire and the Lords gone, but I was going to do it the right way. I wasn’t going to end innocent lives over greed. I was going to clean up the corruption.

Percy wouldn’t have allowed it. He would have tried to dethrone me.