Page 31 of Deadly Obsession

After her building blew up a little over two weeks ago, and she nearly died, she grabbed my phone and installed an app that allows me to track her location. She installed the same app on her phone too. She asked that I only use it in an emergency situation, and I agreed.

Now is an emergency.

Kind of.

Noah isn’t expecting me, likely already forgetting about the tracking app. Confusion riddles her face, then relief takes over as she pulls me into a hug.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. Please don’t hate me.”

My body melts into hers. “I could never hate you.”

She releases me and scrunches her nose as if she doesn’t believe that.

“Do you want something to drink?”

“Something hard, please.”

I explore the loft while she’s in the kitchen pouring us some whiskey.

The space is overtly manly. Blacks and grays and hardwood everywhere with brick walls and floor to ceiling windows. The loft has been renovated, and a wall has been put up to separate the living area and bedroom.

“So, this is Del’s place?”

Noah nods.

“Is he here?”

Noah grimaces as she walks over to me carrying two glasses.

“He’s in the bedroom recovering. My father, um, shot him.”

She hands me a vodka soda, and I slam it back.

“Damn, Sage. Everything okay?”

I wince, desperately wanting to tell her about Chase. Thankfully, she starts talking before I make the mistake of revealing everything.

“Of course, it’s not okay,” she answers for me. “You’re not okay. I kept a secret from you. I—”

“Your father shot Del?” I interrupt, my voice an octave higher.

“Yeah, well, you know... rival and all.”

“Right...”

Noah takes my glass and refills it. I numbly sit on the couch trying to process... everything. This world my best friend belongs to—that I’m now a part of.

She returns with my second round of booze, but I stop myself from pouring this one down my throat and sip it slowly instead. It’s top shelf vodka, that’s for sure. I let the liquid coat my insides and relax my tense shoulders.

Closing my eyes, I sigh. “Why don’t you start from the beginning?”

For the next hour, she talks, and I listen, asking questions when needing clarification. Noah tells me about the night before Christmas Eve twenty years ago when twomen broke into her home. How she watched from the stairs, hiding behind the balusters of the staircase and watched them shoot her mom point blank. How she ran and hid because they planned to kill her too.

Her father then sent her away and changed her name to protect her. She was only eleven years old. I can’t imagine witnessing something so horrible only to be abandoned by the man who was supposed to comfort her.

Noah returned to New York City for answers because not only was her mother killed, but the next night, the wife and daughter of Finn O’Connor, Lords of Staten Island Don, died in a mysterious fire.

Then Del was forced to kill his own mother.