Page 13 of My Sweetest Obsession

“Fuck,” Dante muttered.

“It’s not possible,” Alphonse grumbled, shaking his head as if he could physically dispel the thought.

“Did you ever find out who was behind the explosion?” Dante asked, his eyes fixed on Alphonse.

Alphonse let out a humorless laugh. “No. I spent years chasing every lead, and I got nothing. Whoever did it vanished like a goddamn ghost.”

“Who else wanted him dead?” I asked.

Alphonse finally met my gaze, a smirk playing on his lips as he absently swirled the amber liquid in his glass. “Everyone hated that man,” he said. “His greed for power overshadowed everything. He had no grasp of loyalty, no understanding of true alliances. That man was a relentless cockroach.” He paused for a moment, his expression darkening.

“I just wish I had been the one to finally end his existence.” With that, Alphonse tipped the glass back, draining the last remnants of his drink, the ice rattling against the glass as he set it down.

“None of this makes any sense,” Luca chimed in. “If he somehow survived the explosion, why would Gigi’s own grandfather want to harm her?”

Dante sighed. “I guess it’s time for a history lesson,” he jumped in as he returned to his seat.

Alphonse settled into his chair, leaning back. “The Gambinos and D’Onofrios were once allies, but Giuseppe D’Onofrio’s greed changed everything. He ordered a hit on my father,” Alphonse explained.

I had heard stories as a kid about the Gambino family and the power they had over Italy. They were indestructible. But I hadn’t heard why the two families were enemies.

“Why?” I asked.

“To have what every king seeks—power,” Alphonse answered.

“But what started the war?”

“It started when my grandfather Marcello Gambino murdered Joseppi D’Onofrio. At the time, Marcello was the head of a small but powerful mafia family that held sway over parts of Sicily and Naples. Joseppi, driven by greed, sought to seize control of Marcello’s lucrative money-laundering operations and his connections in the United States.”

He paused, his expression darkening. “Joseppi ordered a hit on Marcello, but Marcello got to him first. That’s when all hell broke loose. The D’Onofrio family retaliated, hunting down members of the Gambino family and anyone associated with them. Hell, they even killed the fucking maid. The violence dragged on formonthsuntil they ambushed my grandfather as he was leaving church. The news of his assassination shattered the community as if the president had been killed. But that was the tipping point. The head of five mafia families had to step in, otherwise the bloodshed would have continued. My grandfather had maintained a balance through business arrangements across territories, and the other families had too much to lose to risk that.”

“So what happened?” Luca asked.

“My father, Pietro took the reins and reorganized the mafia by initiating negotiations with the other families in the US and Italy. They came to an agreement to stay in their territories and avoid further bloodshed. But then, just as we thought we’d found a new balance, Giuseppe decided to follow in his grandfather’s footsteps and put a hit on my father.”

“Jesus. History is repeating itself,” Dante remarked, shaking his head.

Alphonse nodded. “After my father passed away, I became the don and made sure to uphold my father's agreements with the commission. For a while, things were quiet.”

“Until what?” I probed.

“Until I fell in love with Giuseppe’s daughter,” Alphonse responded.

Love.

That fucking feeling.

It was like we were bound by chains to the women we dared to fall for, and that challengedeverything. Every decision we made. Every feeling we shared. It was an ongoing battle thatnever ended, no matter how fiercely and desperately we tried to distance ourselves from its grip.

“Hey,” a woman’s hoarse voice cut through the darkness, forcing my eyelids open. After a few blinks, her face came into focus, haunted with long brown hair matted and caked with dry blood at her hairline. The fear in her hazel eyes sent a chill down my spine.

I shifted, feeling the unforgiving hardness of the ground beneath me; something heavy was constricting my neck. Instinctively, my hand shot up to my throat. Panic surged through me like a jolt of electricity.

A metal collar.

My gaze followed the cold chains that extended from the collar, anchoring me to a rusty hook in the center of the room.

Oh, my God.I glanced back at the woman, and my heart sank further when I saw she was wearing one too.