Page 14 of Sinful Obsession

From their continued conversation, I learned more than I wanted to.

Silas, the big one, was heir to Brazil’s most dangerous cartel—Os Filhos do Inferno.

They controlled nearly 60% of South America’s underground arms trade.

And Sebastian, the welcome committee who introduced himself with a punch? He was heir to La Sangre Roja, the bloodiest cartel in Colombia.

His father was rumored to have killed three DEA agents with his bare hands.

Two of the deadliest legacies in Latin America.

These weren’t just bullies; they were predators born into blood-soaked legacies, and I was trapped in a room with them.

If I so much as snored wrong, I’d be dead.

If I had any chance of survival, it rested on the last unknown roommate.

The fourth roommate hadn’t arrived yet.

I needed him to be nothing like Sebastian or Silas.

I clung to a fragile hope that they’d be different—someone I could befriend, someone to stand with me against these wolves. If I was to survive the Den of Vipers, I needed someone I could trust. Or manipulate. Or lean on.

Because at House of Devils, friends weren’t just useful.

They were shields.

And I had none.

I kept my eyes on the page, but the words blurred.

Dmitri’s warning replayed in my head.

If your peers don’t finish you off, the devil himself—Cassian—will.

The name throbbed in my skull like a buried memory.

A flicker of something—familiar—flashed behind my eyes. Gone too fast to grasp.

Who was Cassian? And why did the mention of him feel like drowning?

Just how dangerous was he, to earn such a title from a man like Dmitri, whose own presence was a force of nature?

Tonight, I’d be meeting the bosses of this underworld.

Cassian would be among them, his identity revealed. The thought sent a chill through me.

I didn’t know if staying out of his path would save me—or get me hunted faster.

Chapter 2

CHARLOTTE

It was 10 p.m.

We stood in silence, forty mafia heirs aligned in ten columns—four per row—inside a vast iron hall that felt more like a weapon than a room.

The metal walls were forged with brutal intention, tall and cold, as if they’d seen blood and kept the memory. Harsh industrial lights lined the ceiling, casting sharp shadows that fractured every movement.