Page 32 of Sinful Obsession

“You answer with words when you speak to me.”

I swallowed hard. “I understand.”

I brushed past him, simmering with anger I had no safe place to put. Anger that could get me killed.

He caught up in a few strides, silent but always looming, and led me down a pristine hallway—first through a narrow antechamber, then into a sprawling living room dressed in brutal elegance.

Every corner glistened with cold wealth.

He guided me toward a long, circular dining table that could seat twelve. Ten of those seats were already filled.

Their occupants’ eyes locking onto me as we entered, And every pair of eyes turned to me like I’d walked in wearing a noose, their gazes sharp, dissecting, as if I were a ghost risen from a grave they’d dug.

I felt the hair on my arms rise, my skin prickling under their scrutiny, my blouse and trousers suddenly feeling like a spotlight.

I didn’t belong.

I wasn’t welcome.

Cassian pulled out the seat beside his and waited until I sat. Then he took his place next to me, radiating cold authority.

“Let’s begin,” he said, cutting the silence like a guillotine.

A man across the table—probably in his seventies, skin pale and waxy under the overhead light—leaned forward. His black suit was severe.

Everyone wore black. Everyone reeked of old power.

“Good day, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to New York’s first official meeting of the year,” he said, tapping on the iPad before him.

“As we discussed last session, the five ruling families must now appoint a single head to preside over New York. My family, of course, is among them. But let’s go over the list again.”

I barely heard the names at first—too aware of the weight in the room, too aware of my every breath. Then his words struck like gunfire.

“The Grayson family.”

My family.

I blinked. My father... was one of New York’s five most powerful mafia heads?

Good to know. Terrifying to know.

And yet—where was he?

Vincent too. I knew they were here, but I hadn’t dared meet every gaze, hadn’t dared risk what I might see in their eyes. Or what they might see in mine.

“The Moretti family,” the man continued. Of course. Cassian’s family was inevitable.

“The Vasiliev family,” he said next.

Russian.

That name pulsed with danger. I’d heard it before—somewhere in the edges of a memory I still hadn’t recovered.

“The other two families,” he went on, “have no suitable heirs or active contenders at this time. That leaves us with three viable candidates: Vincent Grayson, Cassian Moretti, and Artem Vasiliev.”

There was a moment of hush. Like the room was bracing for war.

“Would the candidates please rise for recognition?”