Page 165 of Sweet Obsession

That made me laugh. Real, full-body laugh. The kind I hadn’t felt in months. Maybe years.

She grinned and looked proud. “God, I missed being funny.”

“You were never funny.”

“Blasphemy!” she cried, launching a pillow at my face. I caught it midair and chucked it back harder, smacking her square in the jaw.

Her expression was stunned. Then she broke. Wheezing. Laughing so hard she curled into a fetal position on the floor.

For a few minutes, we forgot.

Forgot the blood. The trauma. The cartel. The exile.

We were just sisters. Whole. Loud. Alive.

And even though tomorrow we’d fly home to a broken country and a dying father, tonight... we were just two girls in Paris.

And somewhere in the shadows of this city, a ghost named Misha still watched.

Since it’s our last night in Paris, we decide to go to Pont des Arts, the bridge that’s always been the epitome of Parisianromance. The lights from the city twinkle on the Seine, casting long, lazy reflections on the water as the evening air grows warmer. The atmosphere is thick with the soft, hushed sounds of couples murmuring to one another, the occasional clink of wine glasses, and the steady rhythm of the river below.

Gabriella’s grinning, her eyes shining with something like contentment I haven’t seen in a while. She links her arm with mine, pulling me toward the edge of the bridge, where the city stretches out beneath us in a brilliant constellation of lights.

“Can you believe it’s almost over?” she murmurs, glancing out over the river. “We’ve barely done anything.”

But there’s a different weight to her words. This trip, this place, has healed something in her. Even if she won’t admit it, I can see it. She’s found some peace, some patch of light she can settle into.

I’m about to respond when I feel it again. That shift in the air, that prickling sensation on my skin. It’s subtle at first, a shift in the way the wind moves, a ripple across the surface of the water, but then, I feel the pressure of it in my bones. Someone’s watching me.

I glance out toward the Pont des Arts, where the crowds are thinner. There’s a figure in the shadows beneath one of the streetlamps, standing still, almost too still. I can’t see his face, but I know. I know it’s him.

Misha.

My heart stutters, a strange mix of anger and a pull deep in my gut.

I turn quickly, forcing a smile as I pull Gabriella back toward the center of the bridge. “Let’s go to the other side. The view’s better there.”

She doesn’t argue. She’s too busy soaking in the magic of Paris, and I’m thankful for it, because right now, I’m not sure Ican handle her asking too many questions about what’s crawling up my spine.

As we walk, I glance back once more. The shadow remains, unmoving, watching from the edge of the bridge.

Gabriella notices the shift in my expression before I can mask it. “What’s wrong?” she asks, slipping her phone into her pocket, eyes narrowing with concern.

“Nothing,” I lie. “Just thought I saw someone I knew.”

She grins, light and teasing, but I can hear the hint of something else in her voice. “Please don’t say it’s Misha. This is Paris, not a Jason Bourne movie.”

I don’t laugh. I can’t. Because deep down, I know exactly who it is.

The shadow under the lamp doesn’t need to step into the light to make itself known. Misha had a way of clinging to the air—of becoming a pulse that lived just beneath my skin, just out of reach, but always there.

If he had followed me here, it wasn’t just obsession. It was suicide. The Vargas cartel still wanted his head. He should’ve stayed far away.

But this was Misha.

He never knew when to stop

The morning we were to leave Paris, Gabriella burst into the room wearing my silk scarf like a cape.