Page 36 of Sweet Obsession

He didn’t look at me, but I felt him. Every time I glanced up, I swore he had just looked away. Every breath. Every glance he stole when he thought I wasn’t looking.

Misha Petrov didn’t just occupy space. He owned it.

I hated that part of me noticed the way his thigh flexed when he shifted. The way his jaw clenched when I refused the food his steward offered.

I hated even more that it made me wonder—

What did he want?

Revenge? Power? Me?

Yakutsk, Russia.

Yakutsk, the coldest city in the world. The wind sliced straight through the coat they’d given me. Snow spiraled in sheets around us as we stepped off the jet.

Misha walked ahead, coat whipping behind him like a cape. A king surveying his kingdom.

I followed.

Black SUVs lined the tarmac. One opened silently.

I slid in beside him.

Our legs brushed. I shifted. He didn’t.

The car door closed with a final, heavy thunk. The silence wasn’t empty. It crackled—like static before a lightning strike.

It was charged. Heavy with things unsaid.

My eyes flicked to him. He looked out the window, jaw tight. And for a second—just a second, I saw it. Tension in his brow. Something bitter in the curve of his mouth.

Regret? No. Misha didn’t do regret.

But he wasn’t at peace either. Maybe killing Yuri wasn’t as clean as he pretended. Maybe I wasn’t the pawn he thought I’d be.

I turned away, swallowing the lump in my throat. I wouldn’t be another trophy.

His estate rose like a myth out of the snow. Stone and iron. Spiked gates and cold marble. It wasn’t a home. It was a fortress. Inside, the heat hit like a furnace. Guards waited. Staff bowed. Rooms passed in a blur.

Misha led the tour himself. Not because he had to. Not to show off. Not even to intimidate. He wanted me to feel the weight of what I’d stepped into. To know that this wasn’t some cage. It was a throne room. And he expected me to kneel.

Each corridor, each turn was like a maze meant to disorient and trap.

Then we were brought before three men.

“This is Oleg—my enforcer,” he said, nodding toward the scarred brute with arms like tree trunks and a stare that promised pain.

“Nikolai, second-in-command.” He looked young, but his eyes were sharp and lethal, his smirk laced with quiet menace.

“And Viktor—my consigliere.” The man didn’t speak, didn’t need to. His gaze was cold, calculating. Watching everything. Saying nothing.

They looked at me like I was something to dissect. Not touch. Not trust.

Misha didn’t correct them. But when he looked at me, something flickered in his eyes.

Possession. Hunger. A flicker of guilt?

I didn’t understand it. But I filed it away. I’d need it later.