Page 38 of Sweet Obsession (Savage Vow #1)

LUNA

The next morning, I made a beeline for the studio the moment I finished breakfast.

I didn’t let myself overthink it.

Not the fact that Misha had rebuilt it for me. Not that it felt like something sacred. something close to what my mother and I used to share.

He might’ve thought it was just a gesture. A calculated peace offering. But this place... it mattered.

Maybe I wasn’t as good as my mother. My strokes weren’t soft like hers, and I never had her patience with shading. I was better with metal and fire, with carving stones into delicate things that didn’t feel delicate. But painting? I wanted to learn. Maybe I’d find someone to teach me.

Maybe, for once, I could create something that didn’t end in smoke.

I was half-lost in a blur of colors when it happened.

A single drop of vermilion slipped from the edge of my brush and splattered onto the floor.

Just a single flick of paint that bled from my brush onto the floor.

I bent to wipe it and knocked over the jar of turpentine with my elbow.

The glass spun, caught the edge of the table, and crashed to the floor in a slow-motion symphony of chaos. I cursed and reached for a rag, but then

The canvas tilted.

And fell.

Right onto the palette tray.

Paint splattered everywhere, across the floor, the table, my legs, my shirt. Ochre, black, cerulean. A dozen colors exploded across my front like war paint.

I stared down at myself.

Then at the mess.

And for some reason, maybe it was the absurdity, or the silence, or the fact that laughter had become a stranger to me, I burst out laughing.

A real laugh. From deep in my chest. Loud, reckless, ugly even.

“Are you dying?” came a voice behind me, dry as ash.

I froze and turned.

Misha stood in the doorway, arms crossed, one brow arched. There was something dangerously close to a smile playing at the edge of his mouth.

“You’re bleeding paint,” he said flatly. “Is this a ritual sacrifice?”

I blinked at him, breathless from laughter. “If it was, it backfired. I’m the one who got sacrificed.”

He stepped into the room, eyes scanning the carnage. “I gave you a studio. You turned it into a crime scene.”

I wiped a streak of crimson from my cheek with the back of my hand, which only made it worse. “Some people work with inspiration. I work with chaos.”

“No argument there.” He bent down, picked up a shard of glass with two fingers, and dropped it into the trash. “You’re lucky you didn’t set the place on fire.”

“Give it time,” I said sweetly. “It’s only my second day.”

He made a sound—half-scoff, half-laugh—and moved to the sink, grabbing a towel and tossing it to me.

I caught it midair. “Thanks, Mom.”

“You’re welcome, gremlin.”

I grinned and wiped my face. “You know, this was almost a good painting. Before I ruined it with a palette dive.”

Misha stepped over to the easel and studied it, head tilted. “I’ve seen worse. In museums.”

“You’re lying.”

“Of course. But it’s the thought that counts.”

I rolled my eyes and turned back to the canvas, a smile tugging at my lips even as my chest twisted.

Because I knew what today was.

What tomorrow would bring.

The vote.

Misha versus Chernov.

Power versus power. Blood against blood.

Only one of them would walk away as Pakhan.

And I wasn’t sure what scared me more—what Misha would become if he won.

Or what might happen if he didn’t.

I looked down, and froze.

My shirt, soaked with pigment and thinner, had turned nearly translucent. My skin. My bra. Every inch underneath was visible in vivid, humiliating detail.

I yanked the hem instinctively. “Don’t...”

“I’m not,” Misha said, voice rougher now. “Looking, I mean.”

But he was.

Not like a man ogling.

More like a man watching a lit fuse snake toward something breakable.

I backed up too fast.

My heel slipped on the wet floor. “Shit—!”

He caught me. One arm braced tight around my waist, the other on my back.

I was suspended—flushed against him, every line of muscle and heat anchoring me in place.

And then his hand slid. Just a little. Just enough.

A bolt of heat ripped down my spine.

I looked up.

He was already looking down.

And the moment tilted.

Gravity shifted. The air thinned. Every part of me leaned in before I could stop it.

His mouth brushed mine.

Not soft. Not sweet.

It was hot—bristled, hungry, dangerous. The kind of kiss that warned you this will cost you.

A mistake.

A betrayal of every boundary I’d tried to draw.

And still—

I didn’t stop him.

His hand curled around my jaw. He deepened it. And I let him.

Knock knock knock.

The sound shattered everything.

We broke apart like we’d been slapped.

I spun away so fast I nearly slipped again. My breath came in stabs. His was ragged.

“Da?” Misha barked toward the door, voice hoarse.

“One of the guards,” came the reply. “Delivery. Marked with the Vargas crest.”

My stomach dropped.

Vargas.

Yuri’s family.

Misha moved to the door. Took the envelope. Shut it without a word.

Black wax. A serpent seal. Colombian blood and venom pressed into one vicious symbol.

He didn’t open it right away.

Just stared, jaw tight, like he already knew what it would say.

“What is it?” I asked.

He cracked the seal. Read.

Said nothing. Just folded the letter slowly, too calmly. Like rage had turned to something colder.

He handed it to me.

I unfolded the page, hands trembling before I even read the first line:

Come to Colombia. No guards. No surveillance. Forty-eight hours, or Gabriella dies.”

The weight of it hit like a slap.

I looked up at Misha, the paper trembling in my hands. “What the hell do we do?”

Before he could answer—

Knock knock.

Again.

He didn’t bother with pleasantries this time. Just yanked the door open and snatched a second letter from the guard’s hand.

This one was sealed in red wax.

Marked with the sigil of House Odessa. Chernov’s calling card, arrogant and deliberate.

He read it in silence. His face didn’t twitch. Not once.

But I saw something dark crack beneath the surface.

He handed me the letter. His fingers brushed mine—stone cold now.

Withdraw. Do not attend the banquet.

You’ll lose the vote or your life—possibly both.

No matter who wears the crown, chaos will follow.

I won’t let her walk away twice.

Misha said nothing.

He didn’t need to.

The room had already shifted.

The fuse had burned to the end.

And tomorrow, someone would burn with it.

My vision swam.

My heart seized, like something inside had curled into itself.

I read the words again, hoping they’d shift. Disappear. Rewrite themselves.

They didn’t.

They just stared back, colder the second time.

Misha’s voice was quiet steel. “They’ve waited this long to make a move. This means they’re getting desperate.”

“Or bold,” I whispered.

His eyes met mine. “Both.”

I clenched the letters tighter until the paper crinkled. “Don’t sacrifice yourself for my sister.”

“It won’t come to that.” His tone darkened. “The Vargas Cartel, your father’s people, and Odessa have aligned to keep her hidden. Three cartels. That’s not a fight anyone walks into lightly.”

He stepped closer, voice lowering with every word. “But I will find her. I swear it. Before the forty-eight hours run out. You won’t lose anyone else. Not while I’m still breathing.”

His hand hovered at my shoulder—hesitating. Waiting. Like he didn’t know if I’d flinch again.

I didn’t.

Not outwardly.

But inside, something cracked.

He nodded once, almost to himself. “We’ll plan.”

“We?” My voice was smaller than I wanted it to be.

“Yeah. We’ll find her together.”

I didn’t answer.

I didn’t need to.

Because I believed him.

God help me, I believed him.

More than that—some part of me, bruised and exhausted and quietly desperate, was grateful.

And that was the part I feared the most.

Not Vargas.

Not Chernov.

But this. This slow, treacherous pull toward the man I wasn’t supposed to trust.

My voice barely rose above a whisper. “And as for the banquet holding tomorrow... we don’t have to go. If we stay back, the vote will go to Chernov, but we’ll be safe.”

“No,” he said immediately.

“You’ll lose.”

“Better I lose a title than you.”

He turned to the table, unfolding Chernov’s letter again. He didn’t just read it—he studied it, like every sentence was a trap he needed to dismantle.

His jaw tightened. “This is bait. He wants me to withdraw. Vargas wants me to offer myself up. But I won’t play by their rules.”

“Misha...”

“I will show up,” he said, cutting me off, voice like iron. “I will not hide. I will not run. And you...” He turned back to me. His hand touched mine this time. No hesitation. Just heat. Steady and sure.

“I’ll take you with me to the banquet,” he said. “You’ll be under guard, under my eye. You won’t leave my sight.”

“That won’t be enough.”

“I’m not done,” he said quietly. “I’m bringing my own men. Locking down every entrance, every corridor. Chernov wants chaos, but he’ll get a wall of knives instead.”

“And if the Vargas Cartel shows up?” I swallowed hard, the weight of the situation sinking deeper. “In solidarity with Chernov? They’ll have more men than you, you’ll be outnumbered.”

His gaze hardened, the cold certainty in his voice sending a chill through me. “Then I end them all.”

Just like that.

I stared at him. At the man standing so calmly in the middle of this storm. Not flinching. Not folding.

“You don’t have to do this,” I said, barely audible.

He looked at me for a long moment, and something softer slipped through the fire in his eyes.

“I do,” he said. “Because they already threatened you. That makes it mine.”

There was no air left in the room. Not between us.

Only heat. And blood. And something that sounded a lot like faith.

I didn’t know what scared me more—going to that banquet, or realizing I wasn’t afraid of him anymore.

Not even a little.

No, what terrified me now was this, what would I become if he didn’t come back?

MISHA

She didn’t say much after the second letter.

Didn’t have to.