Page 12 of Ruined Through Obsession

The Don is desperate. He knows we crippled his financial backing by draining Roberto’s offshore accounts, and he realizes that if Elena survives long enough to expose his treason to the remaining loyalists, his coup will collapse from the inside. He is utilizing his remaining legitimate funds to turn the entire island into a hunting ground. Every desperate street soldier, every opportunistic assassin, and every greedy civilian with a firearm will be looking for the woman sleeping in the next room.

Vitiello vastly underestimates the caliber of the man standing beside his niece. I am going to dismantle the men trying to collect the bounty, turning their corpses into a very public warning before I personally march up the steps of the Vitiello estate.

"You are projecting an awful lot of murder into the room for someone who just successfully bankrupted an empire."

The smooth, sleep-husky voice drifts from the doorway.

I pivot in the chair, my eyes locking onto Elena. She stands leaning against the doorframe an oversized dress shirt. The top buttons undone to reveal the subtle, maddening curve of her collarbone. Her dark hair is a beautiful, tangled mess, and her eyes are alert, scanning my rigid posture and the glowing red warning banners illuminating the computer monitors. She does not look frightened.

"I apologize if my plotting disturbed your rest," I purr which effectively masks the violent calculations running through my brain. I stand up from the desk, closing the distance between us with slow strides until I am standing just inches away from her.

"I sleep lightly," Elena remarks, tilting her head back to meet my gaze. She studies the hard lines of my face. "Your brother must have called. You look satisfied about Boston. So, what is flashing on the screen that makes you look like you want to burn Palermo to the ground?"

I reach out, my fingers brushing a stray lock of dark hair away from her face, tracing the delicate line of her jaw. "Your uncle just authorized a mass broadcast across the local underworld frequencies. He realized we severed his offshore pipeline, and he is panicking. He placed a public bounty on your head."

Elena does not flinch. She does not gasp or step back in horror. A slow, chilling smirk curves the corners of her mouth, a display of unbothered arrogance that makes my blood run impossibly hot.

"How much am I worth, Consigliere?" she asks, her tone dripping with genuine curiosity rather than fear.

"Twenty million Euros," I answer, my thumb stroking the pulse point at the base of her throat.

"Only twenty?" Elena scoffs softly, shaking her head with a mock disappointment that borders on insanity. "My uncle is getting stingy in his old age. He should know it will cost significantly more than that to put me in the ground."

I wrap my hand around the back of her neck, my fingers tangling in her hair, and pull her flush against my chest. She crashes into me, her hands gripping the fabric of my dark shirt, her eyes blazing with a defiant fire that dares the world to try and take her down.

"Let them come for the money," I murmur, lowering my mouth until my lips are brushing against hers. "I need target practice anyway, and I plan on building a mountain of bodies so high your uncle can see it from his balcony. No one touches what belongs to me, Elena. Not for twenty million. Not for all the gold in Sicily."

10

Elena

The aggressive, crimson glare of the laptop monitor paints the peeling walls of the safehouse in a sickly hue, the flashing warning banners casting a damning verdict over my existence in Palermo. Twenty million Euros. The number burns into my retinas, a staggering, astronomical figure that my uncle just authorized to ensure my immediate eradication. Standing flush against Enzo’s chest, surrounded by the intoxicating scent of gunpowder and the expensive scotch he poured earlier, the suffocating reality of my uncle’s broadcast finally begins to take root in my mind.

By slapping that outrageous price tag on my corpse, he guarantees that the men I trusted, the informants I paid, and the soldiers who once pledged their allegiance to my father will not hesitate to put a bullet between my eyes to secure their own comfortable retirements. I am officially a hunted exile roaming the dangerous streets of my own city, stripped of the Vitiello name and the syndicate protections that shielded me since birth. The bitter irony tastes like bile in my mouth. I spent years manipulating the treacherous politics of the Sicilian underworld, carefully positioning myself as the diplomatic savior of my bloodline, only to realize I am now surviving exclusively because the ruthless Consigliere of a rival family decided to wrap his hands around me.

"He wants me completely cornered," I murmur, my fingers mindlessly tracing the ruined, uneven landscape of scars traversing Enzo's chest. "For twenty million, every fucking rat crawling through the gutters of Sicily will be looking for a payday, from the street corner dealers to the corrupt politicians I bribe on a weekly basis. The men I commanded yesterday will gladly slit my throat tonight just to buy a sprawling villa in Tuscany."

Enzo does not offer useless comfort or attempt to sugarcoat the precarious nature of our situation, and I respect him immensely for not treating me like a fragile, hysterical woman. He keeps one massive hand tangled in the messy strands of my hair, his thumb stroking the sensitive skin behind my ear with an owning, claiming friction that sends a rush of heat straight to my core.

"They can search every alleyway and tear through every warehouse on this miserable island," Enzo replies. "They will only find their own fucking graves, Elena. Your Uncle is playing a desperate hand because he knows you possess the intelligence to dismantle his illegitimate throne. He wants you to panic, to make a stupid, impulsive mistake so his mercenaries can collect you, but he forgets who you are standing next to."

I pull back just enough to look up into his face, studying the icy, calculating brilliance illuminating his eyes. He is a terrifying creature, a man who conceals an ocean of malice behind perfectly tailored suits, masking a street-level cruelty that I am just beginning to understand. I do not know the exact details of the horrors that forged him, but the evidence is carved into his flesh

I step out of his embrace, the sudden loss of his body heat leaving my skin cold, and begin to pace the short expanse of the living room. The oversized dress shirt flutters around my thighs as I wrap my arms around my waist, my mind spinning through the endless, branching paths of our retaliation.

"I spent my entire adult life trying to preserve the dignity of this syndicate," I admit, my voice tinged with a bitter, exhausted frustration. "My grandfather built the Vitiello empire on a foundation of respect, loyalty, and strict adherence to the code, establishing our family as the undisputed sovereigns of Palermo. My uncle dragged that legacy through the fucking mud the second he sold his soul to the Volkovs, turning our soldiers into common thugs and our business into a sloppy, disorganized mess. I tried to fix it from the inside, attempting to manipulate the board and steer the family back to honor, but look where that got me. I have to wonder if the only way to actually save my house is to burn the whole fucking thing to the ground."

Enzo moves away from the desk, picks up the half-empty bottle of scotch, pours a small measure into a clean glass, and takes a slow sip of the amber liquid.

"You are looking at this execution order like it is a tragedy, mia bella," Enzo states, setting the glass down onto the wooden table with a resounding clack. "You are mourning a family that stopped existing the moment your uncle decided his greed was more important than your blood. He did you a favor tonight. He stripped away the rules, the obligations, and the pathetic, restrictive chains of diplomacy you forced yourself to wear. You do not have to smile at corrupt men anymore. You do not have to negotiate with traitors."

He crosses the room with purposeful strides, backing me up until the backs of my knees hit the edge of the mattress. He invades my personal space, his imposing stature forcing me to tilt my head back to maintain eye contact.

"You are not a victim of circumstance, Elena, and neither am I," he murmurs, his hands coming up to cup my face, his calloused thumbs brushing across my cheekbones. "We are architects of power. We decide who lives and who dies, who rules and who begs in the dirt. If the Vitiello empire is rotting from the inside, then you must be the fire that purges the infection." He leans in, his breath brushing against my lips, sending a cascading shiver down my spine. "You are La mia Fenice. My beautiful, destructive phoenix. You have to reduce this corrupt city to ash before you can be reborn as the undisputed queen they should have bowed to from the start."

The Italian word rolls off his tongue with a mesmerizing, worshipful reverence, slicing through the doubts cluttering my mind. Fenice. A creature born from destruction, rising triumphant from the ruins of her enemies.

A breathless, wicked smile curves my lips as I reach up, threading my fingers through his dark hair, pulling his face down toward mine. "If I am burning Palermo to the ground, Consigliere, I am going to need someone to help me scatter the ashes."