Page 70 of His Obsession
At some point, I start thinking about Sebastian. I don’t want to. I’m still mad at him, and thinking about him softens the anger in ways I’m not prepared to allow. But I can picture his face when he realizes I’m gone. The fear first, probably. Then the fury. Then that horrible calm he gets when he’s deciding exactly how many people are about to suffer for disappointing him.
I wish I didn’t know him well enough to picture it.
My phone buzzes in my hand, and I jump hard enough to almost drop it.
Here.
I pull up the doorbell camera. She’s on the porch, her hair is in a messy knot, and she looks pissed off enough to take on a full security team with one hand and a travel mug in the other.
I zoom in, checking behind her. The porch is clear. The driveway is clear. There’s nothing by the hedges and nothing near the side gate. I unlock the door.
Gia starts talking before I even get it fully open.
“Before you say anything, I’m leading with love, but you are out of your damn mind.”
Then she stops.
Her eyes shift past me, widening.
For half a second, I don’t understand what she sees. Something moves behind her.
“Gia!”
The word barely leaves my mouth before a man steps out from the side of the porch and hits her. The sound is ugly and dull, and she drops so fast my brain refuses to process it. One second she’s there, annoyed and alive and ready to yell at me. The next she’s on the ground.
I lunge for her.
A hand closes around my arm and yanks me outside hard enough to send pain shooting through my shoulder. I twist, trying to reach Gia, but the grip tightens, and the smell hits me before I see his face.
Expensive cologne that makes my stomach turn.
“No,” I gasp.
Adrian pulls me back against him, his mouth near my ear. “Hello, sweetheart.”
I don’t freeze. I will at least give myself that. I slam my heel down on his foot and scream as loud as I can. He curses, and his grip loosens just enough for me to rip one arm free. I swing back and catch his face with my nails, hard enough to feel skin give.
“You little bitch.”
“Get off me!”
I try to throw myself toward Gia, but he grabs me around the waist and hauls me back. She still isn’t moving. I can’t tell if she’s breathing, and the panic that tears through me is worse than anything he could do to my arm.
“Gia!” I scream again.
Adrian clamps a hand over my mouth. “Enough.”
I bite him.
He snarls and jerks his hand back. For one second I get a good look at him under the porch light. He still has the same handsome face that fooled so many people, but the polish is cracked. His collar sits wrong. There’s sweat near his hairline. The scratches I left on his cheek are already turning red, and his eyes are too bright, like he hasn’t slept and doesn’t care.
This is not the controlled Adrian from New York. This is what’s left when all his charm stops working.
“Sebastian is going to kill you,” I say.
His face changes.
Then the cloth comes up.
