Page 103 of Beautiful Obsessions
I was met with silence.
“If she leaves Malta,” I said, voice dropping, violent darkness threading through it, “we will never see her again… And I would set fire to every kingdom I own before I let another man even think he could take my place.”
That was enough to get Atlas moving.
“Prep the jet.”
The room exploded into motion.
Men moved as orders flew.Weapons were gathered.Phones lit up like a war zone.
I stood there for half a second longer, the chaos unfolding around me, my pulse a violent, relentless thing in my chest.
All I could think about was Tone.Every second she was out there—every second Machado had her—something inside me sharpened.Twisted.Turned lethal.
I dragged a hand down my face, tasting blood, rage—something darker settling in behind it.
This was what desperation did to a man.
It stripped him.
Peeled away restraint, reason, everything that made him hesitate… until all that was left was instinct and violence.The kind that didn’t ask permission and didn’t care about consequence.
Desperate men didn’t think.They didn’t weigh outcomes or calculate risk.Theyacted.
They tore through anything in their way, burned bridges, broke bones, crossed lines they’d once sworn they never would—because when something that mattered was taken, nothing else held value.
Not alliances.Not territory.Not even survival.
And I was well past desperate.I was something worse.
Because there wasn’t a corner of this world I wouldn’t rip apart to get her back.
And God help anyone standing in my way when I did.
30
Tone
The boat was relentlessly fast as it cut through the water.The engine roared beneath my feet as Italy slipped further and further into the distance behind us—reduced to a dark smear on the horizon.
Salt air whipped against my face, sharp enough to sting, dragging strands of my hair loose as I stood near the railing, wrists still raw from where they’d been bound.
I stared at the water as it churned beside the boat, dark and violent.
For a moment, I contemplated jumping.
One step forward.One breath.And I’d go over the edge.
The idea curled around me, tempting in its simplicity.A clean escape.A final act of control in a situation that had stripped me of everything else.
Because I knew what waited for me if I didn’t jump.I wasn’t stupid enough to believe Michalo Machado had good intentions.Men like him didn’t take women like me for kindness.
They took.They reshaped.They claimed.And if he got me on that plane… My throat tightened, knowing that I might never see Italy again.
Never see my family.Never see?—
Archie.
