Page 223 of Reckless Obsession

Jake’s mouth closes. His eyes flick past me towards the door, then back to my face. He is trying to calculate—whether he can bluff, whether he can hold out, whether Tristan has told me more than he thinks.

I let him squirm.

“You were very certain a moment ago,” I continue, settling back in my chair. “You had a whole speech prepared. Tristan’s first love. Tristan’s future. The great tragic romance of Jake and Tristan, interrupted by the inconvenient existence of me.”

“Fuck you.”

“Original.” I glance at the restraints. “You know, I think the chair is bringing out your personality.”

His jaw tightens.

I smile.

“Come on. Finish the sentence.” I tap one finger against the armrest. “Tristan wouldn’t dare touch me again because of what?”

“He wouldn’t.”

“Because you said so?”

“Shut the fuck up,” he spits, his chest heaving violently.

“Did you really think you could keep him just by walking into his office whenever you felt like it?” I ask softly, my voice dripping with pure disdain. “Did you really think that if you paraded in front of enough cameras and smiled for enough tabloids, he would magically forget every single second he spent with me? That he would look at you and feel anything other than utter revulsion?”

“I said shut up!”

“Tristan looks at you and sees a chore, Jake. A pathetic, desperate ghost clinging to a past that died years ago.” I offer him a vicious, razor-sharp smile. “He doesn’t want you. He never did. And every time he has to look at your face, all he thinks about is how much better his life is with me.”

That does it.

The fragile dam holding back his sanity completely shatters. Jake jerks forward against the restraint with a savage, animalistic snarl, the chair scraping loudly against the concrete as his face twists into something ugly and unhinged.

“You think you’ve won, don’t you?” he barks, his voice echoing off the damp stone walls. “You think you’re so fucking special? You’re a monster, Maksim! A bloody sociopathic killer. You don’t deserve Tristan, you don’t even deserve to walk the same earth as him.”

I don’t flinch. I don’t even blink.

“You think you can hide behind your family’s name forever?” Jake goes on, a wild, manic gleam overtaking his bloodshot eyes. Spittle flies from his lips as he laughs hysterically. “Very soon, every single person you’ve put in the ground is going to come back to haunt you! Your killings are going to be exposed to the entire world. I have files, Maksim. I have photos, dates, locations, surveillance footage, and enough hard evidence to throw your psychotic ass behind bars for the rest of your miserable, pathetic life!”

He finishes on a breathless, triumphant gasp, staring at me like he just handed down a death sentence.

I slowly lean back against my chair and fold my arms across my chest.

I just watch him.

The silence returns, vast and dead, punctuated only by the steady drip-drip of water in the corner.

I don’t look panicked. I don’t look shocked.

Because I already know.

I spent the last few days tearing through his digital footprint like a scalpel after I left Tristan that morning. I know everything he has against me.

“Is that what you used to threaten him?”

Jake blinks, and the confidence drains from his face so subtly that someone less attentive might miss it.

I do not.

“You told Tristan that if he didn’t end things with me, you would expose everything I had done.” My voice drops. The amusement leaves it entirely. “You told him he could either stay with you and keep me free, or choose me and watch me disappear into a prison cell for the rest of my life.”