Sweet Obsession (Ruthless Games 1)

Marcus is still staring at me. He hasn’t looked away since I first said the name Devin Brooks—hell, I don’t even think he’s blinked. I’m not even sure he’s really seeing me though. I can practically hear the gears grinding in his head, and after a long moment, he looks to Ryland with a question in his gaze.

“We have to,” Ryland says, and I can hear the regret in his voice. “It’s too late for anything else. It’s too late.”

I hold absolutely still, torn between le

aning forward eagerly and pulling away. I know the three men have been keeping secrets from me, and a desperation to understand them burns hot and bright in my chest.

But I also know that this will change everything.

Right now, it might still be possible for Ryland to get his wish. For the three of them and me to tear our lives free from each other, to separate and go our own ways. To never see each other again.

To pretend none of this ever happened.

I can’t do that though. I may not bear the marks of the past several weeks as obviously as the scars from the bullet wounds in my chest, but that doesn’t make them any less real.

And these aren’t marks on my body.

They’re marks on my soul.

These men have infected me. Changed me. And I can’t ever go back to who I was before.

Maybe Ryland’s wish was always a fucking pipe dream. Maybe it was already too late the moment the three of them first brushed by me in Club 47 all those years ago.

“Tell me,” I say.

Marcus holds my gaze for another second, then nods. “Do you recognize the name Luca D’Addario?”

I furrow my brows as I sort through my memories. “No.”

“Yeah. That’s by design. You don’t know his name, and he probably doesn’t know yours, but he affects your life on a daily basis.” Marcus straightens, leaning back a little as he holds my gaze. “He’s the man who runs this city. He controls everything here; he’s got his hands in every fucking thing. The most powerful, wealthiest families, the mafia syndicates, the politicians—they all answer to him. His power and influence go back years, and he’s fair but brutal as fuck. No one’s ever been able to unseat him from power, and the last time someone even tried was over a decade ago.”

“He’s the fucking king of Halston,” Theo puts in. “What he says goes.”

“Okay.”

I draw the word out. The thought of someone wielding that much power is vaguely terrifying, but I still don’t understand what it has to do with the three men gathered around me—or with Carson Purcell.

“Luca was married once,” Marcus goes on. “Over twenty years ago now. None of us remember the woman who was his wife, but the way our parents talk about it, he fucking worshipped her. He adored her.”

Something shifts behind his mesmerizing eyes as he speaks, and I feel heat bloom inside my chest. For a moment, it seems more like he’s talking about himself rather than this man, Luca.

“You said was married. What happened to her?” I murmur.

“She died five years after they were married.” He catches the look on my face and shakes his head. “Not violently. I’m not sure the city would’ve survived his wrath if that was the case. She wasn’t murdered. She got an aggressive form of cancer, and not even all of his power and wealth could save her. She was gone within six months of the diagnosis.”

“Someone tried to unseat him right after that,” Ryland interjects, and I glance over at him. “It was the closest anyone ever got. Her loss just about wrecked him.”

“He never remarried.” Marcus shrugs. “She was it for him. All he ever wanted.”

My chest squeezes. I don’t know this man they’re talking about at all, and given how much power he’s consolidated, he has to be hardened and ruthless. But my heart aches for him a little anyway. That kind of devotion? The kind of unending loyalty that borders on obsession?

I think I know what it feels like to be on the receiving end of those kinds of emotions, and although it’s slightly terrifying, there’s something exhilarating about it too.

“They never had children,” Theo says, picking up the thread of the conversation as if all three men are speaking from one shared brain. “And Luca has never taken a mistress that anyone knows of. He has no heir.”

“He plans to step down at some point.” Marcus meets my gaze, and I lean forward, hanging on to his words. “Since he has no children of his own, he has no one to succeed him. No one to leave his empire to.”

“So he handpicked twelve of the most powerful families in the city, and each of them volunteered one of their heirs as a possible successor for Luca,” Ryland says, bitterness coating his voice.