Page 79 of His Obsession
Val screams again. I hit the bottom step with my gun up, but there’s no clean shot.
The basement is half storage, half cellar. Old wine racks. Broken furniture. Plastic sheeting over stacked crates. Adrian has Val pinned against a support column near the far wall, one hand twisted in her hair, the other braced against her throat. His gun sits on a table beside a lantern.
I stop at the foot of the stairs. Val is between us, and the gun is close enough for Adrian to reach.
Val sees me first. Relief flashes across her face, fast and painful. Adrian turns, sees us, and reaches for the gun.
“Don’t,” I say, but he already has it.
He yanks Val in front of him so fast she stumbles, and then the barrel is jammed against the side of her head.
I stop breathing for half a second, then force myself to start again. Matteo halts at my shoulder, weapon raised but useless with Val between us.
“Come any closer and I’ll shoot her,” he says.
“That’s a waste,” I say, as calm as I can manage. “You didn’t come all this way and spend all these weeks planning just to blow her brains out in a dirty basement.”
Val is breathing hard, face pale, hair tangled, lip split. A bruise is already rising on one side of her jaw, and dirt streaks her jeans like she’s been fighting him on the floor. I want to cross the room and kill him with my hands. Instead, I make myself stand still.
“Let her go,” I say. “There’s no reason to hurt her.”
“I’ll do whatever I want with her,” he seethes. “She’s mine.”
“She doesn’t belong to you.”
His mouth twists. “That’s where you’re wrong.”
Val’s eyes find mine over the line of his arm. I can see the fear there now, stripped raw. I can also see that she’s trying not to give him more of it than he already has.
“Adrian,” Matteo says, his voice steady, “you’re boxed in. You don’t have a car out front, you don’t have men with you, and our people are outside. This only ends one way.”
Adrian barks out another laugh. “You think I care?”
“Yes,” Matteo says. “I think if you didn’t care, she’d already be dead.”
Adrian presses the gun harder into Val’s temple. She winces. My hands tighten on my own weapon.
“I should have killed you in New York,” Adrian snarls, right into her ear.
“You didn’t have the nerve,” Val spits.
His grip jerks in her hair. “Shut up.”
“Make me.”
“Val,” I say sharply.
Her eyes cut back to me. I just need him to move the gun one inch. That’s all.
“Look at me,” I tell her.
She does. Her eyes fill. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize.”
“I’m sorry,” she says. “I’m sorry I fought you on everything. I’m sorry I left. I’m sorry, Sebastian.”
“Val, stop. None of this is your fault.”
