Page 205 of Reckless Obsession

The grand foyer of Viktor’s family estate sounds like a comic convention collided with a high-end nightclub and lost its mind.

Bass rattles the crystal chandeliers overhead, pulsing through the marble floors with enough force to vibrate straight up through the soles of my boots. Thick plumes of lavender-scented artificial fog creep across the ballroom entrance, lit by flashing neon strobes and warm amber uplighting.

People are everywhere dressed as superheroes, villains, anime characters, vampires, witches, and whatever the hell Igor has decided to be tonight.

The place is completely unhinged. Pure, unfiltered, absurd indulgence—which is exactly what happens when Viktor’s twin younger sisters turn twenty and decide their birthday theme is full-scale cosplay.

I stand near the edge of the ballroom, glass in hand, dressed entirely in black as Nightwing, complete with the mask, because apparently if I’m going to attend a cosplay party, I might as well commit to the stupidity.

Someone dressed as Harley Quinn runs past me screaming about tequila, followed closely by a man dressed as Spider-Man who looks like he regrets every decision that brought him here.

I grin into my glass.

It’s been two weeks.

Two weeks since I got off that private jet, leaving Dante, Portofino, and my quiet Italian exile behind.

Italy was beautiful.

Italy gave me space when I could not survive being known. It gave me blue water, bright paintings, empty mornings, and enough distance to remember that the world was bigger than the worst thing that had happened to me.

But coming home has reminded me of something much more inconvenient.

I need people.

Not strangers in clubs. Not the temporary freedom of being anonymous somewhere beautiful. Not a room where nobody knows enough to ask whether I am all right.

I need this.

The noise. The history. The unbearable way people who love you refuse to let you disappear quietly. I spent three months convincing myself I could live without it.

I cannot.

Which is embarrassing, frankly.

For the past two weeks, I have been home.

I have sat in kitchens I knew by heart. I have eaten food that tastes like childhood and arguments and someone telling me to stop picking at the good parts before dinner. I have listened to people talk over one another in rooms where I used to believe I took up too much space.

No one asked me to explain everything at once. No one punished me for going away without notice.

They just made room for me.

Ultimately, despite my family’s chaos, danger, and brokenness, they are the sole force anchoring my manic, unpredictable mind from drifting into oblivion.

The one person I have not let close is Tristan.

I saw him at Jamie’s game.

For a moment, before I looked at him, I had been happy. I had been smiling at Jamie, making our stupid childhood signal across a crowded gym as if no time had passed.

Then I found Tristan’s eyes, and I remember how air had vanished from my lungs.

The second he took a step towards me, panic seized my throat, so I ran. I slipped out into the cold night before he could touch me, before his voice could dismantle three months of fragile healing.

Since that night, he hasn’t stopped.

My phone has been a continuous graveyard of his name. Calls at midnight. Calls at dawn. Paragraphs lighting up my lock screen that I refuse to open.