Falling for the enemy || 18+

CHAPTER 10 : PREDATOR

I was losing control.

It had been days since the party, but I couldn't get Bianca De Luca out of my head. I replayed our brief conversation over and over, dissecting every word, every glance. She was in my mind constantly, pulling me deeper into an obsession I didn't want but couldn't resist.

I tried to focus on my plan-the one that mattered. Alessandro De Luca. He was the reason I was here, the reason I'd fought my way up in this world, building alliances and gaining power. I'd spent years waiting for the right moment to destroy him, to make him pay for what he'd done to my family.

But now, every time I thought of him, I saw her.

Bianca.

I hated how much I wanted her. It felt wrong-twisted. She was everything I was supposed to despise, everything I had spent years training myself to fight against. But none of that mattered anymore. The moment I laid eyes on her, something snapped inside me. And now, it was like a hunger I couldn't satisfy.

I told myself it was just physical. Lust. The pull of wanting what I couldn't have. Maybe that was part of it. But the truth ran deeper, and I knew it. There was something about her-something that went beyond her beauty, beyond the fire in her eyes that had challenged me without words.

She wasn't like the other women in our world. She didn't play the same games, didn't try to charm or seduce. There was an edge to her, a coldness that fascinated me. She didn't care about the superficial bullshit everyone else clung to. I could see it in her eyes, the way she distanced herself from the people around her. She wasn't like her father.

And that made her dangerous.

I stared out the window of my penthouse, the city spread out below me, lights flickering like distant stars. The night was cold, but it was nothing compared to the storm inside me. I couldn't keep going like this. I couldn't let her distract me from what I needed to do.

But how could I walk away from her now? She had gotten under my skin, crawled into my mind, and refused to leave.

I'd seen obsession destroy men in my world. I'd seen what it did to them-made them reckless, weak, vulnerable. It tore down everything they'd built, left them exposed. I swore I would never let that happen to me. But here I was, standing on the edge of that same cliff, staring down into the abyss, and all I could think about was Bianca.

The age gap between us should have been enough to stop me. She was 24, twelve years younger than me. I was 36, a man who had already lived through more violence and bloodshed than most people would see in a lifetime. She was younger, untouched by the full weight of the mafia world, at least not the way I had been.

I knew better. She was someone who should have been out of reach-not just because of who her father was, but because of that gap between us. She was too young, too distant from my world of pain and revenge.

But none of it mattered. Not the years between us, not her father, not the danger. The obsession had already taken hold, sinking its claws into me deeper than I wanted to admit. It wasn't just lust or the thrill of forbidden temptation. It was something darker, something that went beyond the surface.

I couldn't shake the memory of her eyes locking with mine, the way her lips curved into that cold, knowing smile. The way she had met my challenge without hesitation, showing no fear.

It was more than attraction. It was an obsession, and it was growing stronger by the day.

I downed the rest of my drink, the burn of the liquor doing nothing to clear my head. No matter how much I tried to fight it, Bianca had burrowed into my mind, and she wasn't leaving anytime soon.

I thought back to the way she had looked at me, not with fear, but with something like curiosity. As if she was trying to figure me out, to see if the stories she had heard matched the man standing in front of her. I couldn't tell what she thought of me, but I wanted to. I needed to.

I hated it. I hated that this obsession was making me weak. I should have been focused on the task at hand-destroying her father, taking down the De Luca empire piece by piece. But every time I tried to focus, Bianca's face flashed before my eyes, and I lost my grip on reality.

I wasn't the type of man to lose control, to let anything get in the way of my goals. But this was different. She was different.

I knew I was playing with fire, and I didn't care.

I could feel myself falling deeper into the obsession, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't stop. She was my enemy's daughter, but all I could think about was finding a way to get closer to her. To unravel the mystery of who she was beneath the surface.

And I didn't know if I could stop myself from doing whatever it took to find out.

No matter the consequences.