Hateful obsession

Chapter 23

Someone again texted me with words "Need another one, what if I die." Well 8 hours later and I saved your life. Don't wanna lose you.

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Melissa
"I... am in love with my husband."

6 years ago...

I never expected to feel anything like this. Love was strange to me, a paradox that defied logic. Because my mother loved my father so much that it seems she became completely blind and did not see how my father was ruining our lives.

It was strange how something so abstract could turn my world upside down. Because I'd grown up thinking that love was a distraction, even a weakness, but now it was a force that controlled my every move. Loving Roman, with all his dangerous charm, was like dancing on the edge of a knife.

I found myself wondering if this was true love or some kind of twisted addiction. Given how I married him or how strange things had been for us for the last three months. But maybe that's what love was like - messy, unpredictable, and all-consuming.

It blurred the lines of right and wrong, sense and madness. I loved Roman fiercely, not in spite of the danger, but because of myself. But that wasn't the strangest thing. What puzzled me most was how much I craved his respect, how desperately I wanted to be seen not as a woman in his shadow, but as an equal. Was this love, I wondered?

A strange, bitter love that was more like ambition than affection. But maybe a person like me loves like that? And yet I didn't even know what my husband felt at the same time, if Roman allows me all this, it means I am his everything. But...

Life in the mafia world had nothing to do with the exciting stories that I thought there were in such a world. But for me it was boring. There was no excitement unless you were directly involved in the shadows, the deals, the betrayals, the violence.

Instead, I floated on the fringes, existing only as Roman's wife, keeping away from the real action. Everyone looked at me with wary respect, but no one involved me in anything meaningful. Boredom gnawed at me.

All the secrecy, the intrigue behind closed doors, the whispered conversations that died down when I walked into a room, it all made me feel invisible. I knew the mafia world was dangerous, full of life and death, but I wanted to experience that adrenaline myself, to be part of something real.

There was a void in being an outsider in a world so deeply rooted in danger. Glamorous dinners, late-night parties, expensive gifts-they were all distractions. Without the darkness, without the real pulse of the life I knew Roman lived, it all seemed like a dull game of make-believe. I wanted to be free of the routine, to be someone with power, not just the wife of someone dangerous.

Of course, if I said a word to these men who think they are the most dangerous, they would scatter in my face and ask me to wipe their shoes. But I am not the one who is afraid of being laughed at, because the best laugh is the one that will sound because of me when I win this battle.

It wasn't enough for me to be Roman's wife. I wanted more. It wasn't that I didn't love him enough, it was that my lust for power matched his. I resented the fact that my position of influence depended solely on her marriage, as if I was nothing without it. But I wasn't blind to the truth. She knew that people didn't take me seriously because I didn't hold the reins of power.

It infuriated me. I had ambition, cunning, ruthlessness, all of it there. Yet I had to rely on Roman to pave the way for me, to give me the position I craved.

I wanted to be feared, to be respected in my own right. Not just as the wife of a dangerous man, but as a queen in my own right, ruling beside him, even over him. I knew the world could chew me up and spit me out, but I didn't care. I wanted to be the one giving the orders.