The Mafia King's Forbidden Obsession

Selene POV

The elevator in Dario's building always smelled like expensive cologne and marble cleaner, a scent that used to make my heart race with anticipation. Tonight, it made my stomach churn.

I clutched the takeout bag tighter, the grease already seeping through the paper. Thai food from our usual place on 42nd Street. Pad thai, extra spicy, just how he liked it. A peace offering for missing dinner again because of my marketing internship that barely paid enough to cover subway rides.

The brass numbers above the elevator doors ticked by slowly. Fifteenth floor. Sixteenth. My reflection stared back at me from the polished metal l dark hair escaping its messy bun, mascara slightly smudged from the October rain, cheap blazer wrinkled from a twelve-hour day. I looked exactly like what I was: a girl from Queens trying to keep up in Manhattan.

Twenty-second floor.

The hallway stretched before me, all gleaming hardwood and modern art that probably cost more than my mom's monthly medical bills. My sneakers squeak against the floor, another reminder that I didn't belong in Dario's world of silk ties and trust funds.

I fumbled for my key, the one he'd given me three months ago with a kiss and a promise that felt real at the time. The metal was warm from my palm, slick with nervous sweat.

"Dario?" I called out as I pushed open the door. "I brought dinner. I know I'm late, but"

The words died in my throat.

Dario was pressed against the floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked Central Park, his perfectly styled hair mussed, his shirt unbuttoned. But the hands tangled in his dark locks weren't mine. Neither were the lips moving desperately against his neck.

The man kissing my boyfriend was tall, broad-shouldered, with golden hair that caught the city lights streaming through the window. He wore a suit that probably cost more than my entire semester's tuition, and his hands moved across Dario's body with the confidence of someone who'd done this before. Many times before.

The takeout bag slipped from my fingers. The sound of containers hitting marble echoed through the apartment like gunshots.

Both men froze.

Dario's dark eyes met mine across the room, wide with panic and something else relieved? His lips were swollen, his cheeks flushed. The stranger turned slowly, and I caught a glimpse of ice-blue eyes and a face that belonged on magazine covers before Dario was pushing him away, scrambling to button his shirt.

"Selene fuck this isn't"

"What does it look like?" The words scraped out of my throat like broken glass. "Because it looks like you're screwing someone who definitely isn't me."

My hands were shaking. Everything was shaking. The ground felt unsteady beneath my feet, like the whole world had tilted sideways and forgotten to warn me.

"I can explain"

"Explain what?" I laughed, but it came out sharp and bitter. "That you're gay? That our entire relationship has been a lie? That while I've been working double shifts to afford dinner dates, you've been"

I couldn't finish. Couldn't breathe. The air in the apartment felt thick, suffocating.

The stranger cleared his throat with a sound that somehow managed to be both apologetic and dismissive. "I should go."

His voice was cultured, with just a hint of an accent I couldn't place. European, maybe. He moved toward the door with fluid grace, not hurried or ashamed, just... done. Like this was Tuesday night entertainment that had run its course.

"Alex, wait" Dario reached for him, but the man Alex was already straightening his tie and heading for the exit.

He paused next to me, close enough that I could smell his cologne something dark and expensive that made my head spin. "I'm sorry you had to see that," he said quietly, and for a moment, his ice-blue eyes seemed almost kind. Then he was gone, leaving behind only the soft click of the door and the lingering scent of his presence.

Dario and I stared at each other across the ruined evening. The pad thai was spreading across his pristine floor, orange sauce seeping into the spaces between marble tiles. It looked like blood.

"How long?" My voice sounded foreign to my own ears. Small. Broken.

He ran his hands through his hair, making it stick up at odd angles. Without the perfect styling, he looked younger. Vulnerable. "Selene"

"How. Long."

"Six months." The confession fell between us like a stone. "Maybe longer. I don't know. It's complicated"

"Complicated." I tested the word, rolling it around my tongue like poison. "Right. Because lying to your girlfriend for half a year is just *complicated*."

"You don't understand"

"Then make me understand!" The words exploded out of me, bouncing off the walls of his perfect apartment. "Make me understand why you let me believe we had a future. Why did you let me fall in love with you when you were thinking about him the entire time."

Tears were burning behind my eyes, but I refused to let them fall. Not here. Not in front of him.

Dario's shoulders sagged. For the first time since I'd known him, his polished facade cracked completely. "Because it was easier," he whispered. "Because dating you meant I didn't have to answer questions about why I wasn't bringing girls home. Because you made everything... simpler."

Simpler.

It was convenient. A cover story. A way for him to hide who he really was while I fell deeper into a fantasy that had never been real.

The apartment felt too small suddenly, like the walls were closing in. I needed air. I needed space. I needed to be anywhere but here, looking at the ruins of everything I'd thought I wanted.

"We're done," I said, surprised by how steady my voice sounded. "Don't call me. Don't text me. Don't even look at me if you see me on campus."

I turned toward the door, stepping over the mess of our dinner, our relationship, our lies.

"Selene, please"

But I was already gone, leaving him alone with his secrets and his perfect, empty apartment.

The elevator ride down felt endless. Twenty-two floors of falling, and I wasn't sure I'd ever stop.

Selene POV

I spent three days pretending the world hadn't ended.

Three days of dragging myself to classes I couldn't concentrate on, picking at meals that tasted like cardboard, and dodging concerned looks from my roommate Jessica. Three days of my phone buzzing with texts from Dario that I deleted without reading.

By Thursday morning, I'd almost convinced myself I was fine.

Almost.

The coffee shop near campus buzzed with its usual chaos of students cramming for midterms and freelancers camping out with laptops. I claimed my usual corner table, spreading my marketing textbooks across the scarred wood surface like armor. If I buried myself deep enough in consumer behavior theories and brand positioning strategies, maybe I could forget the way Dario's hands had moved across another man's skin.

Focus, Selene. You have a presentation tomorrow.

But the words on the page kept blurring together, and every time someone laughed too loud or a chair scraped against the floor, I jumped like a startled cat. My nerves were shot. Everything felt too bright, too loud, too much.

I was highlighting a passage about target demographics when a shadow fell across my table.

"Miss Marcellus?"

I looked up to find a man in an expensive charcoal suit standing beside my chair. He was tall, broad-shouldered, with silver hair slicked back and eyes the color of winter. Everything about him screamed money and authority, from his Italian leather shoes to the way he held himself like he owned the world.

He definitely didn't belong in a college coffee shop.

"Yes?" My voice came out steadier than I felt, which was a small miracle considering the way he was looking at me like he was cataloging every detail of my face.

"You're requested for a meeting." His voice was professionally polite, but there was something underneath it that made my skin crawl. "If you would come with me, please."

"I'm sorry, who are you?" I closed my textbook, suddenly very aware that I was alone in a crowded room with a complete stranger who somehow knew my name. "What meeting?"

"My employer would like to speak with you. About a matter of mutual interest."

The way he said 'employer' made it sound like a threat wrapped in silk. "I think you have the wrong person. I don't have any meetings scheduled, and I definitely don't know your"

"It concerns Dario Santoro."

My blood turned to ice. Three days. Three days since I'd walked out of that apartment, and now somehow Dario's people were tracking me down. Had he sent his family's lawyers after me? Was I being served with some kind of lawsuit?

"Look, whatever Dario told you, whatever he thinks I did"

"This isn't about what you did, Miss Marcellus." The man's smile was thin and sharp as a blade. "It's about what you're going to do."

Fear crawled up my spine like cold fingers. "I'm not going anywhere with you. I don't know who you are or what you want, but"

"Vincent Torrino." He reached into his jacket, and for one terrifying moment I thought he was going for a weapon. Instead, he pulled out a business card-heavy black cardstock with silver lettering. "And this wasn't really a request."

I didn't take the card. Couldn't. My hands were shaking too badly.

"You know where I go to school," I said, hating how small my voice sounded. "You know my schedule. What else do you know?"

"Your mother works double shifts at Mount Sinai. Your brother Marcus has soccer practice until six. Your rent is three months behind, and your student loans are"

"Stop." The word came out sharp and panicked. "Just stop."

Vincent's smile widened. "The car is outside. Black sedan, license plate 7GTH-429. You have two minutes to gather your things."

"And if I don't?"

"Then we'll have this conversation at your mother's workplace instead. I imagine that would be... inconvenient for her."

The threat was delivered so casually, so politely, that it took a moment for the full weight of it to hit me. They knew where my mother worked. They knew about Marcus. They knew about our financial situation information that should have been private.

These weren't lawyers. This was something else entirely.

With trembling hands, I shoved my books into my bag. Vincent waited patiently, like he had all the time in the world, but I could feel the countdown ticking in my chest. Two minutes. Maybe less now.

The black sedan was exactly where he'd said it would be, idling at the curb like a predator waiting to strike. The windows were tinted dark enough that I couldn't see inside. Vincent opened the back door for me with mock politeness.

"Where are we going?" I asked as I slid across leather seats that probably cost more than my entire tuition.

"Downtown." Vincent climbed into the passenger seat, and I noticed the driver didn't acknowledge either of us. Professional. Silent. The kind of person who was very good at not seeing or hearing things.

The city blurred past the windows as we drove through Manhattan traffic. I tried to memorize street signs, landmarks, anything that might help me later, but my brain felt fuzzy with fear. This was really happening. I was in a car with strangers who knew things about my family they had no right to know, heading toward a destination I might not come back from.

Why? That was the question burning in my chest. Why would Dario's family want to see me? What could they possibly gain from threatening a broke college student?

The car pulled up in front of an elegant restaurant in Midtown-the kind of place where dinner cost more than I made in a week. Cristallo, according to the discreet gold lettering on the windows. Through the glass, I could see white tablecloths, crystal chandeliers, and waiters moving like dancers through the dining room.

"Second floor," Vincent said as he held the door open for me. "Private dining room. He's waiting."

He. Not Dario, then. Someone else. Someone important enough to send professional muscle to collect college students from coffee shops.

The hostess barely glanced at me before gesturing toward a staircase at the back of the restaurant. My sneakers squeaked against marble floors, and I felt painfully out of place among the silk dresses and designer suits.

The private dining room was smaller than I'd expected, elegant in the way that only came from old money and older power. A single table sat in the center, set for two with fine china and crystal glasses that caught the light from the chandelier above.

And there, standing with his back to me while he gazed out the window at the city below, was the most imposing man I'd ever seen.

He was tall at least six-foot-three with dark hair threaded with silver and a build that suggested he'd been dangerous once and might still be. His suit was perfectly tailored, charcoal wool that made Vincent's expensive outfit look cheap by comparison. Even motionless, he radiated authority in a way that made the air feel heavy.

"Miss Marcellus." He didn't turn around, but somehow my entrance hadn't surprised him. "Please, sit."

It wasn't a request.

I remained standing, my bag clutched against my chest like a shield. "I want to know who you are and why I'm here."

"I'm Caspian Santoro." He turned then, and I found myself looking into the coldest gray eyes I'd ever seen. Eyes that belonged to a man who'd seen too much and done worse. "Dario's father."

My knees went weak. Dario's father. The man whose son had just destroyed my heart was standing across from me like a king holding court, and I was very clearly not an invited guest.

"You're going to marry my son," he said, as casually as he might comment on the weather.

The words hit me like a physical blow. "What?"

"The engagement will be announced next week. Arrangements are being made." He moved to the table, pulling out a chair with fluid grace. "Sit. We have details to discuss."

"You're insane." The words tumbled out before I could stop them. "Dario and I broke up. We're done. Finished. And even if we weren't, you can't just decide"

"I can decide whatever I choose to decide." His voice didn't rise, but something in it made me take a step backward. "The breakup was... inconvenient. But not permanent."

"Inconvenient?" I laughed, but it came out sharp and bitter. "Your son is gay. He's been lying to me for months. There's nothing to fix here."

"Sexual preferences are irrelevant." Caspian sat down, gesturing again to the empty chair across from him. "Marriage is a business arrangement. Nothing more."

The casual dismissal of everything I'd felt, everything I'd lost, made anger flare hot in my chest. "Maybe in your world, but not in mine. I'm not marrying anyone I don't love, especially not someone who"

"Your world?" Caspian's smile was sharp as a blade. "My dear girl, you don't have a world anymore. You have what I allow you to have."

The quiet menace in his voice made my skin crawl. "You can't force me to marry him."

"Can't I?"

Something in the way he said it made my blood turn to ice. I thought about Vincent's casual mention of my mother's workplace, my brother's schedule, our financial situation. These people knew things about my family that they shouldn't know. They'd found me, followed me, brought me here against my will.

What else were they capable of?

"I don't understand," I whispered. "Why does it matter? Why do you care if Dario and I are together?"

"Because certain arrangements have been made. Certain expectations established." Caspian's fingers drummed against the white tablecloth. "Your presence in his life serves a purpose beyond your understanding."

"What purpose?"

"That's not your concern."

I stared at him, trying to process what was happening. This man Dario's father was talking about marriage like it was a business transaction, like I was a commodity to be traded. The reasonable part of my brain was screaming that this couldn't be real, couldn't be happening. But the fear crawling up my spine told a different story.

"I won't do it," I said, surprised by how steady my voice sounded. "You can't make me."

Caspian reached into his jacket, and I tensed, but he only pulled out a manila envelope. "Your mother's medical bills," he said, sliding it across the table. "Quite substantial, aren't they? And your brother's scholarship application for St. Andrews Prep impressive boy. It would be a shame if something happened to jeopardize his future."

The envelope sat between us like a landmine. I didn't need to open it to know what was inside proof that they had reached into every corner of my life, catalogued every vulnerability, every pressure point.

"You're threatening my family."

"I'm offering solutions." Caspian leaned back in his chair, completely relaxed. "Your family's financial difficulties disappear. Your brother gets the education he deserves. Your mother receives the best medical care available. All you have to do is play a role."

"And if I refuse?"

"Then complications arise." His gray eyes were arctic. "Complications have a way of multiplying, particularly for families who are already struggling."

The room felt like it was closing in around me. Every instinct I had was screaming at me to run, but where could I go? He'd already proven he could find me anywhere, could reach my family whenever he chose.

I stood up on shaking legs, my chair scraping against the floor. "I need time to think."

"Of course." Caspian didn't move, didn't try to stop me. "You have until tomorrow evening to make your decision. I suggest you choose wisely."

I was halfway to the door when his voice stopped me cold.

"Oh, and Selene?" The way he said my name made something shiver down my spine. "Your father would be disappointed if you refused."

I turned around slowly, my heart hammering against my ribs. "My father is dead."

Caspian's smile was all teeth and shadows.

"Is he?"

Selene POV

Is he?

The words echoed in my head during the entire silent ride back to campus. Vincent dropped me off at the same corner where he'd picked me up, like nothing had changed, like I hadn't just been threatened by a man who spoke about my father like he was still breathing.

My father. The man I'd mourned my entire life without ever really knowing him.

I stumbled through the rest of my classes in a daze, my professors' voices fading to background noise. Every time I tried to focus on marketing strategies or consumer psychology, Caspian's arctic gray eyes flashed through my mind. Your father would be disappointed if you refused.

By the time I made it back to my dorm room, my hands were shaking so badly I could barely get my key in the lock.

"Selene?" Jessica looked up from her laptop, her expression shifting from casual interest to concern. "Jesus, you look like you've seen a ghost. What happened?"

I couldn't tell her. Couldn't explain that I'd been kidnapped by a man who claimed to be a mafia king, threatened with my family's safety, and told my dead father might not be dead after all. She'd think I'd had a breakdown.

Maybe I had.

"I need to call my mom," I said, my voice sounding foreign to my own ears. "Can you... can you give me some privacy?"

Jessica's frown deepened, but she nodded. "Of course. I'll be at the library if you need me." She paused at the door. "Selene? Are you okay? Really?"

"I don't know," I whispered, and it was the most honest thing I'd said all day.

After she left, I sat on my narrow dorm bed, staring at my phone like it was a loaded weapon. My mother's contact information glowed on the screen, but I couldn't bring myself to press call. What would I even say? Hi, Mom, did you lie to me about Dad being dead? Also, I'm being forced to marry into the mafia.

Instead, I found myself thinking about the envelope Caspian had slid across the table. My mother's medical bills. Our mounting debt. The scholarship Marcus needed for prep school. All the things we never talked about, the financial pressures that kept my mother working double shifts at the hospital while I scraped by on loans and part-time jobs.

How did Caspian know about all of that? How long had he been watching us?

The phone rang before I could lose my nerve.

"Mija?" My mother's voice was warm and tired, the way it always sounded after a long shift. "I wasn't expecting you to call tonight. Is everything okay?"

I opened my mouth to say yes, everything was fine, just checking in. But instead, what came out was: "Mom, I need to ask you something about Dad."

Silence stretched across the line. Long enough that I wondered if the call had dropped.

"Selene..." Her voice was different now. Careful. Guarded. "What about your father?"

"Was he really in a car accident?" The question felt like glass in my throat. "Did he really die when I was a baby?"

Another pause. Then: "Why are you asking me this?"

"Because someone today told me he didn't. Someone who seemed to know things about our family that they shouldn't know." I was pacing now, my small dorm room feeling like a cage. "Mom, please. I need the truth."

I heard her take a shaky breath. "Who did you talk to?"

"His name was Caspian Santoro. He"

"Dios mío." My mother's voice cracked like a breaking glass. "No, no, no. This can't be happening. Not now. Not when you're so close to"

"Close to what?" But I already knew. Close to graduating. Close to being safe. Close to aging out of whatever protection she'd built around me.

"I need to see you," she said, and I could hear her moving around, grabbing things. "I'm coming to get you. Pack a bag. We're leaving the city tonight."

"Mom, what are you talking about? We can't just leave. Marcus has school, you have work"

"None of that matters now." Her voice was sharp with panic. "If Caspian Santoro knows where you are, then your father knows too. And if he knows..." She made a sound like a sob. "Oh, mija, I'm so sorry. I thought I had more time."

The room spun around me. "So he is alive. My father is alive."

"Yes." The word was barely a whisper. "Lucien Marcellus is very much alive."

Marcellus. My last name. The name I'd been told came from my mother's first husband, a man who'd adopted me and then disappeared. But it wasn't an adoption, was it? It was my birthright.

"Why did you lie to me?" I sank onto my bed, my legs suddenly too weak to hold me. "All these years, why didn't you tell me?"

"Because I was protecting you!" The words exploded out of her. "Because your father is a monster, Selene. A man who destroys everything he touches. I couldn't let him destroy you too."

"But he's my father"

"He's a killer." Her voice was flat now, drained of emotion. "He runs an empire built on blood and fear. When I found out I was pregnant with you, I tried to make it work. I tried to be the perfect mafia wife, to raise you in that world. But I couldn't do it. I couldn't watch you grow up thinking that violence was normal, that power was worth more than human life."

I thought about Caspian's cold eyes, the casual way he'd threatened my family. The professional muscle in expensive suits, the restaurant that felt like a throne room. "So you ran."

"I ran." She laughed bitterly. "Stupid, naive Maria. I thought I could disappear and start over. I changed our names, moved across the country, and worked jobs that paid cash. For years, I thought we were safe."

"What changed?"

"You did." Her voice was soft now, full of love and regret. "You grew up. You started looking like him, acting like him. You have his eyes, his stubborn streak, his way of commanding attention without trying. And people in that world... they notice things like that."

I touched my face unconsciously, wondering what features had betrayed me. What invisible marker had led Caspian straight to me.

"There's more," my mother said quietly. "Something I never told you about why I really left."

"What?"

"I wasn't the only woman in your father's life. Lucien Marcellus doesn't believe in monogamy. He has a wife his first wife, from an arranged marriage that consolidated territory. She's... she's not a good woman, Selene. When she found out about you, about me, she made it clear that neither of us would survive if we stayed."

My blood ran cold. "She threatened to kill us?"

"She threatened to kill you and make me watch." The words came out flat, matter-of-fact. "She said she wouldn't let a bastard child inherit what belonged to her sons."

"She has sons?"

"Three of them. Your half-brothers. Men who've grown up in that world, who've been trained to see power as the only thing that matters." My mother's voice shook. "They don't know about you, but if they find out..."

I thought about the envelope of medical bills, Marcus's scholarship applications, all the ways Caspian had proven he could reach into our lives. "It's too late, isn't it? They already know."

"Pack your bag," she said again. "We can still run. We can"

"No." The word surprised me with its firmness. "I'm not running anymore."

"Selene"

"I'm tired of being afraid of ghosts, Mom. Of living like we're always one step away from disaster." I stood up, surprising myself with how steady I felt. "If this is my legacy, if this is what I was born into, then I need to face it."

"You don't understand what you're saying. These people your father they're not like us. They don't value life the way we do."

"Then maybe it's time I learned to speak their language."

The silence stretched between us, heavy with twenty-three years of secrets and lies and love that had tried to protect me from the truth.

"Caspian wants me to marry his son," I said finally. "He says it's the only way to keep us safe."

"Dios mío, no. No, mija, you can't trust him. Caspian Santoro is just as dangerous as your father. More dangerous, maybe, because he's smarter."

"But he's offering protection."

"He's offering a cage." My mother's voice was fierce now. "A beautiful, comfortable cage, but a cage nonetheless. You'll be trapped in that world forever, Selene. Your children will be trapped in it too."

Children. The word hit me like a physical blow. I'd never really thought about having kids, but suddenly I could see them dark-haired little ones who would grow up the way I should have, surrounded by violence and power games.

"There has to be another way," I said.

"There is." My mother's voice was quiet now, defeated. "We run. Tonight. We disappear so completely that even your father can't find us."

"And Marcus? What about his future? What about your medical treatment?"

"We'll figure it out. We always have."

But I could hear the doubt in her voice. The exhaustion of twenty-three years spent looking over her shoulder, working jobs that barely paid the bills, watching her children sacrifice their dreams because they were living in the shadow of a man who'd never even tried to find us.

Until now.

"I need to think," I said. "I need to understand what I'm really choosing between."

"Promise me you won't do anything stupid," my mother said. "Promise me you won't try to face this alone."

"I promise." But even as I said it, I knew it was a lie.

After I hung up, I sat in the gathering darkness of my dorm room, thinking about choices and cages and the weight of secrets. My phone buzzed with a text from an unknown number.

Tomorrow evening. Cristallo. Same room. Don't disappoint me. - C

I stared at the message until the words blurred together. Tomorrow evening, I would have to give Caspian Santoro an answer. Marry his son and accept protection from a world I'd never known existed, or refuse and watch my family pay the price for my father's sins.

But there was a third option he hadn't mentioned. One that might be the most dangerous of all.

I could meet my father myself. I could look Lucien Marcellus in the eye and ask him what he wanted from me. What he'd always wanted.

My phone buzzed again. This time, it was a photo message from the same unknown number.

The image made my heart stop.

It was a photograph, old and slightly faded, of a man with my eyes and my stubborn chin. He stood with his arm around a woman I barely recognized-my mother, but younger, happier, wearing a white dress and a smile I'd never seen before. In the background, I could see other people, other faces, but it was the writing at the bottom that made my blood run cold.

Lucien and Maria Marcellus, 1999.

But that wasn't what made me gasp. It was the second line, written in different handwriting:

Selene's christening - 6 months old.

I zoomed in on the photo, and there, in my mother's arms, was a dark-haired baby in a white dress. Me. At my christening, surrounded by people who looked like they'd stepped out of a movie about organized crime.

My father had been there. He'd held me, probably. He'd seen me take my first steps into the world he ruled.

And now he wanted me back.

A third message appeared, just two words that made my decision for me:

Welcome home.