Divine Obsession (GodHood #2)

Chapter 46

Present

I was curled up on the couch with Trevor in my penthouse, an action movie playing softly on the TV. His arm was draped over my shoulders, his hand absently playing with a strand of my hair. I leaned into him, stealing glances at his profile whenever he chuckled at the screen. It felt so blissfully normal that I didn’t think anything could ruin the moment.

A month had passed since I found out the truth about my parents. It was a lot to digest and had sent me down the process of grief once again. Finding out my mother was dead when I was eighteen, was one thing. Finding out at twenty-three that my father had been the one to kill her and had been lying to me for the past five years of my life, was… Painful.

I’d also had a couple of lunches with Ines, who I loved, yet couldn’t talk to about why Salvatore and I weren’t speaking.

I was working through it. Step by step. Day by day. With Trevor by my side the whole time.

A knock came from the front door.

Trevor frowned, his hand pausing in my hair. “You expecting someone?”

“No,” I said, sitting up. My stomach sank as another knock followed, sharper this time.

“I’ll check who it is.” I watched as he strode to the front door, leaning down to look through the peephole. “Oh, it’s Maria.”

My heart stopped. “What?”

Trevor turned back to me. “Yeah. She’s–” His hand reached for the handle.

“Don’t answer the door!” I scrambled off the couch.

His brow furrowed. “Why not?”

“I’m not telling her about us like this! You need to leave. Hurry!”

“Natalia–”

“Go!” I whispered, shoving him toward the back of the penthouse.

He muttered something under his breath but moved quickly, kissing me on the way to the back door that led to the fire staircase.

Taking a deep breath, I turned to the front door and opened it.

Maria stood there, her eyes tired. As soon as she glanced up at me, silent tears began falling down her face.

My face fell. Maria never cried.

I immediately wrapped my arms around her, already feeling my chest shooting with pain from seeing her upset. “What happened?” My voice muffled against her hair.

“We broke up,” She choked out, pulling back to wipe her face with the sleeve of her oversized hoodie – Zach’s .

“ What? ” I asked, my chest tightening.

She nodded, tears spilling over again.

“I’m so sorry. Come in,” I urged, pulling her inside my apartment. The moment we stepped into the living room, a faint sound echoed from the back door of the penthouse.

Maria’s head shot up. “What was that?”

“It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it,” I said quickly, steering her toward the couch. “Sit down. Relax. I’ll make you some tea with honey.”

Maria sniffled but didn’t object. As I headed toward the kitchen, her gaze fell on the coffee table, where there were two plates. Mine and Trevor’s . “Are you not alone?”

I froze. “I was just… Really hungry,” I lied, forcing a nervous laugh.

Maria blinked at me but didn’t press further. “Oh, okay.” Her eyes drifted down to me again, this time narrowing. “What are you wearing?”

I glanced down and felt my face heat. Trevor’s hoodie . Big, soft, and unmistakably his.

“It’s… A men’s hoodie,” I stammered. “I wear it sometimes. Makes me feel less single.”

Maria’s face crumpled, and she burst into tears again.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

“I’m sorry, Em. I didn’t mean–”

“It’s not your fault,” She sobbed, covering her face with her hands.

I sank down beside her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. “What happened with Zach, Em? Talk to me.”

She cried harder, and I tightened my hold on her, my own guilt swirling in my chest as I tried to comfort her. My heart pounded, praying she wouldn’t notice anything else out of place.

Maria didn’t tell me what happened between her and Zach.

She didn’t need to say it out loud because it became obvious it had been bad. Though, Trevor had called me late at night after Maria was already sleeping, to tell me she and Zach were getting back together – that this was just a small bump in their relationship.

I watched my little sister go through the other four stages of a breakup for the first time.

First came denial.

Although she stopped crying after just an hour, she was still sulking in silence that whole first night.

The next morning, came the anger.

And that one lasted a while.

The morning after Maria showed up on my doorstep, we were in my kitchen. She sat down at the island, me frying bacon – our roles reversed for once.

A ring broke through the soft background music of SZA’s Good Days.

“I’ll get it,” Maria announced, sliding off her stool and walking over to the couch where my phone was calling.

I watched her stare at the screen’s ID caller for two whole seconds before hanging up.

“ Dick .” She muttered, and I didn’t need to ask to know who it was. She only made it two steps walking away before my phone rang again. She only glanced back at it this time. “What the fuck is his problem?”

Rounding the marble island, I put my hand on her shoulder. “Sit down.” Then I moved to get my phone, Zach’s name written in big letters over the screen. I picked up, receiving a betrayed gasp from Maria. “Zach, hi… So sweet of you to call.”

“How is Maria?”

“She’s good.” That earned me a silent groan and roll of her eyes.

“Been trying her phone for hours. She blocked my number, Nat.”

My phone may not have been on speaker, but the volume was high enough for Maria to hear his voice come through.

“I. Don’t. Want. To. See. Him.” She spoke clearly enough for Zach to hear her crystal on the other end. “ Ever. Again .” She added for effect with a sardonic smile that he couldn’t see, but I was sure could hear in her tone.

Turning around, I walked away to put some distance between them. In my head, this went very differently.

“Sorry,” I whispered back to him.

“Tell her I’m sorry. And that I’m not going to stop.”

“Zach, I don’t know if–”

“I love her, Nat. I’m not giving this up.”

I sighed deeply. “Good luck.” Then hung up.

When I tried telling Maria what he said, she stopped me, her answer definitive. I don’t care.

The next morning, I walked into the open kitchen-living room space to see Maria busy at the marble island, her back to me.

“Morning,” She grumbled.

“Good morning,” I chirped, before my eyes fell on an opened jewelry velvet box and the gorgeous earrings inside. “ Oh, my God .”

“He thinks throwing money at the problem is going to fix it. Typical…”

And Zach must’ve thrown some money.

I immediately picked them up.

The earrings were breathtaking – a pair of dazzling diamonds that screamed extravagance. Each one featured a sparkling oval diamond at the top, with a larger pear-shaped diamond suspended below, catching every glimmer from the room’s sunlight.

They were the kind of gift you’d see on a red carpet or in a glass case at a high-end jewelry store.

“Apologies don’t sparkle this much, do they? Too bad they don’t fix anything, either.”

“Maria… These are beautiful .”

“They’re as fake as his promises,” She muttered, her tone dripping with bitterness.

I picked up the card inside, Appraisal Certificate . “Actually, they’re forty carats. Eight million.”

She scoffed. “Not enough to make me stay.”

Not only would a gift like that have made me stay, but it would’ve made me forgive and forget.

I finally managed to drag my eyes away from the beautiful stones, and turned to see what Maria was doing. My eyebrows shot up.

Maria's hands moved with a cool precision as she sliced through a black Amex with a pair of heavy-duty scissors. Each cut was deliberate, the sound of the blades snipping through the plastic like a loud punctuation mark.

I picked up the card she just cut in four, putting the pieces together like a puzzle to read the owner’s name.

Z R DIABLO

I slowly turned my head back to her.

I couldn’t help but stare. I’d seen her do a lot of things, but never something this… Unapologetically bold .

She didn’t need to do this – Zach had never used the card as leverage. He hadn’t manipulated her with money. In fact, from what Maria had told me before their fight, he’d been a great boyfriend. The kind that would’ve done anything to make her happy. I couldn’t possibly imagine what he’d done to hurt her. He’d been so down bad for her since the beginning, all of this felt… Wrong.

“What are you doing?” I finally managed to ask, still trying to process.

Maria didn’t even look up as she snipped through another card. “Cutting him loose.” Her voice was low, but steady. “I don’t need him.”

“Where’d you even get this?” I asked, still trying to wrap my mind around the scene unfolding in front of me.

“He added me as an authorized user.” She glanced at the card for a second. “Fuck him. And his money.”

My heart twisted a little. The sum of his wealth was nothing compared to whatever she was feeling now – whatever had pushed her to this point.

I was quiet for a moment, understanding she wasn’t cutting through cards anymore – but a lot more than that. And I had to admire her for it.

I tilted my head, glancing up at her with a soft smile. “I guess you don’t need it, right?”

Maria finally met my eyes, her expression somber. “No. I don’t.”

Maria might not have been a billionaire, but from the amount she made while being a government agent, to working for the Cosa Nostra, she didn’t even need to work another day in her life.

I wasn’t actually sure why she even worked at Renato before–

The jewelry box snapped shut as Maria slid it into a padded envelope.

“What are you doing with that?” I asked, eyeing her movements.

“Mailing the earrings back to him.”

“Okay…” I said softly with a nod, before walking away and letting her handle it in her own way, regardless of knowing this would not work with Zach.

The next day, two gifts arrived instead.

A couple of days later, there was a knock at the door.

Maria and I looked at each other on the couch, both confused as to who it could be since we hadn’t ordered take-out.

Then my eyes rounded with understanding and I jumped up.

“Do not answer him, Natalia.”

“Just give me a second. He’s trying to say sorry.”

“I swear to God, if you open that door–”

“Too late!” I swung the front door open, only to be greeted by the doorman. “Oh, hi, Charles. Can I help you?”

I heard Maria’s relieved sigh, followed by a mumbled thank God .

“Miss Moretti.” He gulped. “I know we’re not supposed to let non-residents into the building but–”

“Oh, hell no .” I heard Maria get off the couch, and sure enough there she was behind me, a few moments later. “Close the door.”

Charles looked nothing if not terrified of her, so he quickly pulled something from the hallway in front of our doorstep, then hurried off.

A giant bouquet of red roses – though, it was more like a display. I mean, it was huge . Probably around a thousand stems wrapped in black, silky paper. A single white note poking out from the petals, with black handwriting.

Please forgive me, hermosa.

An incredulous breath escaped Maria. Then, she was walking past the flowers and into the hallway.

Her eyes flickered up.

Zach’s voice came from somewhere down the hallway. “ Hermosa , please, just talk to me–”

She bent down to the roses and fisted the poor flowers, pulling out a handful of them. Then, she was throwing them down the hallway to where I guessed Zach was. Over and over again. She yelled at him, curse over curse in Spanish flying out of her mouth, while no retort came from him.

“ ?Vete! ”

“ No me voy a ir de esto , Maria.”

“ ?Es que no tienes respeto por ti mismo? ” She asked, breathless, after there were no more roses to throw.

“You can walk all over me, baby. I’ll let you.”

“Fuck you!” Maria stepped back into my apartment, closing the door just as Zach made it in front of it. Then, turned the lock for dramatic effect. “I’m calling the cops!”

“Good luck with that, mi amor . They work for me.” His voice came from the other side.

She groaned in frustration before walking off past me.

I stood silently in the entry hallway until I heard Zach’s footsteps fade away.

Two days later, it got even worse.

I’d barely woken up when I heard Maria scream. I threw my pink robe on and barged into the guest bedroom she was staying in to find her searching frantically through one of her bags.

“Look what he did! The audacity!” She pointed behind her, towards the floor-to-ceiling windows.

Turning my head to the side, my eyes widened at the view Maria had woken up to. The billboard that usually was on one of the skyscrapers a couple of blocks down, always showing ads for fashion or movies – was now blank with only one sentence written on it.

Give me another chance. – Z

“Aw. He bought you a billboard, Em.”

It wasn’t obvious to anyone but us what the message was. The aesthetics of it looked like it could’ve been a statement ad for a perfume or something.

“Are you crazy? Fuck the billboard!”

I sighed, bringing my hands to my chest and reading the message again.

“Hey!” Maria clapped her hands in front of my face, forcing me to focus on her. “Focus! This is what he wants!”

“But–”

“Nuh-uh. I don’t want to hear it. You’re on my side, right?” She asked, a little panicked, when she saw my slightly sulky face. I nodded. “ Good .”

Maria turned around and walked back to her bags at the foot of the bed.

“What are you–”

My question was cut off when she pulled a Glock out of her handbag and racked the slide to load it. Then, she was opening the door to the balcony. I watched speechless as Maria pointed her gun towards the billboard and shot the firearm until it cocked empty.

“There,” She breathed out, more relaxed. “ Much better .”

I stared at the now broken, black billboard, cracked in several places from the bullets – Zach’s message erased.

That’ll cost him at least three hundred thousand .

“What are the owners going to say?”

“He’ll handle it,” Maria waved it off, placing her Glock back in her handbag, before turning to me. “So, where should we go for brunch?”