Obsession (Sinners of New Orleans #3)

Chapter 23

TWENTY-THREE

Adrian

“ Y ou look like shit.” Fede’s words don’t help the piercing headache currently splitting my temples, but he’s not wrong. I do look like shit. Even after a day of rest where Madi surprisingly doted on me like a caring wife, I still look and feel like absolute garbage. John wasn’t messing around when he sent me a message; he made it plain and clear what would happen to me if I didn’t agree to work for him.

“Did you bring the thing?” I ask my brother, ignoring his comment.

Fede holds up the radio frequency detector, giving it a little shake. “Are you losing it? Should I be worried?”

“Shut up,” I growl at him, standing from my desk so I can snatch the device from his hands.

Silently, I unwind the cord and power the thing on. Fede watches me like he thinks I might actually be losing it. He should know better. We’re working with dangerous people and you never know what they’re doing. I, of all people, know they’re willing to cross the line when it comes to the law. What’s stopping them from bugging their lawyer’s office? Especially when both sides think I’m a pawn in their game.

I scan the entire office, but nothing beeps to signal there’s a listening device here. Satisfied, I turn the thing off and hand it back to my brother.

“Are you good now?” he asks, one eyebrow lifted with the question, as if he’s not so sure that I am.

“John Vitale kidnapped me.”

Fede’s face drops. “Holy shit. Are you okay?”

“Do I look okay?” His earlier words ring out in my head. You look like shit.

“Touche,” Fede says as he takes the seat across from my desk. “What happened?”

“They want me to work for them.”

Immediately, Fede shakes his head. He knows as well as me that’s a bad idea. I already told him about Damien wanting me to handle Sam. Working for Sam is the exact opposite.

“You can’t get involved in their petty war.” Fede taps his fingers across the arm of the chair, something I know he does when he’s thinking.

“I already am.” I lean back in my seat with a sigh.

“We need to stay focused.”

“Do you think I’m not?” The words come out too harshly, and Fede eyes me. I’m paranoid about Madi, I realize. And she is fucking with my focus. I’m too worried about her, too interested in her to keep my eyes on the prize.

“That’s not what I said, brother.”

“I know.” I scrub a hand over my face. “We have to use this to our advantage. That’s the only way.”

“But how…” Fede’s words trail off as his fingers tap a steady beat. Suddenly, it stops, his eyes darting up to meet mine. “You have to play both sides.”

“That sounds like a death sentence.”

“It might be,” he says, a bit too casually to be talking about my life. “Listen, we want to make this whole thing implode, send them all to prison, right?”

“Yeah.”

“And we could interfere, like we planned. But they might just do all the dirty work for us.”

What Fede is saying clicks in my head. They’re going to burn themselves to the ground. And all I need to do is stand to the side and fan the flames.

“You work from both sides, feed them both information, and just watch everything burn.”

“Fuck,” I say as nerves rush through me. “That’s a good idea. We just need to keep me alive long enough to pull it off.

Fede laughs. “Okay, brother. Where do we start?”

The house smells like pasta when I walk in, and the scent jolts me for a moment. The last time my house smelled like this, Madi proceeded to throw my favorite meal into the trash. Which then led to me spanking her, a scene I still can’t get out of my head.

After Fede left my office, I spent the rest of my day getting myself on Sam’s defense team, just like John had asked. Damien’s not going to like that, I’m sure. But I have a plan to make him believe this helps him too.

Playing them from both sides. Just like I want.

After staring at all the paperwork today and catching up on my cases, my headache has only grown worse. I rub my temples as I slowly enter the kitchen, not quite sure what to expect from my wife. Since I took a beating from John’s men, she’s been nothing but caring toward me, a complete 180 from how she was before.

“Is it good?” I hear my wife ask. She sounds unsure, worried. Not at all like my confident little spitfire.

“Yes, Miss Madi, it’s good.” That voice belongs to Bea, my housekeeper. I check my watch; it’s late, she should be gone by now.

“But like Nonna-level good?”

“Yes, Miss Madi,” Bea repeats.

I enter cautiously to not disturb them. Madi is at the counter, staring at my housekeeper, who’s holding a spoon as if she just taste tested something. It looks like a hostage situation from the way Madi is staring at her and Bea looks uneasy, like if she doesn’t answer correctly, she’s not sure what will happen. Bea’s always been the most timid of my staff. Normally, she avoids me, scurrying like a scared mouse out of any room I enter.

“Are you cooking for me, wife?”

Both sets of eyes dart to meet mine.

Bea looks at me like she might get in trouble, but Madi doesn’t seem nervous at all. Instead, she takes a step back from the housekeeper. “Thank you, Bea. You can go.”

“Yes, Miss Madi,” she says before scurrying away.

“Are you torturing my staff?” I ask once Bea is fully gone.

“No.” Madi turns her back on me, going back to the sauce and stirring it slowly with a large wooden spoon, just like my nonna would use.

I move toward her, closing the gap between us until I’m right behind her. The smell of her sauce is wafting into my nose and it’s perfect. It smells like home and my childhood, the good parts of it anyway, rolled into one neat little scent. I’m almost as obsessed with it as I am with the woman in front of me. “Are you making my favorite dish just to throw it in the trash again?”

My dark-haired vixen turns at that comment. At first, I think she’s going to say something wicked, flash her fangs at me. But instead, her expression looks apologetic.

“No,” she says, the word soft, so unlike the sharpness she’s shown me. “I thought I would make it this time, ya know, an apology or something.”

“An apology,” I repeat, not sure if I’m shocked or amazed. Madi’s so sweet right now, so unlike the angry girl that first entered this house. Mad at the world. Mad at me. My being kidnapped by her cousins changed something between us. She was so gentle and vulnerable with me that night, tending to my wounds and opening up to me about her family. “Thank you, princess.”

A smile lifts on her lips, a little pink gathering on her cheeks. “It’s probably not even good,” she says, her head drooping.

“Hey.” I use a finger to lift her chin, forcing her to look at me again. “Don’t talk like that. I’m sure it’s perfect.” Her smile returns, and I watch her dish the pasta and sauce onto two plates, handing one to me to carry out to the dining room.

I have a chef on staff, so Madi could never cook a day in her life if she didn’t want to, but something about her not only cooking, but using my nonna’s recipe tugs at my heart.

“ Mangia,” Madi says once we’ve sat down across from each other.

It smells just like my nonna’s and my mouth is watering as I bring the first bite to my lips. And then immediately, it takes everything I have not to gag at the taste. How the fuck does it smell so good and taste horrific?

“What do you think?” Madi asks with bright eyes.

I can’t tell if she’s fucking with me. She has to be, right? I chew slowly on the gummy noodle, avoiding having to answer the question. The pasta is overcooked, the texture tough. The sauce tastes bitter, as if the tomatoes were bad, not sweet like my nonna’s. But the look on Madi’s face is so innocent, so pure. And it feels like it took us ages to get to this moment where she’s not fighting with me, so I’m not about to tell her that her cooking is atrocious.

“ Fantastico, ” I say, swallowing the thick wads of noodles.

Madi’s smile is bright at the compliment. “Really? Is it just like Nonna’s?”

“Mmhmm,” I tell her as I chug from my glass of wine. Her happiness makes me feel good. Except then I look down at my plate and realize how much more of this slop I have to eat. “Delicious,” I tell her as I take another bite, doing my best to chew quickly and swallow.

Madi picks at her plate, taking a few bites and drinking from her wine. I don’t stop until I’ve eaten the entire thing and my stomach feels like it’s filled with lead.

“Are you going to help Sam?” Madi spits the question out like it was burning a hole in her tongue, shocking me. I swallow the bit of wine in my mouth and take a breath.

What do I tell her? Surely not that I’m playing both sides until it leads to the downfall of her family name. But she looks at me expectantly, her bottom lip tucked between her teeth. I need to give her something.

“Do you want me to help Sam?”

Madi chews on her lip for another moment, avoiding my eyes. “Yes,” she answers, but there’s a look on her face, like there’s more she wants to say, something else she’s not telling me.

“I filed the paperwork today.”

“Really?” Her eyes light up.

“Really.”

“Do you think…”

“I’ll get him out.” I answer the question that’s on the tip of her tongue. “I don’t lose, Madi.”

She rolls her eyes at my overconfidence. “Trust me, I know.”

I can’t help but laugh; it bubbles out of my throat, and soon enough, she’s giggling with me. It feels light, this moment. Like she doesn’t hate me, and I don’t hate the family she was raised in. Like we could be normal. But that’s not true, nothing about this situation is normal. I forced her hand to marry me and now she’s trapped here. Even if I give her a long leash, it’s still a leash.

“Why do you want Sam out?” I ask, taking another sip of wine.

Madi shrugs. “He’s always been there for me. Unlike my family.”

“You don’t like your family?” I question, even though the answer is clear as day, has been since the day I saw her at Marcus’ house.

She mulls over the question, taking a long sip of wine and swallowing slowly. “It’s not that I don’t love them…”

“But you don’t like them.”

“No,” she says on a sigh. “Not really.”

I nod like I completely understand, even if I don’t. My family has always meant everything to me. But then again, I’ve met her brother. I know how awful he was. “Why?” I find myself asking before I can stop the word from leaving my lips.

“My mom…she just doesn’t like me very much. I’m not the daughter she wanted, and I can’t change that.” She shrugs, but the look on her face is filled with sadness.

“And Marcus?” I ask.

She blows out a long breath. “Marcus was…cruel. I don’t think he cared about me, just what I could do for him. And that was never enough. He was a jerk.” She seems surprised that she said that out loud.

I laugh at her widened eyes. “He was a jerk.”

Madi smiles, taking another gulp of wine. “He beat a boy up for kissing me, ya know. Put him in the hospital.” She shakes her head as she recalls the memory. “He wanted me to stay pure for my marriage.” She uses air quotes around the word pure , scoffing as she says it.

The word pure hangs in the air between us. She told me on our wedding night that she was still a virgin. What she told Rafe Bianchi was nothing but a lie to dissuade him from marrying her.

“And he succeeded,” I say, taking another sip of my wine as I eye her across the table. I’m not ashamed to be happy he succeeded in keeping her pure, even if I disagree with his methods.

Madi scoffs. “You’re all the same, aren’t you?” she asks, leaning in. “Cavemen wanting to make sure no one touches what’s theirs.”

I set my wineglass down slowly. “You are mine,” I say calmly, nodding at her left hand. “That ring on your finger proves it.”

A small smile slowly lifts one side of those perfect pink lips. “But you still haven’t fucked me yet,” she says sweetly.

Blood pumps through my heart at a quickened pace. I haven’t fucked her yet. I’ve been doing my best to let her settle into her new life before I rip the band-aid off. But not doing it doesn’t mean I haven’t thought about it nonstop. Especially since I’ve tasted her pussy.

“I can fix that.”

“Then do it.”

There’s a challenge gleaming in her eyes. If my sweet little bride wants to be fucked, I’m happy to oblige.