Page 181 of Maddening Fixation

Heat crawled uncomfortably beneath my skin.

He stood so close I could feel the cold weight of his presence against me, the quiet, controlled fury that never left him when I was near.

The man who hated me with such precision was close enough that the faint scent of his cologne and the heat of his body brushed my space like an unwanted claim.

It felt strangely intimate in all the wrong ways—like standing too near something that wanted me gone, yet refused to step back.

Every breath I took seemed to press against the space between us.

He stared down at me like he was cataloguing every weakness I possessed.

Then he slipped a hand into his trouser pocket.

My muscles instantly tensed.

After everything that had happened between us, my mind immediately imagined a knife.

Or a gun.

Instead, Romeo withdrew his phone from his pocket.

He stared at the screen for several seconds, his expression unreadable, before slowly lifting his eyes to mine.

Those dark, merciless eyes held mine.

“I’ve just received confirmation about your father,” he said.

My stomach tightened.

“The man who’s been running for his life, convinced he’ll never be found? He’s in Poland.”

The words struck me like another blow.

I still hated the way my father had disappeared from our lives without a goodbye, without a single explanation.

No warning. No message. Nothing. Some foolish part of me had continued to believe that one day he would return and give us a reason—a justification that would somehow make his abandonment bearable.

But now Romeo had found him first.

And that changed everything.

My father wasn’t simply a fugitive.

He was a man Romeo had believed was responsible for his sister’s death. A man he had vowed to destroy. If Romeo got his hands on him, I had no doubt my father would pay for that murder in the most brutal way imaginable.

Romeo studied my face, watching every emotion that crossed it.

Then he spoke.

“You’re going to Poland. You’ll find his exact location and report it to me.”

For a moment, I couldn’t comprehend what I had just heard.

Then the meaning sank in.

“You want me to find my father for you?”

My voice came out barely above a whisper.