Obsidian Heart

ked with feverish intensity, sketching, sculpting, and painting with a desperate need to reclaim ownership of her success. She was financially independent, technically, but every purchase s

a silent accomplice."Get it out, Rocco. Now. I didn't agree to hide your crimes."He leaned against the wall, crossing his arms. The posture was relaxed, but his eyes were calculating. "You agreed to my protection, which is entirely predicated on me remaining alive and in control. This box is my life insurance. If I die, Dante knows where to find the key to this box, and the city burns. That is my protection. And by extension, yours."She hated the cold, undeniable logic. He had checkmated her. If she demanded he move it, he increased his own risk, which, in turn, increased hers."Fine," she bit out. "Hide your dirty laundry. But you are to tell me nothing about its contents. I don't want to know.""Agreed," he said, but then, his gaze drifted to the book she was reading-a dense treatise on ethical egoism. "You're reading Schopenhauer. The part about genius and madness?"Eliza stiffened. "I'm just reviewing the notes in the margin.""Those are mine," Rocco confessed, a flicker of that old, boyish excitement crossing his features. "I annotated that sophomore year. The whole summer we were together, I was reading that in the mornings before I drove down to the pier. I always argued that Schopenhauer failed to account for altruistic motives when the subject believes the act of self-sacrifice is the greatest self-fulfillment."The intellectual recognition was a dangerous, unexpected blow. She had tried to divorce the memory of the sensitive boy from the monster, but here they were, merging again-the man who would kill without hesitation, and the man who debated the moral efficacy of self-sacrifice."You're still reading philosophy while running a criminal empire?" she challenged, desperate to push him back into the 'monster' ca