The Devil's Favourite Obsession

Once the two chefs had left, Cixi looked at the dining cart filled with food platters. The food smelled delicious, making her stomach growl. She immediately placed her hand on her belly, feeling embarrassed.

”We need to get you to eat something.” Saying that, Cassian rose from the sofa, and in two strides, he reached the cart and lifted all the cloches from the food platters.

The aroma instantly hit Cixi’s nostrils before she could prepare for it. Rosemary, garlic butter, and seared meat. Warm bread.

Cassian lifted one of the porcelain plates from the stack and began to put each item from the platters onto the plate.

He lifted the silver dome off the lamb chops and placed two on her plate, glistening with garlic butter. He spooned a generous mound of truffle risotto beside them. He added a piece of the pan-seared salmon, a heap of roasted vegetables, and tore a piece of fresh bread from the loaf with his bare hands before setting it on the edge of the plate.

She expected Cassian to tell her to sit at the table. Instead, he carried the plate to the sofa and held it out to her.

Cixi stared at it. Then she stared at him. The last time he had prepared coffee for her, and this time a dinner plate. Did he show such gentlemanly behaviour to other women as well, or was she the special one?

”I could have served myself.” She finally spoke. She wanted to sound confident, but it failed.

”You stayed hungry for an entire day because I did not arrange anything for you in the palace.” Cassian lowered the plate into her hands, his dark eyes holding hers. ”So enjoy the fact that I am serving you. It will not happen every day.”

Cixi took the plate without a retort. He was right. It was not every day that one got served by a mafia lord.

She placed the plate on the coffee table, picked up the fork and knife where Cassian had placed a set of cutlery, and cut into the lamb chop. The blade slid through the meat with no resistance, and the moment she placed the first bite on her tongue, her eyes fell shut on their own.

The lamb melted on her palate in a wave of rosemary and garlic butter. That was the only word for it. The texture was impossibly tender, the seasoning was perfect without being overwhelming, and the heat spread from her mouth down through her chest and into her starving stomach like liquid warmth filling an empty vessel.

A moan escaped her lips before she could stop it.

Cassian had not sat back down on the sofa. He stood near the dining cart and lifted the bottle of Burgundy from its chilled stand, pouring it into a crystal glass. He held the glass by the stem, swirled it slowly, and raised it to his lips. He took a single sip while his eyes never left her.

He watched her chew her food and how she was enjoying the lamb chop. The moan had not escaped his attention either. Nothing Cixi did ever escaped his attention.

Cixi opened her eyes and found him watching her. She straightened in her seat, heat climbing up her neck, and cleared her throat before speaking. ”The food is delicious.” She kept her voice controlled and then asked, ”Why are you not eating?” She redirected, pointing her fork toward the untouched dining cart.

Cassian swirled his drink again. Rather than answering her question, he walked back toward the sofa, holding the glass in his hand, and lowered himself onto the cushion beside her. He leaned back, crossed one ankle over his knee, and tilted his head in her direction.

”The palace kitchen employs a Michelin-starred chef. He prepares every meal for the family. Breakfast, lunch, dinner. The quality surpasses what you are eating right now.” His dark eyes drifted to the half-empty plate. ”If you want food like this every day, you can eat in the palace. You can sit at the table with everyone else.”

Cixi’s fork froze mid-cut before she lifted her chin and met his gaze with the flat, unflinching stubbornness that surfaced every time someone suggested she should accommodate herself to people who treated her like dirt.

”I would rather starve than beg for a seat at a table full of people who look down on me.” She meant every syllable, and Cassian could see it in the rigid set of her jaw and the cold fire burning in her grey eyes.

”But—” She looked at him squarely. ”You need to make sure I get my food on time. Breakfast and dinner. Delivered to our room. Every single day. I am not asking. I am telling you.”

Something sparked in Cassian’s dark eyes when Cixi referred to his room as ’ours’.

They held each other’s gaze for two full seconds. Then she dropped her eyes back to her plate and cut into the salmon. She took a bite. Then another. Then another. She worked through the risotto, the vegetables, the bread, eating to her heart’s content.

When the plate held nothing but smeared sauce and a few crumbs, she set her fork and knife down parallel across the porcelain and placed the plate on the coffee table.

Only then did she lift her chin to see Cassian still looking at her. ”I still do not understand—why did you not eat?”

”I thought I would be eating from your hand.”

That caught Cixi off guard, and her cheeks flushed instantly. She averted her eyes from him. ”You never answered my question.” Cixi folded her hands in her lap. ”Who created the code for the underworld?”

”Those who rule the mafia world. An organisation with seven council members. They decide the rules.”

Cixi thought for a moment before adding, ”I am sure they must be old people.”

And Cassian laughed. ”They come from long lines of mafia families who sit on the council. Everyone respects them, but also hates them.”

Cixi nodded at his words as if memorising them.

”It’s a matter of time before you join the mafia,” Cassian commented.

Cixi straightened her spine and looked into his eyes.

”I will never.”

*

*

*

The boxing club was located at the end of a narrow alley in the industrial part of the city.

Ronny opened the door and walked down a short flight of concrete stairs into the basement. The smell of sweat, metal, chalk dust, and a faint hint of old blood hit his nostrils first, which never really goes away, no matter how much they clean.

In the centre of the fighting ring, ropes were tight between steel posts, and the canvas showed various stains. A few men lean against the walls or sit on folding chairs, watching the sparring match with exciting focus. It was nothing new for them.

Kevin stood in the corner, Silivia’s boyfriend.

He was shirtless. His skin was covered with sweat. The muscles in his shoulders shifted with each breath. His hands rested inside red gloves, and his dark hair stuck to his forehead in damp strands. He moved lightly on his feet, and his eyes fixed on the man across from him, anticipating his next move.

Silvia sat ringside, one leg crossed over the other, an energy drink resting loosely against her knee. Her blonde hair fell straight past her shoulders, and her expression carried that familiar mix of boredom and ownership as she watched Kevin.

Ronny dropped into the empty chair beside her. And she glanced at him, surprisingly. ”I didn’t know you were coming... And why do you look like you swallowed something rotten?”

”I found her.”

Silvia paused, the can stopping just short of her lips. Her eyes sharpened immediately as she lowered it again. ”Found who?”

The bell rang.

Kevin pushed forward. His opponent, a thick-built man with a shaved head and a nose that had clearly been broken more than once, swung a wide right. Kevin slipped it cleanly, dipping his head to the side, then drove a straight jab forward that snapped the man’s head back. The sound carried across the room unpleasantly, and yet the crowd screamed for more.

Ronny leaned back, spreading his arms across the back of his chair, a grin slowly pulling at his mouth.

”Cixi.”

The name hung there for a second. Silvia’s expression shifted almost immediately, her body turning toward him as the boredom disappeared. ”Where?”

”Working in some cafe near the city centre,” Ronny said, his grin widening. He had been waiting to say this all day, turning it over in his mind, enjoying it. ”I walked in, and there she was, down on the floor, scrubbing coffee... She is a cleaning lady, if I am not wrong.”

In the ring, Kevin closed the distance. His opponent stumbled back into the ropes, raising his guard too late. Kevin drove a left hook into his ribs, the kind that knocked the breath right out of a man, and before he could recover, followed it with a clean right to the jaw. The mouthguard flew loose, hitting the canvas and rolling away.

A few men around the ring let out low, approving sounds.