Mixed blood

Chapter 23: Psychology

The library was unusually quiet, Luana pushed the door open, her footsteps soft against the polished wooden floor.

The scent of old paper and the faint hum of fluorescent lights greeted her as she navigated between the towering shelves, her eyes scanning the rows for something intriguing to read.

As she rounded a corner, her gaze fell on William's desk, laden with books. The man had a strange obsession with spending hours here, surrounded by books.

Maybe he has something interesting to read. With that in her mind, she approached it and searched between the books.

Psychology books. Stacks of them. She huffed.

The desk was cluttered, yet oddly organized. A pile of thick, leather-bound books sat to the left, their spines lined with words like Cognitive Behavior, Neuroscience, Personality Disorders.

On the right were scattered notebooks, their pages filled with scribbles that she couldn't make out from this distance.

"Why is he reading this much about psychology? Is this for the mafia? Or... no, it couldn't be personal. Could it?"

Beside it lay a stack of papers, neatly aligned. It looked like a research paper. No—more than that.

Beside them lay a laptop, its screen dim but still glowing faintly.

It drew her attention, and Luana leaned closer. There, displayed neatly in bold text at the top of a document, were words that made her pause.

"Doctoral dissertation PsyD: Exploring Psychological Manipulation in High-Stakes Environments by William Anthony Russo."

Her breath hitched so sharply she nearly doubled over, one hand flying to her mouth as her eyes went wide enough to burst from their sockets. “What the heck…”

The words didn't quite compute. She stared at the title, reading it again and again, her brain struggling to reconcile the William she knew—the calculated, infuriating mafia boss—with the man who apparently had a knack for academic brilliance.

Luana's gaze darted to the papers beside the laptop. Unable to resist, she picked one up and skimmed its contents. Charts, annotations, and complex terms about behavior analysis, mental states, and personality mapping filled the page.

He wasn't just instinctively good at reading people—he had studied it. Extensively.

But there was something else, something that gnawed at the edge of her thoughts. The title of his thesis wasn't random.

Psychological manipulation in high-stakes environments? Was this about their world—the mafia?

Wait

How much of this—how much of me—has he analyzed? Did he use all this to get inside my head? To control me?

She couldn't decide if she felt impressed, intimidated, or irritated beyond belief.

Her fingers hovered over the trackpad of the laptop as if she might open the document and read further. But then she hesitated.

No, that's crossing a line. Right?

She exhaled sharply, dragging a hand through her hair. This man is going to drive me insane.

Luana spun around the moment she heard the soft rustle of footsteps behind her.

Standing there, arms crossed and one brow raised, was William.

"Enjoying snooping through my stuff, are we?" he teased, his voice casual.