54 pages • 1-hour read
The Maddest Obsession
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Part 2, Chapters 8-16Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of child abuse, emotional abuse, child sexual abuse, substance use, death, cursing, physical abuse, graphic violence, sexual content, and mental illness.
Part 2: “Now”
Part 2, Chapter 8 Summary
On a yacht in the present day, Vincent Monroe proposes to Gianna. She tells him that she is already married (to Richard Marino) and cannot divorce due to mafia obligations. She rejects his suggestion of a secret affair.
Back at Gianna’s apartment, a burned-out light bulb triggers a panic attack. She calls Luca Russo (Nico’s cousin), who changes the bulb and tells her to end her public association with Vincent. After Luca leaves, Gianna cooks her mother’s carbonara recipe and eats alone.
Part 2, Chapter 9 Summary
After a family luncheon, Gianna stops at a CVS. While she’s there, an armed robbery begins to unfold: She hides in an aisle and takes ibuprofen for a migraine. After the robbers flee, police and FBI agents arrive, including Christian Allister, who has recently returned to New York. Christian offers her a ride so that she can avoid the other agents’ questions. In his car, they argue about his disappearance and her marriage, with Christian again insinuating that she married for money. Privately, Gianna reflects that she chose her husband because he was the oldest available option and therefore most likely to die soon.
Part 2, Chapter 10 Summary
Weeks later, Gianna complains about Christian to her friend Valentina, who teases Gianna about being attracted to him. In the middle of the conversation, Gianna’s estranged father calls and orders her to attend her cousin’s wedding the following month. Hearing his voice triggers traumatic memories of her father’s abuse, as well as an interaction with another, unnamed man: “The rattle of a slammed door. And then darkness. A darkness so alive it sometimes touched me. Spoke to me. Hurt me. ‘Shh, it’s okay. Don’t worry, your papà knows I’m here’” (115). She does cocaine with Valentina to cope.
That night at a party, a high Gianna avoids Christian, but he confronts her about her drug use. She sees him with Elena Abelli (one of the protagonists of The Sweetest Oblivion) and becomes jealous. Nico is supposed to marry Elena’s sister, Adriana, but has feelings for Elena; he therefore also grows jealous, ending the party by pushing Elena into the pool. Alone together afterward, Gianna and Christian bicker about her drug use, his flirtation with Elena, and the question of who fell out of contact with whom after they nearly slept together. Eventually, Gianna tells Christian that she hates him and questions whether he ever hit his mother. He grabs her by the throat, his anger revealing a Russian accent.
Part 2, Chapter 11 Summary
Still holding Gianna by the throat, Christian reflects on losing control. He is angry that she managed to find such a sensitive topic: “She’d been right about my mother. I could only imagine the look on her pretty face if she knew I’d been the one to put the bitch out of her depraved fucking misery” (123). Meanwhile, Gianna taunts him about claiming to be from Iowa. He releases her, and she asks whether he left for Russia on the night they nearly slept together. He implies that he did but insults her in the process, leading her to throw her shoe at him as he leaves.
At Christian’s apartment, Nico confronts and punches him for provoking him over Elena. They discuss the Abelli situation, and Nico asks Christian to mediate between the families on the subject of his wedding; he intends to marry Elena rather than Adriana. Nico also orders him to monitor Gianna’s association with Vincent, and Christian privately—and bitterly—reflects that he has watched Gianna for years. When Nico hints that he’ll punish Gianna if she continues to see Vincent, Christian instinctively warns him not to touch her, exposing his feelings.
Part 2, Chapter 12 Summary
At Nico and Elena’s wedding, Gianna reflects on how happy the couple looks, regretting that love seems so out of reach for her. While talking to one of Elena’s cousins, Gianna realizes that he did not—as she’d assumed—see her safely home on the night of the party, leaving her to wonder who did.
During the reception, Valentina tells Gianna a rumor that Christian only sleeps with any woman three times. Just then, Christian arrives with an associate, Sebastian Perez. When Gianna greets Sebastian, Christian possessively intervenes, noting that Gianna is married. Gianna then confronts Christian, accusing him of taking her home from the party while she was drunk; he denies it. Their argument escalates until she attacks him, and he pins her against his chest and orders her to calm down. She does, though they continue to trade barbs about her marriage—her husband is in the hospital with pneumonia—and Christian’s sexual prowess. When she tells him the night they spent together was “forgettable,” he tells her to go home before he kills her.
Part 2, Chapter 13 Summary
The next day, Gianna crosses paths with Vincent, who reveals that Christian threatened him to stay away from her. Furious, she goes to confront Christian at Ace’s club and walks into a meeting between the Russo and Abelli families. An Abelli man makes a crude comment about her rain-soaked dress, and Christian shoots him dead.
Christian follows Gianna to the parking garage. He insists on driving her home, though he also implies she was seeking sexual attention—and possibly her next husband—by dressing as she has. She retorts that she’ll never marry again and tries to end their dynamic. However, he tells her she will never be done with him, grabs her, and kisses her.
Part 2, Chapter 14 Summary
The kiss escalates, and they move to the back seat of Christian’s car. When Christian refuses to let her remove his shirt (something he refused in their previous encounter as well), a power struggle ensues, with Gianna threatening to leave. She questions how many women he’s kissed since he was last with her, only to realize that he never kisses anyone else. Eventually, they have unprotected sex. Afterward, fear of pregnancy triggers a severe panic attack. Christian calms her and promises to get her a Plan B pill. They sit together in a cold, quiet aftermath.
Part 2, Chapter 15 Summary
At a drugstore, Christian buys the morning-after pill, fighting the urge to let Gianna become pregnant as a way of possessing her; a relationship with her would bring upheaval to his life, he believes. He returns to the car, where he sees Gianna giving money to an unhoused man and coldly orders her back inside. During the drive, they trade barbs, and she takes the pill, though only after he confirms that he’s returning to Seattle. She falls asleep on the way to her apartment, and as he watches her, he is moved by her vulnerability. Eventually, he wakes her, gruffly telling her that he won’t carry her inside. Nevertheless, as she gets out, he tells her to keep the jacket he has lent her.
Part 2, Chapter 16 Summary
Gianna arrives home to find her stepson, Richard Marino II, waiting. He upbraids her for having sex with Christian before informing her that his father is dying and ordering her to move out, making an indecent proposal that she refuses. Nico quickly secures a new apartment for Gianna.
A week later, Valentina texts Gianna an article showing Christian on a date with a Russian model, Aleksandra Popova. Gianna is privately devastated, reflecting that Aleksandra seems a much more natural fit for Christian than Gianna herself. Nevertheless, she bets Valentina $20,000 that Christian will marry Aleksandra.
Part 2, Chapters 8-16 Analysis
By cutting between Christian’s therapy sessions and flashbacks narrated from Gianna’s perspective, Part 1 creates a dramatic irony that frames the central conflict: Gianna is unaware of the depth and history of Christian’s fixation. This dynamic continues as Part 2 shifts to a linear narrative present, with Gina interpreting Christian’s actions as mere antagonism: His reappearance at the CVS, his mockery of her marriage, and his threats toward Vincent Monroe are all filtered through Gianna’s perception of him as a hostile figure, but the novel has contextualized these behaviors as expressions of the passion he confessed to Dr. Taylor. This divide between Gianna’s understanding and the reader’s knowledge heightens the narrative tension, making Christian’s aggressions feel both unexpected (from her perspective) and inevitable (from the reader’s).
Central to the characterization of Christian and Gianna’s dynamic is the recurring metaphor of games and playing. Their verbal sparring and antagonistic encounters are framed as a contest with unspoken rules. Gianna internally acknowledges this dynamic at Ace’s party, referring to their mutual avoidance as “one of [her] favorite games: pretending the other didn’t exist” (117). The game allows them to engage intimately, testing boundaries and exchanging barbs laden with subtext, without the risks of sincere emotional disclosure. For Gianna, participating in this rivalry is a method of asserting agency. For Christian, the game provides a structured outlet for his otherwise chaotic obsession. When Gianna attempts to walk away, declaring that she is “done playing games with [him],” Christian escalates the conflict by kissing her, retorting, “You’ll never be done with me” (148). This act transforms their symbolic battle into a physical one, underscoring that intimacy is an extension of their rivalry.
The characters’ increasingly physical interactions thus serve as a crucible for their power dynamic, exposing Christian’s need for psychological control and Gianna’s discovery of agency. His physical aggression, such as grabbing her by the throat, precedes their sexual encounters. During their encounter in Chapter 14, this power struggle becomes explicit. Christian’s refusal to remove his shirt is a stark boundary that illustrates his refusal to be emotionally vulnerable. While he dictates the physical terms of the encounter with commands like, “You’ll get off with me inside you, Gianna, no sooner” (155), Gianna drives the emotional escalation by initiating physical contact. For Christian, whose past has taught him that vulnerability leads to exploitation, control is survival. For Gianna, who has been rendered powerless in her marriages, engaging in this raw, physical negotiation is a form of authentic expression. Their sexual encounter thus develops the theme of The Interplay of Control and Chaos.
As both characters have experienced sexual abuse, the same episode also touches on the theme of The Enduring Impact of Trauma. Gianna’s panicked reaction when she realizes they have had unprotected sex is the most explicit manifestation of this. She is not so much afraid of an unintended pregnancy as she is of what that pregnancy would say about her, immediately recalling her father calling her a “whore.” As she later explains, her father may have known his friend was molesting her, and Gianna has emotionally (if not rationally) internalized the idea that she was responsible for her own abuse. Meanwhile, foreshadowing and a pattern of secrecy build suspense around Christian’s origins and motivations, hinting at his own trauma. The revelation that he is Russian implies a near-total break with his past, as neither his name nor his accent (except during moments of high emotion) reflects his background. His vitriol toward his mother is another clue that points to childhood abuse. Collectively, these hints also recontextualize his controlling behavior toward Gianna as a manifestation of trauma—an effort to protect her at any cost. However, Gianna’s ongoing frustration with his behavior underscores the emotional chasm between the characters, reinforcing that true connection is impossible until these hidden wounds are brought to light.
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