Owned By The Psychotic Billionaire (Mafia BL)

Chapter 116: What Can We Be?

ADRIEN’S POV

SEVEN YEARS AGO...

Orion is a lunatic, but would he actually kill me if I show him the truth before doing anything to harm him? I have not put a single drop of that liquid into his drink. I never wanted to.

If I show him the vial and hand it over, if I just trust him for once in my life, can we end this horror? Can we just be two normal people for a second?

Hope—fragile, bright, and utterly desperate—sparks inside my chest.

I sprint out of the hotel building, running across the gravel paths as fast as my tired legs can carry me until I reach my cabin down in the valley.

I burst through the door, rush over to my heavy luggage, and shove my trembling hands deep underneath my folded sweaters. My fingers wrap around the cold, smooth glass surface of the vial.

I pull it out, shove it tight inside my closed fist, and turn right back around. I run out of the cabin, determined to make things right before they go so terribly wrong that I can never fix them again.

I’m going to tell him everything. I’m going to let him save me.

I sprint back toward the main hotel building, my lungs burning for air. But as I burst through the heavy glass doors of the lobby, a figure steps directly into my path at the foot of the stairs.

It’s Louise.

She stands at the bottom of the grand staircase, her arms crossed tightly over her chest, her face twisted into a sneer of pure, ugly venom.

"Where do you think you are going, you useless waste of space?" Louise spits out, her loud voice echoing off the high marble ceiling. "What exactly do you think is going to happen between you and my boyfriend? You are a pathetic, worthless trash heap, Adrien."

"Everyone knows how our family treats you like a dog. Watching you get hurt is the only thing that makes anyone in this school feel good about themselves. The Dubois name is wasted on a piece of garbage like you!"

I look at her, her cruel, venomous words bouncing off me without leaving a single scratch on my skin.

It’s the same drivel I’ve listened to for almost all my life.

For the first time in my entire life, I don’t care about what she thinks. I don’t care about her insults, her status, or her anger.

For the first time in my seventeen years of life, I just want to do one thing on my own terms. I want to make a choice, even if it blows up in my face, because I truly have no other options left.

If I poison Orion, I die. If I refuse, my father kills me. But if I give him this vial, if I show him that I trust him with my life, maybe, just maybe, I might actually live. Maybe we both can.

I ignore her entirely, pushing right past her shoulder and sprinting toward the metal elevator doors.

"Hey! Don’t walk away from me, you bastard!" Louise shrieks behind me, but the heavy elevator doors slide shut, cutting off her screeching voice.

I press the button for the topmost floor, where the private presidential suites sit—far higher than the rooms of the other elites.

The elevator rises rapidly, the quiet, steady hum of the motor doing nothing to calm the frantic pulse beating in my throat.

The metal doors slide open with a soft, clean chime.

I step out onto the quiet, carpeted hallway of the top floor, and immediately, strange, heavy, muffled noises catch my attention further down the corridor. Thuds. Crashing wood.

Before I can take five steps toward Orion’s suite, a figure steps out smoothly from behind a thick marble pillar.

It’s Leon. What is it with everyone and standing in my way today?

He stands in the dim light of the hallway, looking at me with a calm, deeply disturbing expression. He glances down at my closed fist, his sharp blue eyes zeroing in on the edge of the vial sticking out between my white knuckles.

"If Orion sees that vial in your hand, Adrien," Leon whispers softly, his voice echoing in the empty hall, "he will kill you on the spot. You showing him that poison now is not going to save your life. It is going to end it. He doesn’t love you. He is a Vassilis."

I know that...but I don’t need him to love me. I need him to trust me.

"Get out of my way." I snap, my voice shaking as I try to step around him. "I don’t care what you say!"

Leon does not try to physically grab me. He simply turns his head as I run past him, his cold voice following me down the corridor like an ill omen.

"Orion will recognize that glass," Leon says calmly, his tone flat and unbothered. "He knows what that liquid means. Him seeing that in your hand will mean your death, Adrien. Take my hand while you still have a chest to breathe with."

I ignore him just like I ignored Louise, sprinting down the hallway until I reach the heavy oak door of Orion’s private suite.

The door is wide open.

I stop dead in my tracks, my boots skittering against the plush carpet as I look inside.

The grand living room is completely trashed. Polished mahogany chairs are flipped onto their sides, thick velvet curtains are half-torn from their metal rods, and shattered glass covers the rug like fallen snow.

It looks as if a violent, brutal storm had torn through the room.

Standing right in the center of the destruction is Orion.

And lying motionless on the ruined floor at his feet is Timothy.

My breath leaves my body all at once. The entire world stops moving. My heart freezes mid-beat.

Timothy is lying flat on his back, his legs twisted at an unnatural, sickening angle. Beside his head, the sharp wooden corner of the heavy bedside table is covered in dark, thick, fresh blood.