NOVGO.NET Chapter 118: A Tribute In His Likeness
Chapter 118: A Tribute In His Likeness
ADRIEN’S POV
The soft clatter of cutlery on porcelain slowly fades away as Niko and Alexis stand up from the table.
They leave without saying much else, their quiet footsteps disappearing down the long, polished hallway of the mansion.
I stay seated, holding my fork in one hand while staring down at the half-eaten food on my plate. I chew in silence, swallowing mechanically without tasting a single thing.
The house around me feels far too big, far too quiet, and far too clean for the violent thoughts spinning inside my head.
Once my plate is clean enough, I push my chair back, stand up, and begin to walk.
I do not have a destination in mind. I just wander through the large corridors of Orion’s mansion, my shoes making faint sounds against the smooth marble floors.
I just realized that I’ve never really looked around the place before.
Eventually, I push open a pair of heavy glass doors and step outside into the cool air of the courtyard garden.
The garden is massive, manicured to frightening perfection, with rows of dark green hedges and pale stone paths that wind through blooming flowers. It’s beautiful.
I walk down the central path until I reach a carved stone bench, where I sit down.
Directly in front of me sits a towering statue fountain.
Water spills smoothly over the carved stone edges, falling into a wide circular basin below. The center of the fountain features a tall figure carved into white stone—an angel with broad wings spreading out behind its back, holding a stone sword lowered toward the ground.
I stare at the face of the stone angel.
It is carved in the exact image of Orion. I know he’s a lunatic, but I never pegged him to be a narcissistic bastard too.
It feels strange, almost unsettling, to see someone like Orion sculpted into the likeness of a heavenly creature.
But as I look closer at the sharp jawline, the cold eyes, and the quiet stance of the statue, I realize that somehow it fits. The devil was an angel once, too, before he fell from grace.
I lean back against the stone bench, crossing my arms over my chest as I fix my eyes on the falling water.
A quiet part of my mind wonders if my young, seventeen-year-old brain had somehow exaggerated everything on that horrible day seven years ago.
When I ran away from that resort, my heart was hammering so hard I thought it would burst out of my ribs. I was terrified out of my mind, desperate to escape the blood and everything that came with it.
Sitting here now at twenty-four, looking back at that scared boy, I wonder if I blew things out of proportion.
I shake my head faintly.
No. I did not exaggerate a single thing. I was just a teenager who watched the aftermath of Orion smashing my best friend’s head against a table until he stopped breathing.
I was a child for fuck’s sake.
Perhaps there was more to the situation that I did not understand at the time. Perhaps there was something else I could have done back then.
Maybe I could have spoken up sooner, or maybe I should have run away before we ever set foot on those buses.
But I will never know the answers to those questions. I cannot go back in time to fix anything. The past is carved into stone, and Orion can never find out that I was carrying that damn vial of poison meant to end his life that night.
My thoughts drift further back, unraveling the tangled web of my past.
I wonder if my choice to run away that night was the exact catalyst that drove my stepmother, Alice, to murder my father, Henri.
Yes, I know the bitch did it.
Knowing Alice, she had probably wanted my father dead for a very long time so she could claim his wealth and title for herself.
But she likely would not have acted on that dark desire so quickly if I had not completely ruined her plan. By running away with the poison still in my pocket, I failed the task she gave me.
I became useless to her, and my failure forced her hand.
Questions flash through my mind one after another, heavy and unrelenting.
Who was the wealthy buyer that wanted Orion dead so badly in the first place? Why did Alice put such a fucking lethal burden on my shoulders instead of finding a professional to do it?
What on earth made my family so confident that Orion’s strange fixation with me was strong enough that he would drink something handed directly to him by my hands?
And more than anything else, why did my life have to turn out like this?
Why did I have to get tangled up in the sick games of rich monsters and ruthless killers? Why couldn’t I just have been born into a normal family?
Why couldn’t I have lived a simple, quiet life where my biggest worry was passing an exam or picking out what to eat for dinner?
I let out a long breath, watching it mist faintly in the cooling air.
Then my mind shifts to Yaya, the man from Masamune who hijacked my kidnapping. I still do not understand why Yaya let me go.
If the head of Masamune had dragged me straight back to the Vassilis family, they would have discovered that I was tied to a plot to murder their precious golden heir.
The Vassilis family would have burned Masamune down to the ground out of pure rage for their involvement in the plan.
I was a dangerous loose end, a walking threat to everyone involved. I should have been killed on the spot to keep the secret buried forever. Yet, for some reason I will never comprehend, Yaya chose not to kill me.
Sitting on the bench in the growing twilight, I think about Timothy.
I recall the raw, burning hatred that Timothy always held for Orion. At the time, I thought it was just the anger of a poor boy looking at a rich heir who had too much power.
But sitting here now, I realize just how justifiable Timothy’s hatred really was. Orion and his circle destroyed Timothy’s world, even if Orion had no hand in it.
What Louise did to his sister was cruel and unforgivable. Or to be more honest, what Louise did to his sister while Orion stood by and let it happen was enough to drive anyone to violence.
Timothy had every right to hate them. He had every right to want Orion dead.
I sit on the bench for so long that I lose all track of time.
Slowly, the bright blue hues of the sky fade away, replaced by deep oranges, purples, and shadows as the sun begins to set behind the tall trees surrounding the estate garden. The temperature drops, and a cold breeze rustles through the leaves of the bushes around me.
I tilt my head back, looking up at the darkening sky with a deep sigh.
"I wonder what has you looking like a constipated poet, duckling," a deep, smooth voice says from directly behind my bench.
My body stills slightly, I do not even need to turn my head to know who it is.
It’s Orion. He is back from wherever he went earlier today.
He steps around the side of the stone bench, his tall frame cutting through the dim twilight as he moves with effortless, quiet grace.
He stops a few feet away from me, resting one hand casually in the pocket of his tailored trousers while looking down at my face with those dark, familiar eyes.
This mutated fucker really has no pupils.
As his voice hangs in the quiet air of the garden, something deeply unsettling happens inside my chest.
Instead of the violent, heart-stopping terror that usually grips me whenever he appears out of nowhere, a faint wave of ease washes over my tired mind.
Hearing his deep voice break the suffocating silence of my own thoughts feels almost comforting. For a brief second, the constant, exhausting weight of my past memories seems to lighten just a little bit simply because he is standing there.
A split second later, a wave of intense, burning hatred floods through my veins.
I hate myself for it. I despise the fact that my body, my heart, and my mind could feel even a tiny shred of ease around the very man who ruined my youth.
I hate that his presence can calm the chaotic storm in my head when he is the exact reason my life turned into a nightmare in the first place.
I clench my hands into tight fists against my lap, digging my fingernails into my palms to force myself back into reality.
I stare up at him, keeping my expression entirely cold and guarded as the last light of the sun fades into night around us.
"Why don’t you take a guess, Orion?"