Owned By The Psychotic Billionaire (Mafia BL)

Chapter 119: The Price Of A Seat...

ADRIEN’S POV

I settle onto the stone bench, pulling my legs in close as the night chill settles over the courtyard garden.

Orion sits beside me. He does it with that liquid grace he always has, sinking into the carved stone like the seat was built for his large frame.

He takes up space without even trying, stretching his long legs out onto the pale gravel.

His presence pushes against the cold night air, heavy with the scent of dark cedar, wool, and that subtle metallic edge that seems to cling to him wherever he goes.

I look at him. I catch the sharp profile of his jaw, the dark hair falling slightly over his forehead, and the irritating calmness in his face.

Then I force my eyes away, snapping my head back toward the towering fountain in front of us. The stone angel carved in his likeness gazes down at the Basin, sword lowered, forever frozen in white marble.

"What did you mean by your question?" Orion asks. His voice is smooth and untroubled. "Why should I guess what your problem is? Just tell me, what is it?"

I let out a sharp breath through my nose. "You, obviously. When has my problem ever not been you? Every time I close my eyes to sleep, it is you. When I am awake, it is you."

I throw every drop of dramatic energy I can muster into the words. I want them to hit him like a physical shove, to push him off this bench and away from me.

Orion bursts out into laughter.

It’s a rich, unobstructed sound that echoes off the tall stone walls of the courtyard. He tilts his head back against the dark sky, his throat exposed as he laughs right at the statue sculpted in his exact image.

The sound is so loud in the quiet garden that it makes my ribs ache.

"Does my existence really occupy that much space inside your head?" he asks. His laughter tapers into a low, amused hum as he turns his gaze back to me. "Did you sit down out here in the cold just to gaze at my statue and think about me, duckling?"

I give him a slow side-eye. I sit there internally marveling at his endless narcissistic tendencies. The man is unbelievable. He looks at a stone angel and assumes I sat here writing poetry about him in my mind.

Instead of answering his foolish question, I change the subject. "Where did you go?"

"I went to go look for Leon," Orion responds simply.

I freeze. My eyes widen a fraction before I can stop them. I did not expect him to answer me honestly. I expected a riddle, a smirk, or a dismissive comment about how it was none of my business.

The truth, delivered so casually, throws me completely off balance.

Orion looks at me and laughs again. "Why do you look so surprised, duckling?"

"Because I am surprised," I say, my brows pulling down. "Why would you tell me the truth? Aren’t you supposed to lie to me and keep me in the dark? Isn’t that how this works?"

Orion tilts his head. "How this works? What exactly do you think this is?"

I quiet down. I turn my face away from him, looking up at the sky. A silver moon hangs high above the trees, throwing pale light over the garden hedges and the dark basin of water.

"How a relationship between an elite and a nobody works," I say softly.

Orion tilts his head in confusion. His dark brows pull together. "How exactly are you a nobody? If we are talking about bloodline, you are a Dubois. You come from money. We moved in the exact same circles right up until... well, until you ran away like a rat."

I let out a dry, humorless sound. "The only reason we moved in the same circles was because my father kept pulling money out of his businesses just to keep both me and Louise in that academy. He drained his own accounts to keep us in the same circle as you."

A strange thought hits me as the words leave my mouth. Why did my father pull all that money out for both of us? He favored Louise. She was his pride, the perfect daughter, the one Alice adored.

If he was going to ruin himself financially for school fees, why not just send Louise? Why double the debt to send me too?

And why would Alice allow that? Alice never let my father spend a single coin on me unless she was forced to.

What was the point of putting me in that academy right alongside Orion Vassilis?

"I know that," Orion says, cutting through my thoughts before I can spiral down that hole. "I was only speaking by bloodline. But going by personality... you are the furthest thing from a nobody."

I turn to look at him, my eyes narrowing. "What exactly do you think my personality is like for you to say something like that?" I scoff softly. "I am not, at my core, the sarcastic, dramatic person you seem to think I am."

"I know that," Orion says.

The calm honesty in his eyes makes me do a double-take. There is no wild glint in his eyes right now. No dark edge dancing on his lips, just a quiet certainty.

"I know you are calm, sarcastic, and dramatic," Orion continues, his voice low. "But I know that is not who you are when everything is stripped away. I know that what you truly want is a place where you can be calm. A place where you can finally be at peace."

I mutter sarcastically under my breath, "Saying that all I want is a place to be at peace makes it sound like I want to die. I very much want to live, so don’t go getting any ideas."

God knows what this lunatic would do if he thought I wanted to die. He would probably lock me in a room or chain me to a bed just to stop me from finding peace without his permission.