Owned By The Psychotic Billionaire (Mafia BL)

Chapter 137: When you say ‘Our Family’...?

ADRIEN’S POV

The heavy silence in the living room feels thick enough to choke on.

Orion does not raise his voice. He does not slam a fist into the wall or tear the television off its mount. He simply steps forward, grabs the remote control from Alexis’s hand, and clicks the screen off.

The bright, horrific images of my past disappear into a blank, dark rectangle of glass.

"Clear the room," Orion says.

His voice is quiet, flat, and completely level, but the air around him vibrates with a pressure so intense that Alexis instantly bows his head.

Without a single word of protest, Alexis and the guards retreat, their footsteps heavy against the polished floor as they vanish into the outer hallway.

The double doors shut behind them, leaving us alone in the massive space.

Orion turns to face me.

His eyes are still pitch black, the pupils swallow by rage. I am still trembling, my heels pressed against the wall behind me, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird.

I expect him to look at me with disgust. I expect him to demand an explanation for the ruined stocks, the ruined name, and the filthy sex tape broadcast to millions of homes.

Instead, he closes the distance between us in three smooth, unhurried strides.

Before I can shrink back, his long fingers reach out, cupping my jaw in a firm, steady grip.

His hand is warm, his thumb resting gently against the corner of my lower lip, tilting my head up so I have no choice but to look straight into his face.

"You are shaking, duckling," he whispers softly.

"Orion," my voice breaks, thin and pathetic. I hate the sound of it. "The news. The stocks. The whole city is seeing all of it."

"I do not care about the stocks," he cuts in smoothly, his thumb brushing over my chin. His tone carries no anger toward me, only a deep, suffocating possessiveness.

"I do not care about those companies I created for fun, or the media, or the high society fools choking on their pride. Let the shares burn. I have enough wealth to buy this entire city ten times over."

He leans in closer, his dark eyes locking onto mine with an intensity that pins me to the spot.

"The only thing that infuriates me," Orion continues, his tone dropping into a low, harsh hum, "is that someone dared to put their dirty hands on your past. That someone thought they could use your pain, your survival, to publicly shame what belongs to me. They think they are exposing a scandal to weaken my position. What they do not realize is that they have just signed their own death warrants."

He slides his other arm around my waist, pulling my back flush against his chest. The grip is firm, holding me so securely that I couldn’t run even if my legs weren’t shaking.

"You are my husband, Adrien," he says, his lips resting against my temple as he breathes the words into my skin. "Your past belongs to me. Your present belongs to me. No one gets to touch you, mock you, or tear you down. I will hunt down every single person involved in putting those pictures on that screen."

A quiet heat spreads through my chest, cutting through the icy humiliation that had been building since the broadcast started.

My heart skips a sharp beat. For seven years, my time on the street was a filthy secret I carried alone. But hearing him claim my broken pieces with such ferocious, unconditional protectiveness makes the shame loosen its grip on my throat.

He doesn’t view me as a ruined reputation. He views me as his.

I rest my palms flat against his chest, feeling the steady thud of his heart through his shirt. "Orion... they said I helped with the bombing. The police are going to—"

"The police will do nothing," he interrupts, his hand tightening around my waist, lifting me slightly onto my toes. "I control the police and I control the courts. You will stay in this house with me, where you are safe, and let me handle the blood."

As his hand shifts against my waist, the firm, heavy pressure of his palm triggers something deep inside my head.

A sudden, sharp flash hits my mind, cracking through the fog in my memories.

I am not standing in the living room of the estate anymore.

For a split second, I am seventeen years old again. The smell of fresh pine and damp earth fills my lungs. The bright morning sun beats down on a dirt courtyard right outside the wooden stables at the seaside resort.

My legs are sore from riding horses for hours. I am sighing, wiping sweat from my forehead, feeling heavier than I have in months.

The weight of the vial burns in my mind.

In the memory, Orion walks up behind me. He reaches out, his hands closing firmly around my waist, spinning me around to face him just like he is doing right now.

He tilts my chin up with two fingers. His face is bathed in morning light, his eyes soft, warm, and full of something so heavy it made my young breath catch in my throat.

He says something to me. His lips move, delivering a quiet, intense sentence that makes seventeen-year-old me smile and hide my face against his neck.

Then the memory vanishes.

The stables crumble, the smell of pine disappears, and I am brought back to the present, staring up at Orion’s black eyes in the living room.

My pulse spikes.

I don’t remember what he said to me at the stables that morning. I can’t recall a single word of it. I remember the horses, I remember his hands on my waist, but the actual words are gone, wiped away by time and that violent blow to my head on the cargo ship.

I press my lips together tightly, keeping my throat locked tight. I am not going to say a single word about this to him.

Orion doesn’t know that my memory is this full of holes. He doesn’t know that I have this much gaps from seven years ago, or that I hit my head so hard on that boat that pieces of our youth were knocked loose.

If he knows I am forgetting things, if he realizes how broken my mind actually is, it will only give him another reason to lock me away tighter. I have to keep this to myself.

"What is running through that head of yours?" Orion asks softly, his thumb tracing the line of my collarbone.

"Nothing," I lie quickly, shifting my gaze slightly away from his. "I’m just trying to process everything."

Orion doesn’t push, but the cold aura around him settles back into place, sharp and lethal. He turns his head toward the dark TV screen, his jaw tightening until the muscle twitches.

"I already know who did this," Orion says softly.

His voice is icy, lacking any trace of the comfort he was just offering me.

I look up at him, caught off guard by the sudden declaration. "You know who leaked the files?"

"I have a very clear idea," Orion answers, his fingers digging slightly deeper into my hip. "There are only a few people who had access to the old police archives from the bombing, and even fewer who knew where you were hidden during those early months on the street. It is an internal move. A calculated play."

He lets out a low breath that sounds almost like a snarl.

"I am not angry because they attacked me," Orion whispers, his pitch-black eyes fixed on the empty glass of the television. "I expected them to move against our family eventually. But I did not expect them to go through this much effort to drag you through the dirt just to get a reaction out of me. They crossed a line they cannot uncross."

Our family?

I see. He isn’t just furious about the strategic play against his empire. He is enraged because whoever planned this calculated exactly how much damage it would cause to me personally, using my worst years as live entertainment for the public.

"Who is it?" I ask, my voice barely a breath. "Is it someone from your side? Or is it someone from the Dubois side?"

Is it lousie?...it’s probably that bitch.

"It doesn’t matter who they used to execute it," Orion says, his grip on me relaxing just enough to let me stand fully on my own feet again. "What matters is that they think hiding behind news stations will keep them safe from me. They think I will play by the rules to fix this."

He steps back, turning toward the double doors of the living room.

The serene, loving husband from the car ride is gone, replaced by the ruthless man I know very well.

"Stay upstairs," Orion orders quietly, without looking back at me. "Alexis will be outside your door. Do not answer your phone if it’s not me calling, and do not look at the news."

I stand alone in the middle of the quiet room, watching his back as he walks toward the hall.

Whoever orchestrated this scandal thought they were backing Orion into a corner. They thought exposing my past would shatter his hold on the city and humiliate his name.

Instead, they just handed him a reason to tear everything down.