Chapter 171: The Beauty Of Him

PAST ORION’S POV

My mind was consumed by a single, agonizing thought.

What if I go look for Adrien? What if he somehow walks back into my orbit, steps into my life, and sees that I am still dating Louise?

I wonder how Adrien would feel about it. Would he be angry? Would he be jealous?

And then, as I sit on a dirty wooden bench somewhere in the Guatemalan heat, a terrible realization hits me.

What if Adrien does not feel anything at all?

What if he does not have this fiery sludge rolling around in his chest? What if he does not lie awake at night feeling like his heart is being torn out of his ribs? Does he even feel a fraction of what I feel when he thinks of me?

The thought pisses me off so intensely that I crush the glass bottle in my hand. The sky above Guatemala loses whatever tiny speck of color it had left. Everything goes pitch black and white.

By the time I turn twenty-three, I return to the city. I finally understand why I am keeping Louise close.

It is all about calculation.

If I keep Louise near me, and the Dubois family or Louise ever decides to randomly search for Adrien, I will know immediately.

Because I am standing right next to her. If Alice Dubois decides to send hitmen to get rid of him, I will be the first person to intercept the order.

It is the most organic way to ensure his safety. And when Adrien finally reappears, keeping Louise near me guarantees that I will be right there, a permanent fixture in his path that he can never avoid.

So I keep her close. Because with Louise close, Adrien is close.

And yet, as the months drag on, the burning feeling lodged in my chest thickens. It becomes a heavy, suffocating mass. It is getting harder and harder to breathe.

That craving— that insane, desperate urge to stick my fingers into his chest and hold his heart— swells until it fills my entire brain. It drives me out of my mind.

I catch myself scratching at my arms, digging my nails into my own skin until I bleed, just to feel a different kind of pain. There are so many things I want from him, so many things I need to take from him, and I cannot think straight anymore.

Then, at twenty-four, the boiling point arrives.

I receive a report from my lieutenants. A drug is circulating in my territory. It is being sold inside my luxury clubs and my hotels.

Euphoria.

The moment I hear the name, my jaw clenches so hard my back teeth groan. Once again, I am forced to be aware of the existence of that wretched drug. The fact that it has crept inside my own businesses, despite my explicit, absolute ban on any hard drugs, infuriates me beyond words.

I am pissed. I am starving for a man who is not even here. I am craving him in ways I do not even understand, my body itching from the inside out.

To make matters even more chaotic, Louise suddenly decides to end our relationship. She leaves me in favor of dating Leon.

The news leaves me completely bewildered and irritated. How am I supposed to monitor Alice Dubois’s movements quickly if Louise is not standing by my side?

The entire plan suffers a senseless kink because my spineless brother decided to play chess when the whole world is playing checkers.

I do not dwell on it. I pull up the employee lists for my primary club, cross-referencing shifts and sales records until I narrow it down to the exact person responsible.

It is a woman. A low-level worker who thinks she can look down on me, who thinks she can slip Euphoria through my doors and profit off my name.

I get up, put on a wig and contacts, dress as any person other than myself, and drive straight to the club.

I walk through the noisy main floor, ignoring the thumping bass and the flashing crowd, and head straight for the VIP private room in the back.

My mind is a violent storm.

As I reach for the door handle, I am already picturing the precise mechanics of how I am going to grab this woman, pull her over, and shatter her skull against the table in the center of the room.

I open the door and step inside.

The room is dimly lit, bathed in shifting neon hues. The woman is standing near the lounge sofa, turning around in surprise as the heavy door swings shut.

I do not hesitate. I stride across the carpet, sit at the table and watch her pour me drinks while giggling in a way that should sound nice to other men. But it makes the itching in my skull worse.

I wrap my arm around her waist to get it over with, but as I pull her close, my eyes drift to the person standing just to her right.

I freeze.

The air leaves my lungs.

Standing there is a figure in a cheap dress, wearing a long wig, with obvious padding stuffed around his chest. A terrible, absurd disguise.

It is a crossdresser.

Because beneath that ridiculous wig, beneath the painted makeup and the padded fabric, those brown eyes are staring directly into mine.

It is Adrien.

It is undeniably, unmistakably Adrien.

I would recognize those brown eyes if I were blind, deaf, and dying in a ditch. I would know them across a thousand lifetimes.

In an instant, the burning sludge in my chest explodes.

It surges through my blood, enveloping my entire frame in a terrifying, white-hot heat. My skull feels like it is on fire.

My heart hammers against my ribs so hard it aches, but my head... my head suddenly feels completely weightless. Light as air.

The sheer contradiction of it almost drives me into pure, unadulterated madness.

Adrien is standing right here. Right in front of me. Within arm’s reach.

If I were a dog, I would be doing wild, uncontrollable zoomies around the entire room, tearing up the carpet, howling at the walls. Every single nerve in my body is screaming at me to reach out, to grab him, to confirm he is real, to touch him until my fingers bruise his skin.

So I do.

I let go of the woman, reach out, and yank Adrien straight into my space. I drag him onto my lap as I sink onto the sofa, my hands coming down hard on his narrow waist.

He stiffens, his breath hitching, but I do not care. I lean down, burying my nose into the synthetic hair of his absurd wig, inhaling deeply.

Beneath the cheap perfume of the disguise, I catch it— that familiar, sharp scent that belongs only to him.

I pull back slightly and look into those brown eyes. They are wide, filled with shock, anger, and a sudden wave of panic.

It is him. It is my Adrien.

At that exact moment, Orion Vassilis ceases to exist. He is completely gone.

Seven years of a dull, suffocating grey sky. Seven years of this starving hunger. Seven years of this maddening, agonizing itch. Seven years of that thick, burning sludge rolling around in my ribs.

And now, Adrien is back.

Suddenly, as I sit on the leather sofa with him in my arms, the ambient lights in the private room come rushing back to life.

The faint neon strips on the walls are vibrant, burning with vivid red and deep green hues. I can look out the tinted glass window and know, with absolute certainty, that if I step outside, the sky will finally have its true color again.

The air entering my lungs has a scent. The oxygen actually feeds my chest. For the first time in seven long years, I feel like a human being. I feel like I can finally breathe.

Adrien struggles against my grip, his hands pressing against my chest, his eyes darting toward the door. He wants to pull away. He wants to run again.

I smile. It is an unhinged, beautiful feeling.

I am going to bind him to me in the only way I know how.

Without breaking eye contact with Adrien, I draw my handgun from my coat with my right hand. I grip the woman by the shoulder, shoving her down toward the table.

I place my finger firmly on the trigger, press the steel muzzle of the magazine directly against the side of her head, and pull it.

I empty the entire thing in her skull as thanks for letting me find my duckling again.

The loud, deafening gunshot echoes through the private room, drowned out only by the heavy bass vibrating through the speakers outside. The woman goes limp, dropping backwards to the sofa in a quiet heap.

I do not even look at her.

I turn my head back to Adrien. I watch his face as the gunshot smoke drifts between us. I watch the sudden, stark horror flood his brown eyes, the way his pupils dilate, the way his breath hitches in his throat.

Even his horror... even his terror is so beautiful it makes my very soul preen with joy.

I tighten my grip on his waist, pulling him so close there is no air left between our chests.

"I’ve missed you, duckling," I whisper against his ear.