Chapter 191: We Never Learn…

ADRIEN’S POV

Every move I make, every piece of my past that gets exposed, ripples outward and affects hundreds of people who rely on Orion’s authority to keep their business safe.

The scandal has made the ties between our families even more strained. People who were already suspicious of me, people who viewed me as a waste or a weakness, now have another reason to question my place.

Others see this chaos as a golden opportunity to challenge his control, testing his boundaries to see if he will hesitate or soft-step his response.

Orion understands the political consequences, and he wants to respond with his usual lack of restraint. He is not going to let a public attack dictate how his family operates, but he isn’t pretending it hasn’t caused real damage either.

Watching the people around him react makes me realize that my presence carries weight whether I want it to or not. I am part of his wider conflicts now. The invisible fence I tried to build around my own life has been completely demolished.

A wave of intense frustration surges through me, mixed with that dark, relentless sense of foreboding.

I am walking blindly into something huge. I can feel the shape of it moving beneath the surface, a shift in power, a shift in how Orion looks at me, a shift in how I look at myself.

I am no longer just fighting to survive another day. I am being dragged into a world where every step I take leaves a footprint in someone else’s blood.

"We need to find her," I say, staring at the flashing red node on the glass table until my eyes burn. "We need to trace Louise and figure out who gave her access to these overseas funds."

"We don’t need to figure out anything," Orion says, his voice dropping into a flat, smooth tone that makes the air in the room feel ten degrees colder. "We know she released the footage. We know she coordinated with people to damage your standing. That is more than enough reason to eliminate her."

I spin around in the narrow space between him and the glass table, my hands coming up to press against his chest to force a bit of space between us.

"No," I say, glaring up into his unblinking eyes. "We are not doing this your way, Orion. You can’t just send Niko to put a bullet in her head before we understand what she was trying to do."

"Why not?" Orion asks quietly. His eyes narrow slightly, completely unbothered by my hands resting against his chest. "She is a threat. She has proven that she can touch you, that she can touch my family’s reputation. Eliminating her sends a clear message to my aunt and to anyone else thinking of using your name against me."

"Because I need to look at her and hear her answer!" I say, my voice rising before I force it back down into a tight whisper. Several technicians look up from their screens, but Niko gives them a quick, sharp look that makes them immediately turn back to their work.

I stare straight into Orion’s calm face, my chest heaving as my emotions threaten to spill over. "I have spent my entire life being punished for things I didn’t cause. I spent my childhood watching Alice and Louise manipulate my father, turn him against my mother, and strip away everything I had."

"If you kill her now, without letting me speak to her, she leaves me with nothing but unanswered questions. More ghosts that I have to carry forever."

"Her death gives you safety, Adrien," Orion says softly. His hand comes up, his fingers resting over mine where they grip his coat. "Safety is worth more than answers."

"It isn’t safety if I have to live with the knowledge that you will murder her to fix a headline!" I say, my breath coming in short, erratic hitches. "I want to know why she did it. I want to know if Alice was the one who handed her those account details before she vanished."

Orion looks down at me, his face completely unreadable.

The silence between us stretches for long seconds, heavy with an unspoken battle of wills, filling the large room with a suffocation that makes my skin prickle.

He sees the world in terms of clean, permanent solutions.

He wants to wipe the slate clean, to remove any person or variable that creates noise in the life he is building around me.

But beneath that cold exterior, I see a quiet spark of pleasure in his eyes. He likes that I am fighting him. He likes that I am standing in his command center, pushing back against his orders instead of shrinking away in fear.

He wants me sharp. He wants me standing right beside him, even if I am bleeding while I do it.

"You are looking for logic in a house built on bitterness, Adrien," Orion whispers at last, his thumb stroking the back of my hand with an almost painful tenderness. "Louise will not give you a neat, comfortable explanation. She will only try to cut you again."

"I can handle being cut," I say, keeping my voice steady despite the tremor in my knees. "Just let me face her."

Orion studies my face for a moment longer, searching my eyes for any sign of weakness or retreat. Finding none, he gives a slow, deliberate nod. He turns his head back toward Niko.

"Find the primary access point for those overseas transfers," Orion orders flatly. "Where was the last digital signature authorized?"

Niko taps rapidly on his keyboard, pulling up a series of localized network logs on the central display. "The IP address traces back to a router network in upstate New York. It was logged six hours ago."

"She is still in the state," I say, stepping closer to the screen, my heart thumping against my ribs like a trapped bird.

"Not just in the state," Niko says, zooming in on the satellite map grid. "Look at the property registration tied to that local tower sector. It’s a small residential parcel listed under an old corporate alias."

I stare at the address, the familiar letters burning into my mind and sending a sharp, icy chill through my chest.

She’s not at that lake house...she’s at the other one.