Chapter 30 Adrian
ADRIAN
Victor doesn't say anything. He just turns and starts walking.
Elena and I follow him down the stairs, our footsteps the only thing making a sound. The house feels too quiet, the kind of silence that doesn't sit right with you, makes you think something unimaginable is coming.
We walk through the hallway, past the sitting room where I used to hide when I was a kid, past the oil paintings of our great-grandparents staring down at us with stern faces.
Victor leads us past all of it and into our father's office.
The mahogany door is already open. Lucian stands behind the massive desk, shoulders hunched, staring down at a pile of papers spread across the dark wood surface. He doesn't look up when we enter.
Victor shuts the door behind us, moves to the bar cart in the corner, and pours himself a drink. Whiskey. Neat. He doesn't bother asking if anyone else wants one.
"Bit early, huh?" I say, trying to lighten the mood.
Victor doesn't answer. He just shrugs and takes a sip.
I look over at Lucian. He lifts his head and meets my eyes, then shifts his gaze to Elena, then back to me. He looks physically sick. His face is pale, jaw tight, and there's a heaviness in his expression I've never seen before.
Something's wrong.
"Okay, I'm here, brothers," I say, my voice harder now. "Talk."
Lucian exhales slowly through his nose, his fingers pressed flat against the desk like he's bracing himself.
"I think you should take a seat," he says, nodding toward the leather couch against the wall. "Both of you." He pauses, then rubs his forehead. "Fuck. Actually, maybe all of us."
Elena shoots me a look.
I don't like this.
We sit, and I shift, my injured arm throbbing in the sling. Elena stays pressed close to my side, her hand finds my thigh, squeezing once.
Victor leans against the bar cart, drink in hand. Lucian stays standing behind the desk.
There's a long silence, the kind that stretches and stretches until it feels like it's going to snap.
Lucian looks at Victor and nods, and Victor clears his throat.
"We've been digging," he says, his voice missing that smooth, diplomatic tone. "Nonstop. Into everything."
I wait.
Victor sets his glass down on the bar cart and crosses his arms.
"We confirmed Elena's theory," he says. "Cornel Lupu's private jet was logged flying to the private airstrip near the chateau on the exact day Elena was kidnapped."
The words hit me like a punch to the gut.
I turn to Elena. Her face is pale, lips parted slightly in shock.
"I knew it," she says.
I nod and put my hand over hers resting on my leg.
Lucian steps out from behind the desk, shifting his tie.
"What bothered me the most," Lucian says slowly, "what's always bothered me, was how. How could someone bypass Ionescu security to grab Elena off the streets of Bra?ov without tipping any of us off?"
Elena stiffens beside me.
"There were people watching me?" she asks, her voice small.
Lucian nods.
"Well, not under orders," he says. "But we're all watched everywhere we go. Our enemies, our allies, everyone. We've known you our whole life, so you fell under that." He pauses. "Especially since you two are, you know…"
"Together," Victor finishes, stepping forward.
Elena swallows, her fingers tightening around mine.
"Anyway," Victor continues, "as I told you, Lupu is a politician and a businessman. Not a cartel boss. Not a trafficker. So it didn't make sense that he would be even remotely involved, especially not with our connections to him."
Lucian sighs and picks up a paper off the desk. He walks over and hands it to me.
I take it, scanning the text. It's a list of banking routes. Money transfers. Some kind of coded ledger.
"What the hell is this?" I ask, looking up at him.
"Look at line 57," Lucian says, his voice low.
I look back down at the paper. Elena leans in, reading over my shoulder.
And there it is.
$50 million transfer.
My stomach drops.
"That's how much Elena was…" I trail off, the word catching in my throat. I can't say it.
"Wow. Fifty million," Elena says softly, staring at the paper. "That's a lot."
"Too much," Victor says.
I whip my head toward him.
Victor holds up a hand.
"No, I don't mean it personally, Elena," he says quickly.
"None taken," Elena says.
Victor takes another step toward us.
"While there is a lot of money floating around the world, a single person doesn't just go for that amount without something attached. I mean, even the Volkovs' bounty to find her, and you," he says, looking at me, "was twenty-five million."
"But I don't know anything," Elena says, her voice rising slightly. "They never tried to pry information out of me or anything."
"That's right," Lucian says. "And that routing number confirms it wasn't the Volkovs paying Lupu for a girl."
He pauses.
"It was the other way around. Someone was paying the Volkovs through Lupu to take her off their hands."
"Wait, what?" Elena says, confusion twisting her features.
"What he means," Victor starts.
I turn to Elena, cutting him off.
"It means that the Volkovs didn't pay fifty million for you. Someone paid them fifty million to take you."
Elena's eyes go wide. She presses a hand to her forehead, her breathing quickening.
"But who? That doesn't make any sense."
I turn to look at my brothers.
They are stone.
Victor shifts, his jaw muscles working like he's chewing on something.
"I made some calls," Victor finally says slowly. "Pulled some political favors. The Romanian treasury traced the origin of the fifty-million-dollar account. The routing numbers lead back to a heavily guarded shell corporation, right here in Romania."
My pulse hammers in my ears.
I stand, my injured arm forgotten, pain forgotten.
"Names," I say, my voice firm and deadly. "Give me the fucking name of the business. And the person attached to it."
Victor looks at Lucian.
Lucian steps forward and clears his throat.
"The shell corporation belongs to our father, brother," he says. "Nicolae Ionescu."
The world tilts.
For a moment, I think I'm going to throw up. My stomach churns, bile rising in my throat.
Elena gasps beside me, her hand flying to her mouth.
"What the fuck?" I say, my voice cracking. "Are you serious?"
Lucian's face is firm.
"Yes."
"No," I say, shaking my head. "No. That doesn't…"
"It does," Victor says sharply. "The money came from him, Adrian. It all traces back to him."
I stagger back a step, my hand gripping the back of the couch for support.
Elena is crying now, tears streaming down her face.
"Why?" she says. "Why would he…"
Lucian crosses his arms.
"Because he's fucked all of us over at some point, but based on things our father has told me over the years," Lucian says, "I think he viewed Elena as a distraction. He thought she was making you soft."
My chest tightens.
"And," Lucian sighs, then continues, "he hated that you weren't controllable. That you weren't playing your part in the family. I just can't believe after all he's done, he could stoop even lower."
"We think," Victor says, "that he ordered Lupu to fake the crash and that father paid the Russians fifty million dollars to take her, intending to break you and force you to retreat back into the family. To work under his thumb, forever."
I look down at the ground, trying to breathe.
My own father.
My own father orchestrated Elena's kidnapping. Paid the Volkovs to take her.
He's the reason she was drugged, sold, abused.
And then the last thought comes into my mind, and it almost knocks me over.
My own father is the reason my baby died.
I turn to look at Elena. She's sobbing now, her face buried in her hands, her shoulders shaking.
The room is silent except for her cries.
I feel nothing at first, and then rage, and something I have never known wraps around me.
I adjust the gun tucked into my waistband and crack my neck once to the left.
"I will deal with Lupu," I say, my voice flat. "But first, I want to hear it from him."
I turn to Lucian.
"Call him," I say. "Tell him to come to the estate."