15. Adriana
ADRIANA
The ride back to the penthouse is silent.
Lachlan sits next to me in the back of the SUV, his jaw tight.
He hasn't looked at me since we left the police station or said a word.
He just walked me out past the officers who wouldn't meet my eyes, past Detective Addams who looked like she wanted to apologize but didn't dare, and into the waiting car.
His grip on my arm was firm, harder than it's ever been before, and I can tell how angry he is, even if he's making every effort to keep that anger and pain locked down.
Matteo is asleep against my shoulder, exhausted from the pain medication and the trauma of the day. I keep my arms wrapped around him, holding him close, and I can feel Lachlan's gaze on us.
The city blurs past the windows, lights streaking through the darkness, and I can't stop replaying the moment in the police station.
The moment I realized there was nowhere to run.
No system to protect me, no escape from this world of violence and blood and men who think they can own people.
Even here, far away from New York, I have no one to turn to except the man who claims to love me and won't listen to what I'm trying to tell him I need.
When we reach the penthouse, Lachlan gets out first and opens my door. He doesn't touch me or try to help me out of the car, just stands there, waiting, his expression unreadable.
I carry Matteo inside, and Rian takes him from me gently, murmuring something about putting him to bed. I watch them disappear down the hallway, and then it's just me and Lachlan in the vast, empty living room.
"Adriana." His voice is quiet, controlled, but I can hear the fury underneath it. "We need to talk."
"I don't want to talk to you." I go to walk toward the hallway to go up to my room, but he steps in front of me, blocking my path.
"Too bad." His blue eyes are cold and hard.
"You just tried to destroy me. You stole from me, you went to the cops, you tried to put me in prison.
So yeah, we're going to fucking talk. You keep talking about how I'm not giving you choices…
this time, no, you don't have a choice." His voice is rough, and he sounds like he's holding on to the last of his control.
"Get out of my way."
"No." His jaw works, and he steps closer, the warm scent of sweat and his spicy cologne wafting toward me in the tense air.
"You're going to tell me the truth. You're going to tell me why you hate me so much that you'd rather see me imprisoned than give me a chance.
Do you hear how insane that sounds? I know you've been through hell, Adriana, but my God, that's fucking extreme.
Do you really…" He takes a shuddering breath, as if he can barely stand to ask the question. "Do you really hate me that much?"
When I look up, I see that his eyes are glistening.
His jaw is locked, his expression angry, but his eyes are wet, and it wrenches something in my chest. "I don't hate you.
" My voice cracks with emotion and exhaustion.
"I'm just—I'm so tired, Lachlan. I'm so tired of being powerless.
Of having no choices. Of being trapped."
"You're not trapped." He stares at me. "You're safe. You're with me. I'm protecting you."
"That's what Gio said." The words are out before I can stop them, and I watch his face change, pain bleeding into the anger.
"Adri." He runs a hand through his hair, looking almost as broken as I feel in this moment.
"I came back for you. How did you think I was ever going to get you back without violence and bloodshed and a decision like the one I made?
I would die before I let anyone hurt you.
I kept my promise, and all it's done is tear us further apart. "
"But you're hurting me by keeping me here. By making me feel like I have no control over my own life. By making me feel like I'm just—just another thing you own."
Lachlan looks at me, exhaustion suddenly showing in his face, too. "Is that really what you think? That I see you as a thing I own?"
"I don't know what to think anymore." I wrap my arms around myself, trying to hold myself together. "I don't know who you are. I don't know if the boy I loved is still in there somewhere, or if he's gone. If you've become just like all the rest of them."
"I understand what Gio did to you, but—"
"You can't understand. You can't possibly.
" I cut him off. "I know what they did to you was horrible, too.
I can't imagine what it must have felt like to have to lie the way you did, claim to have done something to me that you would never do to anyone in order to keep them from killing us both.
What you must have felt that night… it's so awful I can't imagine it, but I know what my pain was, what I went through, and you can't imagine that either.
How it felt to be berated, told that no one would ever want me now that I wasn't a virgin.
That I was damaged goods, and even though you didn't force me, they believed you did, and the idea that they would blame me for something so horrible was awful in its own way. "
Lachlan makes a sound low in his throat, something between a growl and a groan, but I keep going.
"My being pregnant made it all worse. I was pregnant with your child, the only thing I had left of you, and it should have made me so happy, but I was afraid all the time.
My father would hit me, threaten to injure me so I'd lose the baby.
I almost did, once. Once Matteo was born, everything was threats about taking him away from me.
I was humiliated, treated worse than anyone else in the house, threatened and kept constantly afraid, kept from any possible outside help or friends or contact.
And just before you came, Gio was making it worse, and it was only a matter of time before… "
"Adriana… I thought—"
"You thought I'd be grateful? You thought I'd fall into your arms, and everything would be perfect?"
"I thought you'd want to be free." His voice has that raw sound to it again. "I thought you'd want to get away from him."
"I did want to be free." Tears spill over my lashes, tracking down my cheeks, and I see Lachlan flinch.
I can see him wanting to reach out and wipe them away, but he forces himself to keep his hands at his sides.
"But you didn't free me, Lachlan. You just traded one prison for another.
You didn't ask me what I wanted. You didn't give me a choice.
I lived under the threat of every kind of violence for ten years, with no choices left, and you took mine away, too.
You just assumed I would want this… that I would still love you. "
The silence that follows is suffocating. Lachlan stares at me, and I can see the devastation in his face, the way my words have cut through him. He takes a step toward me, then stops, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides.
"Do you love me?" His voice is so quiet I almost don't hear it. "Do you still love me, Adriana?"
I feel the cracks in my heart splitting open, all the old wounds starting to bleed again.
"I love the boy you were," I whisper. "I love the boy who held my hand and told me we'd run away together.
The one who asked me before he kissed me, who took the blame to save my life, who looked at me like I was the only thing that mattered in the world. But he's gone, Lachlan, and now—"
"I'm still that boy. I'm still him, Adri. I came back for you. I never stopped loving you."
"But I don't know if I believe he's still in there. I've been powerless for so long that I don't even know what I feel anymore. I don't know if what I feel is real or if it's just—just survival. Just me trying to make the best of another impossible situation."
I see the moment Lachlan loses the battle of trying not to touch me. He shifts closer, and his hands come up to cup my face, his thumbs brushing away my tears. "What if I could give you back your power?" His voice is low, intense. "What if I could give you control?"
"What are you talking about?" My voice shakes, and I can feel my heart pounding against my ribs.
"You have no idea the things I've imagined," he says, his voice suddenly shifting, turning rough and dark.
"I've imagined all the ways I'd keep you if I could get you back.
All the ways I'd make you mine. And you're right—I've become a more violent man.
I've killed people. But every single thing I've done, every drop of blood, every step I've taken and choice I've made, was to bring me back to you. "
"Lachlan—"
"You said I've taken away your choices by trying to protect you.
So let me give you a different kind of choice.
Let me show you that with me, you always have the power.
That I will do anything you ask of me." His hands are still on my face, his blue eyes locked on mine.
"I want you to let me do anything I want to you.
Right now. But I want you to fight me if you need to.
Push back. Hit me. Scream. Whatever you need to do.
I'll give you a safe word. One word, and I stop.
No matter what I'm doing, no matter how far we've gone.
Even if I'm inside of you, even if I'm about to come, no matter what, you say the word, and it's over. "
My breath catches in my throat. "You want me to—"
"I want you to take back your power." His eyes are burning with lust and anger and desperation, and he brushes his thumbs against my cheekbones. He shifts closer, pulling me against him, and I feel the hard thickness against my thigh that tells me just how serious he is.