Adrien #2
“Are you fucking laughing?” he whisper-shouts.
“No,” I lie and clear my throat in an attempt to regain control of myself. “But tell me something,” I force out through a smile.
He raises his eyebrows, waiting for the question.
“How many times were you in this apartment?” I ask and stare at him while his face drains of color even more.
“That’s none of your business,” he mutters, suddenly finding the bathroom tiles fascinating.
My smile spreads across my face because he’s thoroughly adorable. I knew something about the address had been nagging at me. I saw him at this location before.
“You selfish bastard!” I whisper-shout.
“Excuse me?” He shoots up, offended.
“You’ve been lecturing me to stop obsessing, to move on. And meanwhile…” I huff a laugh. “You were stalking your ex!” I accuse him.
“Shut up, that’s not—”
“It is.”
“I wasn’t stalking her.”
“You seem pretty damn well acquainted with that address.”
“That doesn’t mean I was stalking her,” he grits out.
“You know the floor. You know the apartment. I bet you know where she keeps spare towels too.”
“That’s not—I’m not—I hate her.”
“Yeah...” I drawl, giving him one long, deeply judgmental glare. “Sure. I almost forgot,” I murmur more to myself.
“I need you to take her to the manor and help her when she wakes up,” he adds hesitantly. “I need to stay here and take care of something.”
I rest my hands in my pockets, pacing the space.
“What else could you possibly need to take care of here?” My gaze drops toward Kiara. “You seem to have handled the situation perfectly so far.”
“Someone is coming to kill her. Soon,” he adds.
“Oh… damn. Sorry.”
The humor and irony evaporate quickly. Suddenly the unconscious woman on the floor, the panic in Kasien’s voice, the middle-of-the-night phone call and the fact that he drugged her all snap together into one ugly picture. This isn’t ridiculous anymore.
This is bad.
“Let me take care of that then,” I offer. “I’ll stay here and deal with whoever’s coming. We can call Michael and have him look after her.”
“No,” he jumps in. “I need you to be there when she wakes up. Michael is too…” he searches for the right word. “Scary.”
I huff a laugh. “And I’m not?”
He gives me a half-smile. “No.”
“I can be scary,” I state, very offended.
His smile widens slightly before he lowers himself beside Kiara again, his attention immediately drifting back to her as if I’ve ceased to exist.
I watch him carefully move another strand of hair away from her face and have to physically fight myself to not comment on it.
I do anyway.
“The hatred is so strong it’s practically steaming off you,” I say with all the sincerity I can fake. “I’m a little scared.”
He rolls his eyes. “Take her to the big room in the first wing.”
“Okay, fine,” I breathe out and step forward.
I crouch beside Kiara and reach toward her, trying to slip one arm under her knees and the other under her back, until Kasien launches himself across the bathroom and shoves me away.
“What the hell are you doing?” he whisper-shouts, sounding genuinely horrified.
I stagger back a step and stare at him, spreading my hands in disbelief, my eyes widening, utterly lost with this psychopath.
“You told me to take her to the manor!” I defend myself.
“Yeah but don’t touch her like that you idiot!”
I blink.
There is absolutely no way my eyes can widen any further, yet somehow they manage.
“And how exactly am I supposed to take her, you genius?” I ask. “Did you happen to notice she’s unconscious?”
His leg starts bouncing annoyingly once again.
“What car did you take?” he asks, the lightbulb sparking above his head nearly visible to the naked eye.
“Black Rover.”
“There’s a gym bag in the back. Can you bring it?”
I roll my jaw.
“Please,” he finally adds.
“That’s better.”
Without another comment, I turn around and head for the door. A few minutes later I’m out of the apartment, down the elevator and back at the Rover, but the whole way there I can’t stop thinking about what this means.
This is really bad. This is going to stir stuff. This means betrayal. This means trouble. A lot of trouble.
And yet I can’t help the rush spreading through me, similar to the feeling when life takes a turn that’s about to either end up really badly or… something else. I can’t help the feeling that something is changing. For the first time in a very long while, it feels like something is shifting.
Before I realize it, I’m wearing a half-smile the entire way back upstairs.
I return to the apartment and drop the gym bag onto the floor beside Kasien, while I remain standing outside the bathroom, watching him.
From the bag, he takes out his sweatshirt and something else, then reaches toward Kiara and glances back at me before doing anything.
“Can you fuck off?” he barks at me.
I grin.
“This is so messed up, you know that?”
“And yet you’re laughing, so get out,” he concludes.
I turn around and wander around her apartment for a bit, twirling the car keys around my finger and giving Kasien a few minutes to finish whatever stage of the kidnapping we’re currently in.
The place is surprisingly cozy.
Large loft-style windows stretch across one wall, running from floor to ceiling, letting pale city light spill across the dark wooden floors and equally dark furniture.
Books seem to occupy every available surface, stacked on shelves, windowsills, and side tables. If I ignored the city outside the windows, I could almost convince myself I was back at the manor in Kasien’s room.