Kasien #2
“Actually,” Lucien says, sounding pleased with himself, “I only found out she was your ex after my father ordered the hit on her.” His smile deepens. “I knew you’d react and I was bored out of my mind, so I entertained myself with that little scheme for a while.”
I roll my jaw to keep it in.
“You were bored?” Adrien whips out.
“Immensely.”
“That’s your explanation?”
“I get bored very easily.”
I study him, weighing whether it would feel more satisfying to break his jaw or keep this conversation professional.
“And your cure for boredom,” I say at last, “was kidnapping my ex-girlfriend?”
“Well, yes. Just not so dramatically.” His answer comes instantly. “At the ball, all I wanted was to get you and Adrien into a private room, make a small threat, and assign you the task of killing my father.”
“What the fuck?” Adrien blurts out.
Lucien draws in a slow breath, as though bracing himself for a long explanation he never intended to give.
“Victor was supposed to get Kiara into one of the private rooms. Adrien was supposed to follow, and, naturally, he did.”
He illustrates the sequence with fluid movements of his hands, as if laying out a strategy on an invisible map.
“Then you would’ve walked in, found them both with guns to their heads, and very likely agreed to whatever I asked of you.”
My brows knit together as a wave of nausea rolls through me, the evening replaying itself in my head.
“But this lunatic”—he gestures toward Adrien with a lazy tilt of his chin—“somehow managed to take down the men that were supposed to restrain him, and your hysterical girlfriend stabbed Victor with a dagger before I even made it there.” He blinks once. “Honestly, what the hell?”
Despite everything, a proud smile tugs at the corner of my mouth. I glance at Adrien, and he answers with a shameless wink.
“What can I say?” he mumbles under his breath. “I’m built different.”
I shake my head, fighting another smile, then turn my focus back to Lucien.
“So that was your grand plan?” I ask, unable to hide the crooked grin.
“It wasn’t particularly grand.” Lucien shrugs. “It was actually rather straightforward.”
“Straightforward?” Adrien barks out a bitter laugh. “You almost got us fucking killed in that car crash.”
“I wasn’t driving,” Lucien corrects calmly. “But yes, I’m… moderately sorry about that.” He gives a polite nod before letting out a quiet chuckle. “Thank God you survived. I genuinely had no idea what I would’ve done with her otherwise.”
I swallow hard, every instinct screaming at me to do something stupid while I force myself to remain perfectly still.
“And it never occurred to you to simply let us know where you were and invite us over for a good old-fashioned negotiation?”
“No,” Lucien answers flatly.
“So instead you waited until we wiped out your entire entourage?”
“Yes.” He nods once. “Again, I saw an opportunity and took it.”
“Opportunity?” Adrien echoes, his voice sharpening. “All those people? Those were your people.”
“Not mine.” Lucien shakes his head. “Not really.”
I lift an eyebrow.
“Some of them were loyal to my father, not me,” he explains with unsettling patience. “Some were feeding him information about everything I did. I was never entirely sure who was involved, so…” He gives the smallest shrug. “It presented a convenient occasion to remove all of them.”
He rolls one shoulder before cracking his knuckles, looking absurdly comfortable discussing a massacre.
“All of them?” I ask quietly, appalled. “And you don’t care?”
“No.”
“Not even a little?”
“No,” he repeats without the slightest hesitation. “I simply don’t experience emotions the way you do.”
My arms fold across my chest as I stare at him, trying to decide whether this is some elaborate joke. Then I glance at Adrien, completely at a loss, only to find him squinting at Lucien with an expression that suggests something has just clicked into place.
“You’re a psychopath,” Adrien concludes.
Lucien gives a small nod, very unbothered.
“Yes.”
“Like…” Adrien pushes himself off the wall. “Like an actual fucking psychopath.”
“Diagnosed, yes.” Lucien shrugs as though he’s mentioning a mild pollen allergy.
Adrien and I arrive at the same conclusion without a word. He slowly shakes his head, looking very offended that he didn’t figure it out sooner, while I replay every encounter I’ve ever had with Lucien.
He was always so manipulative, unnervingly calm, and cold enough to make everyone around him feel disposable. So why the hell did it never occur to me who I was really dealing with?
“And now,” Adrien says, “you’re just telling us all of this? No mind games and no manipulation? What the fuck?”
“Why not?” Lucien replies simply.
He rests his palms on his thighs and pats them once, the chains around his wrist clinking softly with the movement.
“I don’t want to be your enemy any longer. Don’t you understand that?”
“Not even remotely,” Adrien says.
Lucien sighs, looking almost inconvenienced.
“Perhaps my methods were a bit excessive,” he admits. “But all I ever wanted was for you to eliminate my father. In return, I would’ve let you both disappear and live whatever lives you wanted.”
“And we’re supposed to believe that?” I scoff. “After you took my sister? After you kidnapped my girlfriend? Now that it’s painfully obvious you’re going to die, you suddenly want to be friends?”
Lucien rolls his eyes.
“I may have psychopathic traits,” he says evenly, “but I’m still a gentleman. I never intended to harm her.”
His gaze drifts between me and Adrien as though he genuinely expects that explanation to help.
“Then why take her in the first place?” I ask, returning to the question he keeps avoiding. “You could’ve threatened us with Natalya the whole time.”
For the first time since we walked in, he doesn’t answer immediately. His eyes lower to the chain hanging from his wrists, following its links in silence.
“I wasn’t ready to give Natalya away,” he says at last before looking back up.
“But in the garage you said you were willing to let her go too.”
“Yeah.” He shrugs faintly. “I changed my mind.”
I tilt my head, studying him. For the first time in this entire conversation, I’m almost certain Lucien is lying.
Adrien finally moves, pushing himself off the doorframe and taking a few slow steps toward Lucien. I shoot him a quick warning look, but he doesn’t even acknowledge it. He crouches in front of Lucien, shaking his head.
“So you went through all that trouble over the years,” Adrien says quietly. “Paying off or threatening Bryan to lie to us. Keeping Natalya hidden. Keeping her by your side.” He studies Lucien’s face for a moment. “Only to suddenly change your mind?”
Lucien swallows, never taking his eyes off him.
“Yes.”
“And what made you change your mind, may I ask?”
Lucien’s eyes drop to the ground once again—enough for me to see that he’s lying through his teeth.
“I suppose,” he says quietly, “I got bored of her too.”
Adrien stays quiet as he grabs the chain secured around Lucien’s ankle and pulls until Lucien is nearly flat on the ground. Then he pounces on him and begins beating him mercilessly.
I stand there, watching with a surprising amount of delight and relief. Adrien keeps going, and every hit stirs something inside me to the point that I just let him do what he does best—unleash.
Blood starts coating his knuckles, and every punch is accompanied by the sickening sound of flesh meeting flesh and the occasional low grunt from Lucien as he tries to endure it without making a sound.
After what feels like enough, I step in and pull Adrien away, gently at first, trying to bring him back to himself.
When he finally stops, he looks up at me, then back at Lucien, who’s lying limp on the floor now, breathing heavily through a bloodied face yet still refusing to make a sound.
“That’s enough,” I say quietly.
Adrien gets to his feet and storms out of the basement without another word. Lucien rolls onto his side to spit out blood, then lowers himself onto his back.
“He’s not ready to hear it,” Lucien mumbles. “But you can’t kill me,” he adds, looking up at me with blood pouring from his nose and pooling at the corner of his mouth.
I merely raise an eyebrow, far too exhausted with him to ask what the hell he’s talking about this time.
“Natalya would never forgive you if you killed me,” he says simply.
Then, despite the blood smeared across his face, he somehow manages the faintest hint of a smile before I turn around and head out of the basement as well.
The second I step out of there, I rub the back of my neck, desperately trying to smooth away the goosebumps his words left behind. But the realization keeps settling deeper into my nervous system, my pulse quickening as the truth sinks in.
Whatever the hell happened between them over the years, I can’t ignore it.
He’s right.
She would never forgive me.
However we’re about to get out of this mess, Lucien will probably have to get out of it alive as well if I want my sister back.