Adrien
Present
I step out of the shower and wrap a towel around my waist, checking my phone for any messages worth opening.
There are none. Still no sign of old Devereaux. When not even Kaden can sniff him out, that means he truly doesn’t like being found or bothered.
One thing is certain. He’s definitely out of state. Actually, two things are certain. He also really doesn’t care about his son and his entire little empire. He’s too powerful to give a shit about any of us, apparently.
The whole situation is… quiet. Like the air right before a storm splits the sky open. I know he’s not letting us run around freely like this. He’s planning something. I just don’t know what yet and that’s the part that makes my skin itch.
He’s torturing us with silence.
My gaze is still glued to the screen when I walk out of my bathroom.
Then I sense her before I even look up. She’s in my room.
I find her standing beside my nightstand, scanning the space like she can’t decide whether she wants to acknowledge me or pretend I’m not here at all.
I toss my phone onto the nearest surface and tighten the towel around my waist, instinctively glancing around for anything I wouldn’t want her to see.
It’s messier than I’d like. Not bad, just… lived in. Maybe I’m just nervous. No one has ever been in here besides Kasien.
Her eyes freeze on her black scrunchie wrapped around the headboard of my bed and she tilts her head, like a puppy trying to recognize an old toy it once buried and forgot about.
Then she turns to me.
She looks like she’s about to go somewhere—fully dressed, leather jacket on, boots on. It makes me uneasy to see her in anything other than sleeping shorts or sporty stuff. Because it makes her look so… independent.
I immediately hate myself for those thoughts but I still can’t fight them. She’s starting to function on her own terms, resisting the constant supervision, which I hate to be holding over her, but I’m also terrified that she will somehow… flee.
She swallows, brows drawing together like she’s about to say something that will hurt one of us. Maybe both.
“He didn’t leave me,” she states, uncertain. “Right?”
The words instantly sting inside my stomach. I don’t answer. I just hold her gaze, the kind that burns straight through bone.
“Did you kill him?” she grits out, her body rigid, like she’s bracing for impact.
I can’t stand hearing those words leave her mouth.
He.
Him.
As if he deserves to be spoken about like that. As if he was something worth preserving. My jaw tightens, my mind supplying a dozen ways I would love to finally kill him.
“No,” I say at last.
The relief that moves through her body is visible. It starts in her shoulders and leaves her in a shaky exhale. And that relief is… painfully truthful.
“Are you going to?” she asks, visibly afraid of the answer in advance.
“Eventually,” I admit. “Yes.”
Her eyes water, but she pushes it down.
I can physically feel my blood starting to boil in my veins.
“If I asked you not to do it,” she says, her voice cracking because she’s swallowing the tears back down, “would you listen?”
She could ask anything of me. Anything in the whole world and I would give it to her without blinking, without thinking.
But this?
“You can’t be seriously asking me that,” I grit out, my tone sharpening more than I intend it to.
“I am,” she replies, steady and unyielding. “I’m asking you not to do it.”
“He abused you.”
“He was there,” she snaps. “Unlike you.”
That lands exactly where she wants it to.
“I didn’t know you were with him. I thought you were safe. I was—” I stop myself before some pathetic excuse has a chance to leave my mouth. “Nat, whatever you think you feel for him,” I grit out, fighting to keep my voice from rising, “it’s not what you think it is.”
She tilts her head, lips parting, fury flashing through her eyes.
“You can’t be seriously telling me what I feel?” she yells.
“I guess I can,” I shoot back and hate myself for it straightaway.
For a split second, she scans the room like she’s genuinely deciding what object would kill me fastest. Which is mildly concerning, considering there are multiple weapons in this room.
Thankfully, her hand closes around an empty glass instead.
Her personal weapon of choice. Favorite one to throw at me, apparently.
It whistles past my head as I duck, the crash of it shattering against the wall behind me and exploding into sharp fragments across the floor, while she’s already pacing furiously.
She reaches the chest of drawers by the window and grabs my biker helmet.
At first, I think she’s going to throw it at me too.
But she takes the keys next.
“What are you doing!” I shout at her, but she’s already by the doors, leaving. “Natalya!”
“Fuck off!” she yells back, already gone from my room, leaving me standing still only in a towel, my eyes wide in terror.
Oh… she didn’t.
She can’t be serious right now.
I break some kind of world record dressing myself, nearly smashing my face into the floor while hopping on one leg trying to drag on the first sneakers I can find. I’m fighting seconds here.
I storm into Kasien’s room next, my vision tunneling straight toward his helmet and keys. There’s a string of curses coming from somewhere to my right, but I don’t even glance at him, let alone explain. I grab what I need and bolt.
By the time I rip the garage doors open, she’s already riding toward the gate. Gone.
“She’s so, so, so dead,” I mutter to myself, already swinging onto Kasien’s bike.
I gun the engine the second it comes to life, but she’s already beyond the gate by the time I hit the driveway.
What the fuck?
I blast forward like I’m trying to outrun my own pulse, which is racing faster with all the things I have no time to think about right now.
As soon as I hit the main road, I see her, far ahead. A black streak. How is she this fast and… smooth? She cuts through the curves like she was born leaning into them, precise and elegant. Too confident for my nerves. Goddammit.
I catch up to her by the time we hit the on-ramp to the highway, but she’s already merging at speed, slipping between two cars with inches to spare. My heart punches against my ribs. Every time she squeezes between vehicles like that, I swear I feel my heart stop for half a second.
She’s trying to shake me.
That’s adorable. Not happening.
Her hair is braided in one long silver tail, weaving on her back, sticking out of the black helmet. My mouth curls despite myself. Of course she rides like a damn maniac.
Of course. Freaking brat.
Under different circumstances, I’d probably die on the spot from how hot she looks riding my bike like this, but right now I’m too busy dying from pure nerve damage.
Traffic thickens in late afternoon chaos.
Cars are packed tight, drivers half asleep and half angry.
And she doesn’t slow down, she just elegantly threads herself through them, clean and surgical and my heart jumps up my throat every time she swooshes through.
I don’t weave like she does. I muscle my way through, aggressively and impatiently as I close the gap, meter by meter.
She darts left. I follow. She drops right. I’m there.
I need to get close enough to connect. I finally slip through the last cars that were dividing us and I push closer, close enough to see the way her head tilts slightly as she checks her mirrors.
I edge up alongside her just enough, trying to line us up, praying to every fucked-up god that she didn’t turn the damn thing off.
I never turn it off, I’m too lazy for that. Let’s hope she doesn’t know how.
I hold the button on Kasien’s helmet, then the bluetooth clicks and a wave of pure relief surges through me.
“Slow down!” I snap.
“Stop following me then,” she replies, entirely calm, clearly enjoying herself far too much.
For a moment, I’m completely disarmed by the way her sweet voice fills my helmet. It sounds so clear, so close and intimate.
I could get used to this. I’d never take the damn thing off if it meant hearing her like this, flooding all my senses at once. I exhale, pushing off the hit of pleasure I didn’t consent to.
“I swear to god,” I grit out. “If you don’t slow down, I’m gonna kill you.”
She giggles.
She fucking giggles and I have another internal orgasm from hearing that ricochet through my helmet like some angel bells.
“You’d have to catch me first,” she retorts with a playful tone.
“Don’t test me Natalya,” I shoot back.
Then she lifts one hand and—
No, no, no, no, no.
She found the button.
Oh God. She hasn’t changed a bit.
The disconnect sound chimes in my ears as I watch her vanish between two other cars, already speeding away again. I push harder to catch up with her, when I realize there are lights coming up and we get a red one.
Thank. Fucking. God.
She eases off just in time and slips neatly in front of a car at the signals, cutting herself into first position like she owns the road.
Nice. Maybe a little rude. But that’s my girl.
Just when I ride past him, the guy in the car she cut off hits the horn—his masculinity apparently too fragile for this—so I lean over and slam my fist into his hood, not hard enough to dent anything, just enough to make a point.
And the honking stops.
I roll forward and stop right next to her, our bikes aligned at the line, knees almost bumping. I reach across, fingers finding the side of her helmet and she shifts slightly, but I’m faster. I press the button and the bluetooth reconnects with a soft click.
“There,” I say calmly. “That’s better.”
“That was totally my fault,” she admits and huffs a silent laugh.
“Not possible,” I answer. “You did nothing wrong, baby.”