Adrien #3
“No.” Her voice detonates. “I don’t want to belong to anyone anymore!” she yells, her voice heightening with fury, and that last sentence just shows me how deep the knife can go.
“And I won’t belong to you ever again,” she states with a painful tone of finality.
There’s a specific tone people use when they’ve already left someone in their mind.
That’s the tone.
She lets the sentence settle between us, lets it punch exactly where she wants it to, and even though her eyes flicker with something softer or something wounded, I can’t ignore how finished it sounds.
I have nothing left to fight with. She’s not wrong. She’s terrifyingly right. I just believed there was nothing strong enough to take her away from me. I was so convinced, arrogant, and so fucking foolish.
She marches toward the staircase—toward me—her movements decisive. And just as she tries to step around me, just as she tries to put as much distance between us as possible, I reach for her on instinct and—
Steel flashes between us. She pulls out a knife and points it at me.
“Don’t,” she snaps as she’s continuing to circle around me, trying to escape the space I’m blocking.
I stare at the knife and realize it’s the one, hers, the professional throwing knife she drove into my thigh in the garage.
The sight of it makes me realize something I keep forgetting.
This isn’t the bratty, adorable, reckless girl I used to overpower with ease. This Natalya in front of me is something lethal now. Unpredictable, strong, fearless, slightly unhinged, and neither version of her ever tolerated being handled gently.
Fine. If she wants to point a blade at me—
I move before she expects it.
With one hand, I clamp around her wrist, the one holding the knife, gripping hard enough to control the angle.
My other hand slides behind her forearm, locking her arm in place.
And then I pull her in and drag her toward me with it.
Her eyes widen in shock when the tip of the blade is suddenly pressed against my bare stomach.
“What are you doing!” she yells, panic breaking through the fury.
She immediately shoots her free hand forward, grabbing her own wrist, trying to wrench the knife back. She pulls with all her strength, trying to angle the blade away from me, failing adorably.
Her strength surprises me. It’s still not enough though.
“Stop!” she yells.
My fingers tighten around her wrist, keeping the blade right where it is. Not breaking skin, but enough to sting. My gaze flashes back to the blood smeared around her mouth. To whatever goodbye she gave him and I let the rage spike again.
“If you’re going to point your knife at me,” I grit out through clenched teeth, tightening my hold once more, forcing her to feel how close it is, how easy it would be. “Then you better mean it.”
And then I let go. Completely.
The sudden release sends her stumbling backward. She had been pulling with all her strength and there’s suddenly nothing to counterbalance her.
She stumbles hard, her feet tangling against the edge of the staircase, her arm flying back as she struggles to catch herself. She nearly falls, barely managing to regain her balance, one hand gripping the railing, eyes wide.
Fuck.
What the hell have I done? What is wrong with me?
I quickly reach out to grab her, but she jerks away, of course. Bile rises up my throat since the distance between us is bigger than it has ever been.
My lips part. I want to say how sorry I am, how fucking sorry I am for being like this. But she stumbles up the stairs and disappears in her bedroom door before I can force the words out.
I walk up the stairs and her doors fly open again, only for my T-shirt and my phone I left in there flying out before she shuts the door and with that finalizes this moment.
I’ve lost her. I can’t believe I fucked up and lost her again. Kas and Nat are all I’ve got. It can’t be just Kas anymore. It just can’t.
I stumble into my room only to collapse onto my sofa, while scrolling through the call history in my phone, searching for the right name, then I make the call, purely out of the deep hollow despair and need to reach for something to pull me out.
He picks up instantly, as always.
“Adrien—”
“Kaden,” I cut in, too urgent, forcing my voice to sound controlled, adult or sane. “Did you find him?”
“Devereaux? I think—”
“No.” My voice sharpens. “Damiano. I mean Damiano.”
There’s a moment of silence on the other line, then I hear him sigh from exhaustion. I can practically see him closing his eyes on the other end, pinching the bridge of his nose like he’s done this too many times before.
“I don’t know what to tell you anymore,” he says finally.
His tone tries to be gentle, but underneath it there’s something worn down.
“You’ve been calling me with this every few months for years. And my answer is always the same.”
“What about the face recognition program?” I grit out, ruffling my hair nervously. My voice trembles despite my effort to keep it level. “The new one. The updated one. You said it’s better.”
“Nothing,” he says flatly. “As always. Nothing. I would call you if I had something.”
I press my palm into my face, dragging it down slowly, phone still glued to my ear like it might deliver a different answer if I squeeze hard enough.
“Adrien,” he continues. “There’s nothing except the prison files we went through years ago.”
I don’t answer.
“I think—” he starts.
A shaky exhale escapes me before I can stop it, like something fractured.
“He’s gone,” Kaden says, measured, like he’s speaking to someone standing on the edge of a building. “You know?”
That spikes another anger in me.
“No,” I snap instantly, sitting up fully now. “He was unkillable. He was never even sick. He was bigger than anyone I know, Kaden.”
Towering. Invincible. Hands that could wrap around my entire head. A voice that made me go silent every time I was talking shit. He used to laugh like the world belonged to him.
He couldn’t die.
Men like him don’t die.
Kaden sighs again, as if he’s talking to a lunatic and getting tired of it.
“You were nine when you last saw him, Adrien,” he says with quiet patience. “I think your perception of him might be a little—”
“Jesus fucking Christ, Kaden!” I shout before he can say distorted or delusional or childish.
I hurl the phone out of my hand, tossing it somewhere beside me. Silence fills the room again.
?
Hours go by.
I let my head fall back against the sofa, sprawled across it, stripped of any reason to get up whatsoever.
The next thing I register is Kasien sitting down beside me. I didn’t even hear him walk in.
“She didn’t mean it,” he murmurs quietly.
“She did. And worse—she’s right.”
He buries his face in his palms, neither of us sure if we should just pack our shit and run for our lives, or stay and fight for something resembling freedom.
“How did she even get him out?” I ask eventually. “How did no one notice?”
His leg keeps bouncing on the floor.
“She stole the keys to one of the cars and gave it to him.”
“Fuck.”
“At night,” he adds. “The guys assumed it was either me or you.”
“Of course they did.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose while everything around me seems to be collapsing into one huge catastrophe.
Then his phone rings on the table in front of us.
Both of us jerk upright, our gazes snapping first to each other, then to the unknown number flashing across the screen.
“What the hell is that?” he murmurs.
Neither of us reaches for it at first and my pulse climbs into dangerous territory.
“Probably one of them?” I shrug.
Finally, Kas accepts the call and switches it to speaker.
“I called my father,” Lucien’s ragged voice cuts through the silence, every word slow and uneven through the damage to his face. “Told him you let me go.”
Neither of us says a word.
We just stare at each other across the phone between us as panic quietly fills the space.
“He’ll be landing at a private airstrip about an hour away. Tonight.”
My eyes widen with hope and purpose.
“This is your chance to get him,” Lucien continues. “I’m fucking begging you… take it. There won’t be another.”
Kas lets out a humorless laugh.
“We’re supposed to believe you?”
“Do you have a better idea?” he wheezes into the microphone, visibly struggling with talking.
My eyes roll backward so hard I nearly see inside my head, because I know damn well he’s right.
“My offer still stands. If you get rid of him, you’ll never hear about me again.”
I tilt my head, my jaw rolling, something uncomfortable buzzing under my skin—I can’t believe he’s still on it.
“You’re telling me I cut up your face and you’re still willing to keep your word?” I scoff a humorless laugh. “I find that hard to believe.”
“So do I, but,” he exhales shakily. “You lost six years. I lost some skin. Consider us even.”
Me and Kas share one weary look, then he nods, as if he’s reconciled with this.
“Fine,” Kasien announces.
“He’ll be landing around six pm. I’ll text you the place,” Lucien adds before the line goes dead.
We remain frozen in place and thoroughly stunned.
“So we believe him?” I bite out with an accusing tone.
“Yeah,” Kasien exhales simply. “It’s obvious he’s going to keep his word.”
I stay silent. I know what he’s about to say and I just fold my arms on my chest, waiting for him to do it, because I’m not physically capable of it yet.
“He didn’t get bored of my sister,” he says. “He’s doing this for her. He’s setting us free for her.”
“Yeah.” I nod. “I know.”