Chapter 95: The Edges Start To Fray
ADRIEN’S POV
Everything in my body hurts, but the pain inside my head is by far the worst.
It feels like I’m fucking dying.
The pain is a heavy, blinding throb that echoes right behind my eyes, beating in sync with the uneven rhythm of my heart.
Every pulse sends a hot spike of agony through my temples, making my vision swim before I even attempt to open my eyes.
God. It fucking hurts.
My mouth tastes like copper, saliva, and stale dust. I draw a long, shaky breath, bracing myself for the burning stench of gasoline and hot metal that filled my lungs before I passed out on the road.
Instead, my lungs fill with something entirely different.
Dry, warm wood. Lemon furniture polish. The subtle, dry undertone of expensive aged wine.
My eyelids drag open, feeling impossibly heavy and scratchy, as if someone had rubbed dry sand across them while I was unconscious.
My eyelashes are stiff, joined together by dried blood and sweat, but I force them apart, wincing against the light.
The ceiling above me isn’t the open, pitch-black winter sky. It isn’t the crumpled, smoking roof of a flipped sedan.
Instead, it’s a wide, clear stretch of cream-colored plaster, crisscrossed by heavy dark wooden beams and lit by the soft, golden glow of large lamps set into the ceiling.
I lie completely still for a few seconds, letting my senses piece the world back together bit by bit.
I’m on a sofa. Somehow. The fabric beneath my back is plush velvet, supporting my weight without pressing hard into my injuries.
I try to shift my legs just an inch, bracing myself for the tearing, crushing pain of broken bones, but all I feel is a dull, muffled ache.
I lift my head slightly and look down at myself.
My expensive formal suit jacket, courtesy of Orion, is gone. My white dress shirt has been unbuttoned at the collar and pulled open across my chest. Beneath the linen, thick bands of fresh white gauze are wrapped securely around my ribs, pulled tight enough to offer support without suffocating me.
My arms are covered in dark bruises, patterned with ugly purple and yellow marks from the crash, but small strips of clean surgical tape cover the worst of the glass cuts along my forearms.
Someone cleaned the dried blood from my skin. Someone wrapped my bruised ribs with practiced, professional efficiency.
Fear, cold and sharp, instantly spikes through the lingering fog in my brain, cutting through the numbing effect of whatever sedative Leon injected into me hours ago.
Who touched me? Where the hell am I?
I force myself to sit up. The movement is a terrible mistake. The entire room spins violently, the golden light from the lamps smearing into long, disorienting streaks of yellow across my field of vision.
A harsh gasp rips from my throat as my bruised ribs protest the sudden shift, but I clench my teeth so hard my jaw aches, refusing to let another sound escape into the quiet room.
I swing my legs over the edge of the velvet sofa, my bare feet sinking into the deep pile of a dark rug.
I’m completely alone.
I force myself to stand up, but my knees instantly buckle under my weight. My vision spots with black dots as a massive wave of dizziness hits me, forcing me to throw my right hand out to catch the edge of a heavy wooden side table before I can hit the floor. I stand there for a long, agonizing moment, my head hanging low, my chest heaving, waiting for the floor to stop tilting beneath my bare feet.
Once my balance settles into a shaky, fragile baseline, I take in my surroundings properly.
I’m in a massive, ridiculously lavish private room. To my left sits a custom dark-wood bar, its polished glass shelves lined with rows of crystal decanters and absurdly expensive bottles of wine.
Across from the sofa where I woke up sits a wide executive desk made of solid, polished wood, completely clutter-free except for a single antique brass lamp.
The walls are covered in dark silk wallpaper, framed by massive, museum-grade oil paintings depicting stormy seas and abstract gold shapes.
Who the fuck actually buys paintings like these?
I’ve never been in this room before. I’ve never even seen a photograph of a place like this in any of the high-society architectural magazines my stepmother used to keep on the coffee table.
So, where the hell am I?
My mind races, frantically trying to find an anchor, a clue, anything to make sense of where I’ve been brought. Is this Leon’s private suite? Did that bastard thing have a secret lair buried somewhere in the city where he takes his victims to do his dirty work?
Then, the static in my head clears just a little more, and the last moments before I lost consciousness slam back into my memory with the force of a freight train.
The blinding headlights cutting through the night smoke. The smell of burning rubber. The crushed metal of the transport sedan. The heavy, unhurried boots walking over shattered glass on the asphalt. And then, a tall shadow leaning down over my broken body, speaking in a low, chilling tone.
Japanese.
My breath catches in my throat. My hands start to tremble, the physical reaction so sudden and uncontrollable that I instantly ball them into tight fists, digging my fingernails into my palms until the sharp pain grounds me.
It wasn’t Leon. Leon was just the middleman, the pathetic, desperate rat who set the trap in the church hallway.
I’ve been taken by Masamune.
The realization drops into my stomach like a block of heavy ice. The small, petty arguments between Leon Vassilis and me don’t mean a single thing here.
I’m completely out of my depth, caught in the net of a shadow organization that operates far above the drama of high-society ballrooms and church engagement parties.
I need to get out. Right now.
