Owned By The Psychotic Billionaire (Mafia BL)

ADRIEN’S POV

The heavy door of my bedroom clicks shut behind me, the sound echoing through the quiet, carpeted hallway like a bomb going off.

I stand on the plush carpet for a few seconds, closing my eyes and drawing in a slow, deep breath. The air out here tastes slightly different from the air inside my room.

It lacks that stale, trapped quality of a space where someone has been forced to sit and stare at the four walls for seven straight days.

I’m finally out.

It took a full week. Seven long, agonizing, mind-numbing days trapped inside my own bedroom simply because Orion decided I was not allowed to set foot past the threshold until I spent the exact same amount of time in my room as I spent kidnapped.

It was a foolish, rude, and entirely absurd thing to expect anyone to do.

Any normal person would have let someone who just survived a kidnapping recover or rest in peace without imposing a strict house arrest sentence on top of it.

But it’s Orion. So, somehow, it was completely expected. Logic doesn’t apply to that man. It never has, and it never will.

I flex my fingers, feeling the heavy metal band wrapped around my left ring finger. It feels like a miniature chain anchored to my soul.

Now, I’m finally walking downstairs for the first time in a week to take breakfast in the main dining hall.

This will be my first breakfast away from that lumbering mass of madness. Orion is nowhere in sight this morning, having departed early for some business at his office that I don’t even care to know.

Before he left at dawn, he leaned over the side of my bed and swore up and down that since secrets are the bane of all marriages, he would always tell me the truth from now on.

I wonder what gave him the idea that this marriage was between two willing people?

He even solemnly promised he would never prank me, as if locking a fresh tracking chip inside my platinum wedding ring was just a harmless little practical joke between newlyweds.

I rub my temple with my right hand, my slippers making light, soft thuds against the polished wooden steps as I head down the grand staircase.

The silence of the mansion stretches out around me, vast and suffocating.

My mind isn’t on breakfast. It isn’t even on Orion’s psychotic wedding plans. I’m looking for Leon.

That rat bastard disappeared into thin air right after he tried to kidnap me. He vanished the moment the chaos broke out, leaving behind a trail of unanswered questions.

But Orion has eyes everywhere in this city. His network covers every dark alley and high-end district alike. It’s only a matter of time until Leon is dragged out of whatever dark hole he is hiding in.

It wasn’t even until Orion brought up Leon’s name yesterday afternoon that I fully remembered that day in the church hallways.

My hand moves up to touch the side of my neck, my fingertips tracing the clean skin right above my collarbone.

There is no scar there anymore, but I can still feel the ghost of that sharp, freezing pain.

I remember standing face to face with Leon in those quiet church corridors. I remember listening to his slick, calm, deceptive voice, thinking he was just spewing more bullshit to make me feel for him.

And then, without an ounce of warning, that thin needle had sunk deep into the side of my throat. The darkness had rushed in immediately, cutting off my sight, my breath, and my balance all at once.

It’s because of that rat bastard that I ended up in Masamune’s hands in the first place.

I press my back against the carved wooden banister, pausing halfway down the stairs as the weight of the past week hits me all at once.

I could have died. In fact, if I’m being completely honest with myself, I should have died. How the hell am I even still alive right now?

Masamune is not a group known for mercy. They don’t take hostages just to hand them back unharmed. Yet I walked out of that whole ordeal alive, breathing, and completely whole.

My coming back alive like that should have been a massive red flag to Orion. A man like Orion never misses anything. He notices every micro-expression, every minor hesitation, every tiny shift in the atmosphere.

He reads people like open books written in simple language. He should have suspected me the second I turned up. He should have assumed I turned, or that I made a deal, or that I was being used as a Trojan horse to tear his empire down from the inside.

Orion should have killed me.

Damn it. He should have taken one look at me, dragged me down to his basement, stripped off his expensive tailored clothes, and tied me to a heavy chair.

I should be spilling my guts right now—both literally and figuratively—in a dark, freezing room somewhere, while Orion is elbows deep in my intestines looking for answers.

That’s how the world works. That’s how the dangerous men who run these criminal empires operate when something does not add up.

Instead, Orion tied me to him through legal marriage. He put a thick platinum band on my finger, locked a tracking chip inside it, and moved me into his life permanently like a prized possession.

I let out a low, breathless laugh that sounds hollow in the empty stairwell. I push off the banister and continue my slow walk down to the ground floor.

I really cannot make any sense of what my life has become over these past few weeks. Nothing makes sense anymore. The rules I grew up learning do not apply in this house.

Up is down, left is right, and the terrifying man who should have put a bullet through my skull or sliced me open on an interrogation table is currently acting like a possessive, devoted husband.

Fuck. He really thinks this marriage is real.

I reach the bottom of the staircase and cross the foyer. My slippers make faint clicking sounds against the cold floor. The smell of fresh coffee, toasted sourdough, and fried eggs floats down the long hallway, drifting out from the sunlit dining hall.

My stomach gives a faint rumble, reminding me that I’ve barely eaten anything solid since Orion put me on his house arrest routine. But as I get closer to the double doors of the dining room, my feet grow heavier.

I don’t want to deal with people today. I don’t want to answer polite questions about how I am feeling, and I certainly do not want to pretend that everything is normal while wearing a ring that binds me to a lunatic.

I push open the heavy double doors of the dining hall, stepping into the warm morning light that streams through the floor-to-ceiling windows.

The long marble breakfast table is laid out with an extravagant spread of fresh fruit, warm pastries, silver carafes of coffee, and covered serving dishes. The room is quiet, bathed in golden light, and completely empty.

For a brief, naive second, I think I’m going to get to eat in peace.

I walk over to the middle of the table, pulling out a heavy high-backed chair. I wince slightly as a dull ache pulses through my muscles from being cooped up in bed for a week, and I sit down with a quiet sigh.

I reach out with one hand, grabbing the handle of the silver coffee carafe to pour myself a cup.

Before the black liquid can even hit the bottom of my porcelain mug, the heavy oak doors click open once more.

Two pairs of synchronized footsteps, one heavy and one light, slide across the floor, heading straight toward my side of the table.

I don’t even have to look up from my empty plate to know who is coming. The precise, heavy rhythm of their footsteps against the polished floorboards tells me everything before either of them even touches the back of a chair.

Niko and Alexis pull out the high-backed seats directly to my left and right, sitting down in smooth, practiced unison like two gossipers settling in for a meal.

I instantly feel suffocated. The wide, sunlit dining hall suddenly feels as narrow as a cheap wooden coffin.

The rich, sweet smell of fresh coffee in my mug turns sour in my throat. I set the silver carafe down with a sharp, clinking thud and stare straight ahead at the crisp white tablecloth.

I let the silence stretch for three full, agonizing seconds before opening my mouth.

"What is this?" I ask, my voice dripping with dry, biting sarcasm as I finally look between them. "Are you two here to shove food down my throat, or did Orion leave strict written orders for you to watch me chew?"

Alexis, sitting to my right, does not flinch at my tone.

He doesn’t snap back, roll his eyes, or show even a flicker of irritation. He simply smooths down the front of his neat, dark shirt and rests his forearms against the edge of the table.

His expression is completely calm, his posture relaxed.

"We’re just sitting down to eat breakfast, Adrien," Alexis says softly, his tone as smooth and even as still water. "And I’m just happy to see that you are back safe and sound."