Chapter 17

Lucia’s POV

The blood was still wet on my blouse.

I could feel it seeping into the fabric, sticky against my skin, clinging to me like a brand I would never wash away. My lungs burned as I dragged in a breath that refused to fill me, and my knees threatened to give out.

But anger—raw, trembling, and reckless—fought its way up through the shock, wrapping around my throat until I couldn’t hold it back anymore.

“Why?” My voice cracked, not from fear this time but fury. I lifted my head, eyes locking on Adrian. “Why did you do that?”

His gaze was steady, calm in that terrifying way of his, as though he had done nothing more than swat an insect. The men behind us still stood frozen, too afraid to even blink. But me—I couldn’t keep still. My blood roared in my ears, demanding answers.

“I was interrogating him,” I snapped, my hands trembling as I pointed at the crimson smear across the concrete floor. “That was my job. Mine. And you just—” I choked, swallowing down the bile rising in my throat. “You just shot him like he was nothing. Even if he insulted me, I could’ve handled it.”

His brow arched, the faintest flicker of amusement twisting his lips. “Handled it?” His tone dripped with condescension. “You think words were going to fix what was festering in that man? His disrespect wasn’t just aimed at you, Lucia. It was aimed at me. At everything I’ve built.”

I shook my head, the sting of tears pressing against my eyes, though I refused to let them fall. “No. Don’t twist this. He was angry, yes, but he wasn’t beyond reason. You didn’t give me the chance to—”

“You had your chance.” Adrian’s voice cut sharp, silencing even the crickets outside. He stepped closer, and I instinctively drew back, though the crate behind me kept me from retreating far. “And you failed.”

My chest heaved. “Failed? He was still talking! He was—”

“—disrespecting you,” Adrian finished, his voice dropping lower, and getting dangerously calm. “And by extension, me. That cannot stand, not in front of the others. Do you think they would’ve spoken if I had let him live? Do you think they would’ve respected your questions if I allowed his outburst to go unpunished? No, Lucia. You don’t understand this world.”

Something inside me snapped.

“I don’t want to understand this world!” My voice rang out louder than I’d intended, echoing across the warehouse walls. Every man in the yard flinched, eyes darting nervously to Adrian as though I’d just signed my own death sentence.

But I couldn’t stop. The anger had taken root, swelling like wildfire.

“When I applied for this job, I signed up to use my mind. To ask questions. To investigate. Not to stand here with blood on my clothes because you can’t control your temper!” I jabbed a finger at the crimson splatter on my blouse, my throat raw. “You don’t get to decide that every problem ends with a bullet.”

His eyes narrowed, a storm flickering there. “You think this is about temper?” His voice was soft but it shook the ground beneath me. “No, Lucia. This is about order. About fear. Do you have any idea how fragile power is? One man questions me, mocks me, and suddenly the rest believe they can too. That’s how empires crumble. That’s how leaders die.”

I clenched my fists so hard my nails dug into my palms. “Then maybe your empire isn’t worth saving if it requires you to kill someone for looking at you the wrong way!”

The silence that followed was suffocating. Every guard shifted, their gazes glued to Adrian, waiting for the explosion.

His jaw tightened, his hands folding neatly behind his back like a king in judgment. “Careful, Lucia.” His voice had dropped to a near whisper, but it was sharper than any blade. “You forget your place.”

“My place?” The words tore from me, bitter and furious. “You hired me to be useful, not to be your decoration. I’m not your pet, Mr Adrian, and I won’t stand here and pretend like what you just did was anything but murder!”

His eyes flashed with danger and amusement warring in their depths. He stepped closer, and instinct screamed at me to back away, but I forced myself to stay rooted, even as his presence towered over me.

“You’re bold tonight,” he murmured, the corner of his mouth twitching. “But let me remind you of something. You are my employee. You work for me. That means you don’t get to dictate how I run my business, or how I deal with insubordination.”

My chest tightened. “No. What it means is that I agreed to do a job, and nowhere in that agreement did it say I’d be part of executions.” My voice trembled, but I forced the words out. “You can’t just keep hiding behind that word—‘employee’—to justify dragging me deeper into things I never chose.”

The faint smile vanished from his face. His expression hardened, and for the first time, his voice rose.

“You knew what you were stepping into the moment you walked through my doors!” His words cracked like a whip, and the guards stiffened. “Don’t stand there and play innocent. You knew who I was, what I was, and you still signed your name. Unless—” His eyes narrowed dangerously. “—you had something else in mind.”

My breath caught in my throat “What?”

“Unless,” he continued, his tone laced with suspicion, “you thought you could play both sides. Use this job for your own gain. Information. Protection. A shield from the very people who should’ve destroyed you by now. Tell me, Lucia—what exactly did you think you were getting into when you begged for this position?”

“I didn’t beg,” I snapped, though my heart hammered against my ribs. “I applied. I took a chance because I needed a job. A normal job.”

“Normal?” Adrian’s laugh was cold, humorless. “There’s nothing normal about me. Nothing normal about my world. If you wanted normal, you should’ve walked away the second you stepped into my office. But you didn’t. You stayed.”

“Because I didn’t know!” The words ripped out of me, louder than ever. “I didn’t know I’d be standing in blood! I didn’t know that my work would be used as an excuse for your violence!” My chest heaved, every word tearing my throat raw. “Don’t you dare act like this was some choice I made with my eyes open.”

He stared at me, his jaw tight, his breathing slow and deliberate, like he was reining something in.

“Then why are you still here?” His voice dropped low, so low it felt like a blade pressed against my neck. “If it’s so unbearable, if my world disgusts you so much—why haven’t you run?”

The question struck me harder than I expected.

Why hadn’t I?

My throat tightened, the words dying before they could even form. Because the truth was messy, complicated, bound up in fear and something darker I couldn’t admit even to myself.

Adrian watched me struggle, and a cruel satisfaction flickered in his gaze. “That’s what I thought.”

I snapped back before I could stop myself. “Don’t flatter yourself. The only reason I’m still here is because I don’t have the luxury of leaving!” My voice trembled with rage. “Because walking away from you isn’t just quitting—it’s a death sentence. Isn’t it?”

His silence was all the answer I needed.

The warehouse seemed to press in around us, every shadow heavy with the weight of his authority. I swallowed hard, my anger crackling against the sharp edge of fear, my chest burning as though I couldn’t breathe.

“You’re a monster,” I whispered, the words spilling before I could stop them. “And you think fear is loyalty. But one day, Adrian… one day, you’ll see the difference.”

For a long moment, he said nothing. Just looked at me, his expression unreadable, though his eyes burned with something I couldn’t name.

Then, finally, he turned away. “Clean yourself up,” he said, his voice clipped, controlled. “You look weak when you tremble.”

And with that, he strode off into the shadows, leaving me standing in the middle of the bloodstained yard, shaking so hard I could barely breathe.