Chapter 126 126

Chapter 126 126
Adrian scoffs, but his expression is laced with jealousy. “You always did have a knack for acquiring loyalists who follow you like trained dogs. Or maybe there’s more to it than just loyalty?” He arches his eyebrows, waiting for Milana or me to confirm it. “I always did find it hard to believe that all these years, nothing happened between the two of you.”

“That’s because you can’t conceive of a relationship that’s not transactional,” I growl.

He scoffs. “Because there is no such thing.”

“Spoken like the piece of shit you are,” Milana spits.

Adrian rolls his eyes. “Still sore, Milly? And to think, we used to be friends.”

“We did—right before you tried to put that shriveled little cock inside me,” she says, her eyes glowing like lit coals. “And we both know that the only reason you tried is because you thought there was something going on between Kolya and me.”

I laugh sardonically. The drunkenness is clearing now, burning away like fog in the path of the rising sun. “You did always want what I had, didn’t you, little brother?”

His fists knot tight at his sides. “That’s ironic coming from you,” he snarls. “Considering you tried to marry my woman.”

“I didn’t want her because she was yours; I want her despite that. I want her because she’s an amazing, kind, brilliant woman. It has nothing to do with you.”

His squinted eyes turn into little pinpricks of rage. “How romantic. So it’s true then: you do have feelings for her.”

“I love her, Adrian. She’s the most important thing in my life. She will always be the most important thing in my life.”

He takes a step forward and I notice how his hands shake. It’s a dead giveaway. The one little gesture he makes just before he completely loses his shit.

“She’s carrying my child. She loves me.”

“Maybe she did once,” I suggest. “But not anymore. The irony is that if you had stayed, even if she’d met me, this would never have happened. Because that’s who June is—loyal to a fault. But you did leave. In the worst way possible. And you paved the way for her and me to be together. You did this. You have only yourself to blame.”

His whole body is shaking now, not just his hands. Milana seems to notice the same thing, because she moves forward, her hand reaching for her coat pocket.

“STOP!” Adrian screams. His own gun, pulled out of nowhere, is pointed right at Milana. She freezes in place, hand hovering just a few inches away from salvation. “Put your hands in the air. Move over there, next to Kolya so that I can see both of you.”

She has no choice but to do as he says. The moment we’re standing next to each other, Adrian comes forward, gun wavering dangerously in our faces, and disarms both of us.

“There,” he says with some satisfaction as he kicks our weapons under the couch. “Now, we can have a real conversation.”

“Is that possible while you still have a gun?” I ask casually.

He drops his hand, but he grips the weapon tightly. “Apparently, that’s the only way I can get a little respect around here.”

“If that’s the only way you can get respect, then it’s not worth having.”

“Spare me the fucking lecture,” Adrian hisses. “You really are beginning to sound like Otets, you know that? He was a miserable bastard who looked down his nose at everyone else, too.”

“Why do you think I killed him?”

Adrian shakes his head. “Don’t try and make it seem like you did me any favors. You wanted control of the Bratva. I was just your convenient excuse.”

I told the black-haired June imitator at the bar that I had no heart. But that was a lie. I have a heart for June. I have a heart for Milana.

I have a heart for Adrian, too, even now.

“I never wanted the Bratva,” I growl. “It was the mantel I was born to bear, so I accepted it. But I was content to let Otets run things. Until he started making decisions I couldn’t get behind.”

“See?” he says triumphantly. “It had nothing to do with me.”

“It wasn’t only about you,” I clarify. “But it was most definitely about you. Don’t you remember that conversation, little brother? You’d just turned eighteen. You begged me for a way out. You swore that you’d be happy if you just had a way out. Remember that?”

Adrian stiffens in response. Of course he remembers. He was drunk when he came stumbling home. But when he’d woken up, several hours later, he looked at me with sober eyes. “Please, brother, help me. Save me. I can’t be here anymore. It’s too much. I will never be what he wants me to be. And he won’t let me go. Help me find a way out. Then I’ll be happy. I swear it…”

“No,” he says flatly in the present, his knuckles whitening as he grips and regrips his gun. “I don’t remember. Just admit it. You just wanted me out of the way so that you could have it all. The power, the money, the fucking glory.”

“Glory?” I repeat furiously. “Is that what you were chasing when you joined Ravil’s ring?”

He stares at me cautiously, eyelid spasming. He’s trying to determine if he should keep gaslighting us or if he should just drop the mask and tell the truth.

He chooses the latter. “I needed money.”

“You could have come to me.”

“Come crawling back to you with a begging bowl?” he demands. “Oh sure, that would have helped the rumors circulating about me. That I was a coward and a pussy. That I couldn’t possibly be Luka Uvarov’s son, because I wasn’t even half the man he was.”

“You were out of the Bratva. Who cares what they were saying about you?”

“I did.” He bristles. “Turns out, I cared. I fucking cared.”

“What did you expect me to do, Adrian? Cut out the tongue of every man who spoke against you? I’d have been the leader of a mute Bratva.”

“You poisoned them against me,” he rasps. “So I made sure to return the favor. I made sure that our mother knew the kind of man you’d become.”

“You fed an innocent woman lies.”

“How does the world look from up on that high horse?” he cackles maniacally. “You stole my woman, and now, you’re trying to steal my child. But that’s not going to happen. June and I belong together.”

“Funny,” I say as casually as I can, even though I can see the beads of fearful sweat dampening the collar of Adrian’s jacket. “Until you heard June and I were getting married, you were content to stay dead.”

His eyebrows knit together. “It takes losing something to figure out how much it means to you.”

“Jesus,” Milana scoffs for the first time in a while, staring at Adrian like he’s a piece of shit stuck to the bottom of her shoe. “So goddamn typical. You haven’t changed a bit. You’re just a sad little boy who wants what his big brother has.”

“Shut up,” he snarls, lifting his arm. “Shut the fuck up, Milana!”

“You’re right, Adrian,” she says, ignoring him. “We were friends once. You saw how much I suffered. You saw what being forced to whore myself out did to me. And then you went and did the same thing to other women. To other girls.”

A shadow passes across his eyes, but he pushes it away. A man like him can’t afford to feel guilt. That kind of emotion has the power to eat you up from the inside, and he’s nothing but dry kindling in search of a spark to end it all.

“It’s a survival game, honey.”