The Pretty Psycho (St. Vasili’s Academy #2)

7. Adrian

7

ADRIAN

A dark energy slithered through my veins as I marched down the hallway, away from Vega's room, even though every single atom in my body screamed for me to stay.

To claim.

To kiss her and show her she belonged to me.

It took all my willpower getting out of that room and giving her time to process everything. It took everything in me to be a better person, a bigger person. A man she could call her own, instead of just taking and taking, just like every other person in her life. I wanted her to have the time with her brother, to listen to what he had to say, but I couldn't stay away for too long.

I’d been pacing in the waiting room for hours since she woke up this last time, but I knew that in order for her to heal, she needed her friends. She needed Yolanda, hell, even Dante and Jax, because whether she wanted to admit it or not, they were her friends. I was pretty sure they would protect her even before me, and I couldn't be angry at that.

She. Had. People. In. Her. Corner.

And that's all I wanted.

But the green little monster in my chest wanted us to be the only ones she needed, because she was the only thing we needed.

I'd stayed away for as long as I could, before marching over there and opening that door as if I owned the fucking place. I guess there was no reasoning with our primal sides when our mates, the other halves of our souls, were somewhere without us. I wanted her anger to erase the picture of the shattered girl from this morning. I wanted her to chew me up and spit me out and to tell me she didn't need me.

I wanted her rage, not the silence with the tearful eyes that stared at me, and I got it.

My lips pulled into a smile and as my thumb pressed on my lower lip, rubbing it absentmindedly, I relished the fact that she still had it. She still had her fire. She still had her fight, and no matter how long the road to recovery may be, she would survive. She'd be okay, because I wouldn't accept anything less.

I knew this wouldn't be easy. She wouldn't give in to me just because I suddenly pulled my head out of my ass and decided to pursue what I wanted from the get-go. And I wanted her.

I almost expected Arseniy to interfere, to try and kick me out, but after a second of him just standing there and observing what was happening in front of his eyes, I realized he didn't mind it. I’d spent so much time thinking about the consequences of falling for the lost princess of the Morozov Empire that I never once thought my friend might be okay with the two of us being together. And he was definitely okay with our relationship, judging by his reaction.

The strings of my soul tied to hers were pulling me back toward her, and every step I took was a step too far, because I wanted to go back there, to wrap my arms around her body and pull her to me. I wanted her to know that she could fall apart with me because I'd be here to catch her. I wanted her to know it was okay being weak sometimes, because only then we would be able to see how strong we truly were.

She wasn't ready for me. Not today, not so soon. However, I wasn't going to give up on her—on us. Vega Konstantinova was a siren calling my name, and I would die a happy man if it meant drowning in her dark sea.

"Adrian!" Jax's voice had me stopping in my tracks and as I turned around with furrowed brows, I saw him jogging toward me, followed by Dante and Dimitri, both of which didn't look all too happy. "We need to talk."

"Not now," I said, taking a step back from him. I needed to find Vega's doctor and find out when I'd be able to take her home. It was selfish, perhaps, tying her to me when she obviously didn't want to be tied down to anyone, but she had no choice in this. She was mine and I was hers. "I have somewhere else to be."

"Dude." His hand wrapped around my wrist, pulling me back and angering me momentarily. My eyes scanned his fingers on my skin, my eyebrow arching at the obvious distress on his face. "We really, really need to talk." Had it been Dante who had stopped me, I would've shaken him off and left, because we all knew how dramatic Dante could be from time to time.

But Jax was the most level-headed out of all of us. He collected data, reviewed numbers, listened to all the facts before acting, and the fact that he looked as if he had just seen a ghost was not only worrying but bone-chilling.

"What happened?" I asked, straightening and truly focusing on the situation at hand, because I knew he wouldn't have stopped me if he didn't have a good reason. And I fucking knew it wasn't anything good once Dante and Dimitri came closer to us, their faces mirroring Jax's. "Vega is okay, Yolanda is okay." Jax winced at the mention of the blonde's name, but you had to be blind to miss the tension between those two. "So, what is it?"

"We have a problem," Dimitri spoke up, taking my attention away from Jax. "We actually have a massive problem, and I have a feeling they're only just starting."

"What are you talking about?"

"Dean Andries is missing," Dante murmured. "We were just notified that he isn't at the Academy anymore, and if he's missing?—"

"Then it could mean only one thing," I murmured, finishing his sentence.

"There's more," Dimitri added, coming closer to me. "I didn't, well, we didn't want to bother you with this news earlier, what with Vega waking up and everyone going into a frenzy, but," he cleared his throat, looking around us as if he wanted to make sure that we were alone, "two of our warehouses in France were attacked, along with a third one in Finland."

I shook my head. "And you already know who did it." It was no longer a question, but a statement, because I could see where this was going. I didn't need a crystal ball to see the truth in Dimitri's steel gray eyes.

"He started already, didn't he?" I asked, waiting for an answer with bated breath, because this… This fucking changed everything.

"He did." Dimitri nodded, bringing home what I already knew. My father was tired of waiting and playing around, trying to move the chess pieces on the board, wanting to force me to fall in line, when we both knew I never would.

I detested the man. I detested the things he made me do, the person I became all because of him. I detested him for turning my brother and me against each other and for brainwashing Dain into thinking what we did was anything but evil.

And now he was coming for me and mine.

He should've known this fight wouldn't be one he'd be able to win, because I was planning on taking it all.

The empire.

The war.

The girl.

And Gerard Zylla should already know that if he even dares to touch what's mine, I would rip him in half.

I looked at all three of them waiting for instructions for our next steps, and as much as I hated going back there without her, I had to. I had to make sure it was safe for her to come back. I had to make sure we were ready.

"We need to go to the Academy," I said. "Dimitri," I looked at Arseniy's shadow. "Things are about to get ugly."

"I know."

"We will need more people."

"I know that too." The bastard smirked. "We're already on it and they're on their way. I'll stay here, take care of your girl." Fuck, my entire body electrified at those two words.

My girl. Mine.

She better be ready for me, because I wasn't letting her go. Not now, not ever.

"Good." I nodded, fighting against the urge to swap places with him, to stay behind and watch out for her. But Vega wasn't some damsel who wouldn't be able to defend herself. Even with bruises and wounds, she was still more lethal than half of the Academy, and she had no idea how brightly my pride over her bloomed. She had no idea that she was the reason I got up in the morning because she was all I needed.

My salvation.

"Jax, Dante." I looked at my best friends, noting the worried looks on their faces. I understood why, because I wasn't myself these past couple of days. But I was back, and I would stop at nothing until we won this war. "Let's go and see the damages."

The first time I drove past the gates of the Academy, I was too young to understand that every single one of my actions had consequences and I'd be paying for them for the rest of my life. But as we drove through the open gates with no guards at their stations, I understood better than ever that we were in the middle of the mess I'd created, and I had to fix it before anyone got hurt.

Truth be told, we've been working toward this for years. We've been training, observing, making sure we have all of our bases covered, but something akin to fear slithered over my skin as we drove toward the admin building, my eyes latching on to the empty streets usually filled with students heading for their classes at this time of day.

But the Academy looked like a ghost town, devoid of life, and the slithering panic I was trying to ignore during our drive here had started awakening, pushing through my walls.

There were people here who were more loyal to us, to The Brotherhood, than they would ever be to their own families, but that didn't mean I didn't worry. If Andries had left, that meant my father was making his move, and he wasn't a man I would ever want to send the men and women who placed their trust in my hands after, believing in the cause and following my every lead.

Most of them were still too young, too fucking bright for this fucked-up world we were living in, but just like me, they had no other choice other than to follow what their mothers and fathers wanted them to do. What they wanted them to be, regardless of their own wishes and needs.

My father once told me that dreams meant nothing for people like us, people like me and my brother, because they were just fragments of weak minds that weren't able to cope with reality. He failed to mention that we would actually follow the dreams of another, but they'd be called nightmares, created by the man that sired us.

"It looks like a ghost town," Dante murmured from the back seat, his eyes probably taking in the surrounding area. It didn't help that the eerie feeling followed us all the way from the hospital to here. It also didn't help that I’d left my heart in that room with Vega, splitting myself in half, because I knew I would never be able to live with myself if I hid now when things got tough. "Where is everyone?"

"I have no fucking idea," I gritted out, more pissed than ever that something like this could've happened with us practically next door. Three days ago everything seemed fine. I'd made it my job to follow every single move Andries made.

I'd made it my mission to keep an eye out on him because I knew that he was the mole reporting everything to my father. He was the reason I stayed away from Vega, among other things, because I was sure my father would've used her against me, and the last thing I wanted was to bring Gerard Zylla's attention to her. She already had enough shit to deal with and my father wasn't a burden she needed to carry.

But somehow I'd missed this.

I got distracted, too wrapped up in my own shit to notice anything weird the last time I spoke with Andries. I couldn't even remember that conversation right now because I was too worried about Vega and her whereabouts to think rationally. Andries didn't want to go after her, to look for her, and I detested the little smirk he wore when I went into his office, demanding for the search party to continue.

She's just another girl , he said, grinning from ear to ear because he knew he got it. He got my weakness.

What he failed to realize was that this girl, this woman, was the one I'd burn the world down for. She was the one I would kill for, maim and destroy for. She was the one I would love for the rest of my life, no matter how long or short it turned out to be, and I would do it out in the open, because I was too tired of loving her in the shadows.

I was too tired of hiding people I cared about, always having to think about my father and his next steps.

His little empire would crumble and I would take it all. Everything he had would become mine, that I was sure of.

Jax stopped the car, turning off the ignition, and without a second to spare, I jumped out, pulling out my gun from the holster I had strapped on before we left the hospital, and started walking toward the door of the admin building.

Wind started picking up, wrapping me in its cold embrace, before I reached the entrance, slowly pushing the door open. Darkness greeted me and just as Jax and Dante moved closer to me, I pushed inside, expecting to see something—someone—anything, really.

Jax said that one of our people sent an SOS message through the group we had created for them on the web, explaining that people were leaving, that Andries was gone, and she could hear shots being fired in the main building.

I just hoped it was all a misunderstanding. I didn't give a fuck about Andries or the fact that he probably ran to my father, tattling on us and sharing everything we did after Vega's disappearance. What I worried about were the innocent men and women who didn't deserve to get hurt just because they happened to be on my side.

"It's so fucking quiet," Jax hissed from behind me, on my right, taking in the empty hallways and empty offices. "I don't like this, Adrian."

"I don't like it either," I said, "but we have to check it out. Where did everyone go? How was it possible that in, what, two hours every single person has disappeared?"

All three of us were quiet the second those questions rolled over my tongue, but neither one of us had answers. We couldn't get in touch with a single person from the Academy, and Jax saw that message too late to do anything at the time. Now… Now it was maybe too late to save anyone.

"Do you think he knew?" Jax asked, and I stopped to turn around and look at him. His eyes were haunted, filled with remorse, because just like me, he knew what it meant for these people to become a part of The Brotherhood. While I ran around, chasing Vega and trying to nurse her back to health after the attack in the woods, Jax was pushing out invitations and holding meetings because we didn't want to wait.

They gathered in The Pit every single night, hashing over the actions that would need to be taken and the next steps on this journey we were on.

We were going to take down our fathers, because we were too tired of waiting for them to hand over the empires they were holding on to with iron fists. We were too tired of doing the things they wanted us to do, while they sat in their ivory towers, taking more than they could chew, using us for every single dirty thing, all the while destroying what little of our souls we had left.

"Do you think Andries somehow found out that we were sending out invitations? I mean," he laughed darkly, "we created that whole story of a secret society and whatnot, but…" He scratched his temple with the barrel of his gun. "But this was real. The people we chose were the people we really wanted in The Brotherhood. I trusted them to keep their damn mouths shut!" he thundered, that last sentence taking everything out of him, judging by the harsh breathing and the wild look on his face.

"Hey." My hand landed on his shoulder. "This isn't on you. This is on me."

"And me," Dante added. "I was there with you. It's not like you told Andries anything about The Brotherhood." Jax looked at Dante, his eyes flashing with something I couldn't quite recognize, before a look of pure fury took hold of his features, transforming him in front of my very eyes. "Jax?" Dante murmured.

"I'm okay," he bit out, but there was something he wasn't telling us. "I'm fucking perfect." He pushed past me, heading toward Andries's office. "Come on," he called out, not so quiet anymore, leaving Dante and me behind, more confused than ever.

Dante's eyebrow lifted, asking me with not so many words, What in the actual fuck just happened?

We had no time to psychoanalyze Jax's behavior, and instead of standing around and looking at each other, we followed after him, all the way to the dean’s office. The first thing I saw was Jax's back turned to us, his entire body straining, his arms down, shaking as he stared at something inside.

"Jax?" I called out, quickening my pace to reach him, to…

Jax was almost my height, just a few inches shorter than me, which was why I could see it.

Them.

I had seen more horrors in the twenty-five years of my life than most people in their sixties, but this… I had never seen anything like this.

The stench of blood in the air, the metallic taste on my lips as I looked at the bodies inside the office.

My eyes ran from one side of the room to the other, trying to comprehend the information they were getting. My mind couldn't understand what it was we were seeing.

Bodies, at least ten of them, lying on the floor, some with their throats sliced open and others with the gunshot wounds to the center of their foreheads, their eyes staring into the abyss, with the lingering fear they must have felt just before they met their untimely end.

Jessica.

Akshay.

Louisa.

Dennis.

They were four of the instructors who were helping us guide everyone around and into The Pit, so Andries wouldn't notice the movement of the students.

They were our friends, practically part of our family, and now they were gone.

"Oh God," Dante gasped at the sight in front of us, while Jax and I just stood there, unmoving, unable to utter a single word, because there was nothing left to say. Not really.

The innocent always paid the price of war, even when we tried to shield them. And I've tried. I tried to remove them from the equation, to protect them, to withdraw the target from their backs, but they wouldn't listen. They wanted to help because they understood that it wasn't all about power.

It wasn't about the need to be the best, but about the need to eliminate those that were a cancer for our society.

I was not a good man. I’d never claimed to be, but my father, Jax's father, Dante's, and many others, were the type of men that didn't deserve to live. They took what wasn't theirs to take. They destroyed everything that was good and pure, tainting it with their stench of evil wherever they went.

I was powerless to stop this. I was too far away when I should've been here, protecting them how they protected our secret.

I should've fucking been here.

My legs moved before my mind could even comprehend what I was doing, but I couldn't keep standing there, gaping at the scene in front of us, thinking about all the things I should've done. This was my fault. Their deaths were my burden and I refused to stand there like a damsel in distress, choking on my own emotions, when I didn't deserve to be the one feeling like this.

They gave their lives for me, for us.

They gave everything for our cause, and they would never be forgotten.

"How could this happen?" I asked no one in particular as I crouched down next to the bodies, unable to tear my eyes away from the terrified look on Jessica’s pale face. She was so full of life, so fucking ready to take all those men down, to show them they didn't own the world just because they had pockets deep enough to buy almost everything and everyone.

She wanted revenge against those who killed her sister, and she approached me the moment I came to the Academy, knowing I wasn't here to teach. Almost all of them knew, and they wanted this. They wanted us to succeed.

"Dante," I started, turning around slowly, taking in his shocked face and Jax's angry one. "I need you to check the other buildings." He nodded, taking a step back. "Jax," my best friend glared at the bodies around us, the tic in his cheek becoming more prominent with each passing second. "Go with him."

"Adria—"

"Go. With. Him," I pushed out. I needed to be left alone. I needed to think, to plan, to figure out the next course of action. I couldn't do any of those things with an angry-looking Jax and Dante looking like he would rather spend the night with Gabriela than be here. "I don't want him to go alone, and I want us to scout the area and check if there are any survivors."

"But you'll be all alone then."

"I'll be fine."

"Adrian," Jax protested. "I don't like this. I don't think it's a smart thing to?—"

I stood up and walked slowly toward them. "Jax, I'll be fine."

"But we don't kn?—"

"Go."

I understood why he didn't want us to split up. We had no idea if any of the assassins sent to kill these people were still out there, but Jax didn't know my father as well as I did.

This was just the beginning, and as usual, he was resorting to dramatics. This was just a warning, a prelude to what was about to come, and I didn't want to be unprepared. There was also the fact that my father didn’t want me dead.

He wanted me compliant.

He wanted me to keep saying ‘yes, sir’ to every single one of his orders.

But that wasn’t going to happen.

He loved playing with his enemies the way cats played with their food before eating it. He thought he'd be able to beat me or derail my plans just because he attacked the Academy, but he was wrong.

Gerard Zylla forgot that once upon a time I was the general of his army, a dutiful soldier more than a son. I was the one that gave him half of what he currently had, and I'd be the one to take it all away.

Jax eyed me for a second too long, but he didn't argue any further. With one last glance at the bodies at our feet, he turned around and joined Dante who kept watching us from the door, his eyes calculating, probably already thinking of our next steps.

"There's something on the desk," Dante said, looking at the object in question. I slowly turned around, taking in the bare walls and the lack of all those little things that littered Andries's office just a couple of days ago, until my eyes landed on a folded piece of paper sitting there on the mahogany desk.

It was there for a reason and as I sidestepped the bodies right in front of the desk and took a hold of the paper, I knew who left it there. Well, maybe not personally, but this had my father written all over it. I took a deep breath, opening the paper, seeing only one sentence there.

Everything you have belongs to me, and it always will , written in my father's cursive handwriting.

My fists closed around the paper, the anger I was keeping at bay roaring to life with full force. "What does it say?" Jax asked, his voice sounding far, far away. "Adrian?"

I turned toward them, my eyes connecting first with Dante's and then Jax's.

Jax lifted his left eyebrow, imploring me to speak, to say anything, while Dante stood stoically, waiting for me to elaborate.

"This," I lifted my fist up and looked at the ceiling. "This means fucking war. Jax," I continued, knowing we had no time to waste, "call everyone."

"Everyone?" His eyebrows hit his forehead. "Seriously?"

"Yes," I bit out. "Every single man and woman who are part of The Brotherhood. Everyone. I'm gonna call Arseniy. We need to sweep the area, but once that is done," I added, "they need to come back to the Academy now." Because I wouldn't put it past my father to try and harm Vega.

It wasn't as if our blood relation had ever stopped him from hurting those I loved before.