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

19. Adrian

19

ADRIAN

After an almost perfect night, minus the fact that I had to get up extremely late, or early, however you want to call it, and waking up next to Vega, the last thing I wanted was to be sitting in this room, glaring at my friends and my soldiers, trying to decide on their punishment.

Because they acted like children.

And I didn’t fucking have time for children.

Jax sat with his arms crossed, his eyes swiveling from me to Vega and back, pissing me off without a single word being said.

We had a problem, a massive one, and he made sure I knew he and Dante both came to my cabin only to, well, hear Vega and me going at it. Then instead of coming back later, the motherfuckers went into town and got drunk as fuck, coming back to the Academy only after midnight.

Perhaps I wouldn't have been as pissed as I was if it wasn't for a handful of other people joining them, jeopardizing the entire operation.

"I know, I know," he murmured, his eyes dropping to the floor. "We screwed up." Yolanda sat on his right, refusing to look at him, while the rest of The Brotherhood, including Dante, sat behind them, all waiting for the ass chewing that was inevitably coming. "It was only supposed to be Dante and me."

The door opened at that moment, revealing a way too fucking perky-looking Gabriela, waltzing inside as if she owned the place.

"Well, well." Her eyes landed on Dante, who kept his eyes closed, probably nursing a hangover from hell. "Would you look at this?"

"Not now, Gabriela," I barked, focusing back on the people in front of me.

"Fiiiine." She snickered and sat down next to Jax, turning slowly around toward Dante. "You all look like shit. What happened?"

"Vodka," Yolanda moaned just as Jax said, "Too much whiskey." I didn't miss the way he looked at her or how she avoided eye contact with him. I also didn't miss the way she basically ran away from him, until he sat down right next to her, staring at her like a man possessed.

Fucking hell, Jax.

"There were also some shots," Helena, one of our soldiers from southern Europe, added from the back, gagging the moment those words came out of her mouth.

"A lot of bad decisions," Yolanda murmured, closing her eyes.

"Enough!" I thundered, feeling Vega's eyes on me. "We're in the middle of a war, people. Fucking. War!" I blasted, hating that we even had to have this conversation. "You are here because you're fucking good at your jobs, but if you're going to behave like kids, then you know where the door is."

Vin, who kept himself at the back of the room, leaning against the wall, nodded, as equally pissed off as I was. I was wrapped around Vega, sleeping properly for the first time in days, when my phone rang in the middle of the night. It didn't take me long to realize something was terribly wrong when I saw Dante's name on the screen, along with the clock showing three in the morning.

They had no idea where their drivers were, and they had no fucking idea where Jax and Yolanda went. Well, at first he couldn't find Jax, but it didn't take him long to realize that Yolanda wasn't with them either.

I had to wake Vin to go with me and get them because there was no way that these idiots would've been able to find their own transportation to the Academy at that time of the night. Most of the taxi drivers steered clear from this place, especially with all the stories covering the Academy.

"We're sorry," Yolanda murmured, finally looking at Vega and then at me. "It won't happen again."

"You better pray it doesn't," Vega thundered this time, possibly more pissed off than I was. She was worried about them, especially Yolanda, and I didn't miss the way she pulled her into the corner when they just came in, hissing at her while Yolanda hid her eyes from my girl.

"The training starts today," I said, ignoring their moans and pleas to move it to tomorrow. "No! You fucking knew that we were supposed to start today. You knew that the rest of the teams were coming in today and you still decided to go out and get this drunk." I turned toward Gabriela who kept that wicked little smile on her face because she knew what was about to come. "Gabs." She glared the moment that nickname slipped through my lips, but I didn't care. "You're taking over the training for the first round today." Groans erupted over the group sitting in the room, one in particular louder than the others, but Dante's feelings regarding her were the least of my concerns. We had people that weren't at the level we needed them to be to fight my father's operatives. And I wanted them to survive this. I had no doubt that my father would attack any moment now. "I'm going out to meet the rest of the teams arriving. I got a message twenty minutes ago that they were on the way here."

"Sounds good," she chirped, jumping up from her chair. Everyone glared at her until she turned around, focusing on each and every one of them individually. "Did you not hear what the man just said?" she asked, her back to me. "Or do I need to take out my guns to get you to stand the fuck up!" Her voice thundered around us, echoing, and for those in the room that had no idea why they called her Black Widow, they finally saw.

Gabriela might look like a girly girl. She might dress in the latest fashion and she might seem harmless, but there was nothing harmless in that five-foot-six body hiding a wolf behind those eyes.

"Come on!" she bellowed as she walked toward the door. "You have five seconds to follow me, or you'll be running laps around the Academy until you faint." Those that knew her well understood that she wasn't joking. They jumped up and practically ran after her, suddenly waking up enough to follow her orders.

There was a reason why not a single man in her family dared to stand against her. There was a reason her army was able to take down one of the biggest families in Italy, all thanks to her. She hid her viciousness well, but make no mistake—Gabriela Barone was one of the deadliest women on planet Earth, and I was thankful she chose to join us instead of working against us.

The room emptied out shortly, leaving only Yolanda behind, who kept sitting on the chair, looking at me.

"What are you waiting for, Yolanda?" I asked. "A formal invitation?"

"N-No… I?—"

"Get to fucking training, soldier!" I yelled out. "That's an order." This time she didn't look at Vega, as if she could save her from Gabriela. This time she jumped up and ran out, leaving only Vega, Vin, and me inside the room.

"Now that we got that sorted," Vin started, moving away from the wall. "Let's get this fucking day started. I didn't sleep anywhere near enough last night."

"You and me both," I grumbled, wrapping my arm around Vega as we walked outside, heading toward the front of the building where the rest of the teams should be arriving.

A nervous energy filled the air as we walked down the hallways, turning left and down the stairs toward the main entrance. My fingers wrapped around Vega's hand, making her look up at me.

She looked worried, that little frown on her face a constant fixture since we woke up this morning, but when I asked her what was wrong, she simply said nothing, giving me no definitive answer. She wasn't hiding anything from me, that much I was certain of, but she was worried. Fuck, all of us were worried, some more than others.

There was a certain type of insanity woven into what we were doing, gathering all these different teams from around the world and making them work together. But The Brotherhood existed so that we could help each other. It was a tool all of us could use when needed, when this type of situation surfaced, and I'd be a fool not to use it now, when I needed it the most.

But knowing I could use it didn't make it easier on any of us. If anything, it only made it harder because all these lives were in my hands now. This was my mess, but all of them came to help, not out of the goodness of their hearts, but because we all knew we could all live better if we took out the head of the snake.

And the head was my father.

"Which teams are arriving now?" Vega asked as we passed through the door and out into the cold. She started shivering, wrapping one arm around herself, and without a second thought, I pulled her into my embrace, enveloping my arms around her and warming her up. She wasn't wearing her jacket, something that made me glower more than necessary when I saw her inside that room where we had gathered everyone, but we didn't have time for her to go back to the cabin and get it. We were working on a tight timeline, running all over the place.

The guards were at the gates.

"There's a French team, some Canadians, Russians, and South Africans that are arriving now."

"That's a lot of people."

"It definitely is." More like fifty-six people in total, but we needed every single person. The Zylla Empire had thousands in their pocket, some on the payroll, others as mercenaries, but I had no doubt that my father would send his entire force at us, while he hid behind his tall walls, letting others do his dirty deeds.

"So that puts us at, what?" she asked, looking up at me. "More than two hundred people with them?"

"More," I murmured, pressing my lips to her cheek. "More will be coming over the next couple of days, and Ethan will be here soon."

"Oh." She chuckled. "The enigmatic Ethan," she murmured. "I kept wondering when he would show up."

"Why?" I frowned, that green little monster waking up. "Why are you interested in Ethan?"

Her eyes twinkled, and I would bet everything I had on the fact that she would try to make me jealous. "Why? Are you feeling insecure?"

"Highly unlikely," I grunted, but she was closer to the truth than I wanted her to be. The truth was—I was jealous of every single person that had her attention, regardless of their gender. I was jealous of Arseniy, Dimitri, Yolanda, Jax, Dante, and every other person at this Academy, because I didn't want to let her out of my sight.

It wasn't healthy, and if I even dared saying out loud the plan that was swirling in the back of my mind of her locked up with me the only person with a key, I had a feeling she wouldn't exactly appreciate it.

"Fine." She chuckled. "We will see once he arrives." And suddenly I didn't want him to arrive, because I could recognize that dangerous glint in her eye. She loved messing with me, knowing full well what kind of effect she had, but I hoped for all our sakes that she wouldn't poke the beast.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," I murmured, pressing my lips close to her ear and pulling her back to my front. "You won't like the consequences."

"Hmmm," she hummed. "I really like trying new things, you know. Living on the edge," she continued, pushing her ass against me. "Besides." She turned in my arms, pressing her palms on my chest, her hand dangerously close to the marks she left earlier. "You wouldn't want me to get bored, would you?" She pouted, the little minx.

My hand landed on her ass, when a throat cleared not too far from us. My brain finally remembered that we weren't alone.

Arseniy and Dimitri stood at the bottom of the stairs, Arseniy looking anywhere but at us and Dimitri blushing. "If you don't mind," Dimitri said. "I would really like to keep the eggs I ate for breakfast inside my stomach.

Vin chuckled behind us, and I forgot how fucking lost I was when it came to my girl.

Vega laughed, patting me on the shoulder before I let her go, already missing her warmth the second she stepped away from me. She went down the stairs, meeting the two of them while I trailed behind, rearranging my dick in my pants.

"Here they come," Dimitri said, turning toward the driveway where I could see four black vans coming our way. The tinted windows made it impossible to see who was inside, but the moment they stopped and the doors opened I almost cursed out loud seeing the first person out.

Estelle, the leader of an organization that only gathered females and called themselves Valkyries revealed herself first, grinning from ear to ear the moment she saw me. I looked down at Vega who didn't notice anything, but I could already assume how this was going to go.

Estelle and I, well, we had history. A history of sleeping together whenever our missions brought us into the same cities, and judging by the way she started heading toward me and Vega now frowning at her, this wasn't going to go well at all.

Estelle all but jumped into my arms, plastering her lips to mine and kissing me as if her life depended on it. My lips sealed shut, trying to push her away when an animalistic roar cut through my thoughts and the hands I was intimately familiar with appeared on Estelle's shoulders, pulling her away from me.

Vega threw her off of me and straight to the ground, advancing on Estelle with her fists raised high and ready to strike, which I couldn't allow to happen. Estelle was a great girl but she wouldn't take kindly to it one of ours attacking her the moment she arrived here.

"Vega!" I yelled out, lifting her up with my arms wrapped around her middle and her thrashing in my hold. "Stop it."

"Stop!" she shrieked. "I'm going to gouge her eyes out."

"What the fuck is wrong with you!" Estelle moaned, getting up from the ground. "Who the fuck is this lunatic?"

"That," Dimitri came closer to Estelle. "Would be Adrian's girl." Understanding washed over her face, her eyes wide and plastered to the two of us, while Vega still fought against my hold, trying to push me away.

"Shit," Estelle murmured. Shit was about the right word to say, because Vega wasn't calming down.

She freed one arm and before I could react, slammed her fist straight into my nose, and I had no choice but to let her go as my eyes filled with tears, making it impossible to see.

Vega jumped down, and through blurry vision I could see her going after Estelle, when Dimitri stepped in front of her.

"Don't do that, Vega."

"I'm going to kill her," she said, her voice as cold as Antarctica, trying to push against Dimitri. "And then, I'm going to cut those fucking lips off of her face and keep them as a souvenir."

" Mon dieu ." Estelle jumped back just as my vision started getting back to normal. "Adrian! Control your woman!"

"Vega!" She turned slowly, too fucking slowly, her eyes daggers directed straight at me. "She didn't know, okay. She had no idea.”

"No, she had no idea," Vega said, taking a step back from Estelle. "But you fucking did. You," she murmured. "You let her kiss you." Fuck. Me. "After… No, you know what," she shook her head, smiling viciously, "I'm out of here." She started walking toward the Academy, giving me a wide berth, but I wasn't going to let her just run away.

"Hey." I took a step toward her, but she jumped to the side.

"Stay." She pointed her finger at me, her words filled with acid. "I don't want to talk to you. Not right now, Adrian. Not right fucking now."

She practically ran up the stairs, disappearing through the doors, but I wasn't worried.

"Dude," Dimitri yelled. "Are you fucking smiling?"

Oh, I was. I was definitely smiling because this meant I wasn't the only jealous one in this relationship.

She was too.