Owned By The Psychotic Billionaire (Mafia BL)

ORION’S POV

The sound is loud and free echoing off the stone walls of the church courtyard and cutting through the classical music playing in the background.

Several guests nearby turn their heads in alarm, whispering behind their hands, but I don’t care about them. I only care about the disturbed looks on the faces of the two older women in front of me.

”Who said I wanted to see Adrien cry from pain, Aunt?” I ask, my laughter dying down into a low, amused purr that makes Alice flinch. ”Why can’t it be pleasure? Why do you assume that my touch would only bring him pain? You look at things too narrowly.”

I stop laughing, my expression flattening into something much colder as I turn my gaze back to my aunt, the manic energy beneath my skin hardening into a dark focus.

”And really, let us throw the gauntlet back to where it belongs,” I say, my voice dropping and becoming a low vibration in the night air. ”Why exactly do you think that my only desire is to hurt Adrien? What makes you think I’m the one he needs to be saved from? Look at your own house before you judge mine.”

Surprisingly, it’s Alice who responds to my question instead of Aunt. She forces her trembling hands to steady, smoothing down the front of her expensive silk gown as she looks down at me, desperate to regain her footing and her dignity.

She tries to hide her fear behind a sly, testing smile, attempting to play the role of the unbothered matriarch once again.

”Maybe it is because Adrien just looks so perfect to bully,” Alice says softly, her voice dripping with a casual, terrifying cruelty that makes my jaw lock. ”He’s always had that fragile, pathetic look about him since he was a child. It’s almost an invitation, really. Maybe that is why anyone would look at him and think of violence. He practically begs for it just by existing in the same room as stronger people. He is weak, Orion, and weak things exist to be pushed around.”

She smiles at me, her eyes locked onto mine, clearly waiting to see how I will react to her insulting my duckling in such a derogatory manner.

She thinks she can bait me, thinks she can discover the limits of my patience by treating him like an object.

In an instant, my playful, manic attitude disappears, replaced by a void that feels hollow. The air around the steps seems to drop by twenty degrees, the warmth of the evening vanishing into nothingness.

The distant music, the clinking of glasses, and the polite chatter of the high-society circus all fade into a dull, meaningless hum that I completely tune out.

I stare up at Alice with dark, empty eyes that seem to swallow the light around us, leaving nothing but the weight of my gaze pressing against her skin.

The heat in my chest turns into a cold, lethal fury, a calm and precise rage that locks onto her like a targeted strike.

”What exactly have you done to Adrien, Alice?” I ask. My voice is incredibly quiet, yet it carries a heavy, suffocating weight that makes both women freeze in their tracks.

I take a step up onto the first stone stair, invading their space, my eyes burning with a wild, manic energy that I no longer bother to hide from them or anyone else.

”I should be the only existence that Adrien fears in this world,” I say, each word deliberate, sharp, and cold as ice. ”I’m the one who owns his terror. I’m the only one who is supposed to feature in his nightmares if he ever has any. Yet, somehow, you’ve managed to rank yourself right up there next to me. You’ve managed to make him fear your shadow just as much as he fears mine. Tell me, Alice, what did you do to my little duckling while I wasn’t looking? What did you do to him in that house?”

Alice’s breath hitches loudly. Her hand shakes so violently now that a few drops of champagne spill over the edge of her crystal glass, staining her fingers.

The confident, arrogant expression she wore just moments ago cracks entirely, revealing the deep, instinctual panic of a person who realizes they have walked right into a trap they cannot escape.

She looks at me, and for the first time, she sees that I’m completely serious. Not like I wasn’t before.

Still, she tries to fight it, her pride refusing to let her back down in front of Aunt. She covers her fear with a desperate, confident sneer, tilting her chin up to look down at me from her slightly higher position on the steps.

”You are acting like a child, Orion,” she spits, her voice trembling despite her best efforts to keep it steady and authoritative. ”You’re throwing a tantrum over a useless boy who means nothing to the future of our families. I once thought of you as someone intelligent, someone completely unreadable and brilliant who could lead the Vassilis name to glory, but with the way you are acting right now, over a piece of trash like Adrien, I think I might have seriously overestimated you. You are letting a minor distraction cloud your judgment.”

I let out a dark, quiet laugh that cuts her off completely. It’s a soft sound, yet devoid of any real human warmth, a dry chuckle that makes the air feel brittle.

”If you truly thought you could classify me in your mind, Alice,” I say, leaning in until my face is just inches from hers, forcing her to look into my unblinking eyes, ”then the only person you were overestimating was yourself. Did you really think your little high-society rules apply to me? Did you really think you could predict what I will do based on your petty little understanding of power?”

I let the silence stretch for a beat, watching the sweat break out across her forehead under the dim lighting of the courtyard.

”Perhaps I should teach you what it actually means to fear a person,” I whisper, my voice smooth and lethal. ”Perhaps I should show you what happens when you touch something that belongs to me. You think you know pain because you own a house filled with scavengers, but you know nothing of what I can do.”

Aunt immediately cuts in, her voice loud and sharp as she senses the literal danger radiating from my body, realizing that I’m on the verge of doing something that cannot be undone in public.

She raises her walking stick, slamming the silver tip against the stone step with a loud crack to draw my attention away from the trembling woman beside her.

”Orion, stop this madness right now!” she commands, her face exceptionally pale as she steps between us as much as she can. ”You will not threaten our guests at your own engagement party! You will open your mouth and apologize to Lady Alice this instant, or I will ensure that you regret it. I will not allow you to ruin this night with your personal vendettas.”

I don’t hear the rest of her sentence. Her threats are nothing but white noise to my ears, completely meaningless.

Suddenly, a strange, violent jolt shoots through my spine, a cold sensation that causes my entire body to lock up.

My internal radar, the highly tuned instinct that has kept me alive in the dark corners of the world for years, screams at me that something is profoundly wrong.

My head snaps toward the grand wooden doors leading to the church restrooms, my movements as fast and precise as a bird of prey spotting movement in the grass.

I stare at the empty hallway visible through the open doors, my eyes narrowing into tiny slits as I analyze the shadows.

The waiter I paid should have been back by now. It takes less than two minutes to walk to the restrooms and deliver a message.

Adrien should have walked out of those doors minutes ago, cursing my name and glaring at me from across the courtyard with that beautiful hatred I love so much.

But the hallway remains dark and empty, no sign of the waiter, and no sign of my duckling. The air in the courtyard suddenly feels entirely wrong, the atmosphere shifting from a boring high-society party into something incredibly tense, dangerous, and still.

”Something’s off,” I mutter, completely cutting Aunt off in the middle of her tirade without a single care for her status.

I don’t wait for her response or her permission. I step down from the stone stairs, my boots hitting the pavement with a heavy thud that draws the eyes of nearby guests as I begin to scan the crowd with absolute focus.

The dark aura around me expands again, forcing the people closest to the stairs to quickly step back, clearing a path for me as I move into the center of the courtyard.

At that exact same moment, the sea of wealthy guests near the center of the courtyard begins to part in a chaotic rush.

Alexis is making his way toward me, cutting through the crowd of elites like a man possessed, his usual calm demeanor completely shattered.