The Billionaire Darkness

Chapter One-Hundred Forty

Adrian Winters

It was dark out when I opened my eyes, the memories of last night's aggravated search for information flickering through my head while I pulled myself out from under my covers. Reality slamming into me along with a slightly frightening realization that I hadn't had a nightmare in what felt like the longest time, months of focusing on all of this had somehow gotten my nightmares to cease entirely. Then again I'd also been thinking about the more recent complications that I'd been facing over summer, and the legal trial of Demetri and the rest of the organizations I'd been focusing on.

There was also her.

Purging my recollection I forced myself into my bathroom to shower so I could dress and go downstairs to be a functioning human being.

It also probably didn't help that today was the day before my birthday, the day my parents had decided to go on their final date. It made me wonder what they'd have said to Kate and I when we'd started our Junior year, what sort of thing would they have planned for my birthday. Would we have the Harrington's over and laugh until the early hours of Friday. Now it was a day I'd remember them leaving late into the night and only coming home the next morning only to never make it.

The thoughts were still in my mind as I dressed and made my way towards the stairs. New York lights danced across the sky as I walked down stairs into the living room of my penthouse, the ceiling height windows half covered by shades as I stared out at the city while moving to the coffee table covered in files on the Intrigued. I'd met her and that was a problem. Not just because I could tell she didn't recognize me from my most recent training bout where I'd stayed in the ring so long Taz had to end it while my eye remained puffy and blood had rolled from my nose.

The fact I'd won the competition had been worth it.

I wasn't expecting to meet her there but I'd also only now actually bothered reading through her file, where her name glared back at me. Olivia.

Fuck me.

There were others though most about Demetri and the three others were pending since they belonged to her mother and two friends who I'd spitefully looked into after realizing she had them but they had apparently not bothered to try—well until I exposed the hack job about Demetri which I'd corrected and implemented the redirected information into 'hidden' files that wouldn't have been the immediate search on police servers.

Logan knew what I'd done by now, it was probably the reason that I'd managed to avoid having it all go public since I'd been transported in secret without there being any way to link any of the fall of this particular gang back to me.

And thank fuck that's the case, I don't need another Winters Family scandal.

Reaching down I picked up the main folder while I sipped my coffee and paced my penthouses living room reading line after line of what my PPO's had found and recorded, along with many of my own personal notes.

"She's safe now Winters," I mutter to myself looking up and out at the city, tears forming in my eyes as I looked at it all, the concrete buildings, the park, and deep down I told myself that it was better that I don't have any more contact with Olivia, even if what I knew now from Elijah's report to me in Monaco was that the Intrigued—Olivia was going to be coming to Thornbrook with a scholarship at the beginning of October, just days away.

The least I could do was make it impossible for her to be traced back to her old life, to keep her from having the leeches of Thornbrook uncover that she was the former girlfriend of a guy in prison.

Yes, that seemed completely fair after everything I'd amplified for her to go through.

Setting down the coffee mug I sat down on the sofa and began to purge Olivia's history of its messier pieces, she could be protected from all of this, and in time I could appreciate that maybe just maybe, she would graduate in two years time and go to an Ivy League university and do whatever it is that she decides on doing. I wouldn't even have to see or interact with her. I could be who I am to the rest of Thornbrook to her, and she'd maybe recognize me and I'd get to tell her that it was better for her to avoid me at all costs for the sake of her own image.

And that if she befriended me...fuck.

What was I fucking doing, what was I thinking, I can't hide from her, but I also wouldn't be able to escape her, and the idiot peers I have would draw attention to me each day, which would mean I'd need to ensure that the only conversation her and I ever have once she realizes who I am from this last problematic year, she stays the fuck away. She should be able to do that right. We're completely different people, with completely different places among the school we'll both attend, and Thornbrook is big.

Yes, a simple, 'I'm that guy you danced with last October, you can't be near me for self preservation purposes, politely fuck off' should do.

My brain had however deviated entirely even after I'd cleared out any links to Demetri Flanne from her public record the police had it, but getting access to anything like that would require a lot of loops, most if not all of which I could keep my peers from ever becoming interested in discreetly since the non-discreet option wasn't at all possible, or realistic.

I can't just pull her into my group of friends with no explanation, that wasn't my place.

My coffee cup nearly went out my living room window at that thought. It was fucking with me, this whole situation that I'd engineered from the very beginning, and now I was left with the more daunting task that life had presented me.

How the fuck, did the girl I just so happen to save from her shitty situation from afar, end up now attending the same exclusive private school I do?

Shutting the laptop I stood again and walked towards the kitchen while the first beams of sunlight glared up over the horizon. It reminded me of the first night I'd looked at it when all of this had begun, how I'd promised that Olivia wouldn't need to fear anyone, how she'd be safe. It hadn't gone to my exact plan, and maybe I should have given myself at least a little credit that I'd managed to do this. She was safe now, where Demetri couldn't hurt her any longer, and with me there I wouldn't allow her to become a victim to anyone like him at Thornbrook.

I was just going to have to be careful in the coming year or so, and I would make sure she stayed safe, she had to. There was no other option now, I would keep her from the dark phase she'd just been through if it was the only selfless thing I truly accomplished before I took over as CEO two years from now.
    
    
Oh I'm ready for TBQ, I'm sure I've made you all have new questions now, I'll be sure to answer them at some point in the next book. Comment, vote, and share. Anyways

Peace✌