The Billionaire Darkness

Chapter Forty-Nine

Adrian Winters

New York's weather was starting to turn to the slushy mess that practically turned the city into a dirty collection of concrete islands divided by rivers. Even all the way out to the Hamptons I had to fight nature to get from school to home each day.

That and now I was aware of a little more about Demetri, and the Intrigued each day.

I'd been having her observed for protective purposes so that my team could keep Demetri from her as much as possible, not that it was working, I'd become aware of more than enough if you asked me, but I had to make Demetri's fall seem normal, and I had a feeling that it would only get worse from here, which mean that he would make a mistake in his work at some point that I would be able to increase the pressure on him. The sole consequence would be that I could already imagine the dominos falling in the form of bodies, and actions against the Intrigued.

And that couldn't happen.

I hadn't even planned how I intended to make my appearance seem natural, and not planned, but the best I could do was use my relocation to Brooklyn Heights as a good excuse even though I didn't want her to know who I was, or where I lived. For more than just my safety but her own. I'd done additional research on how abusers acted when they found out their victims were trying to reach out and there was the risk that she would end up dead, instead of safe.

Fuck have I done.

"Hey," I hear from behind me, and without turning I know it's Nico since he's one of only two other people who have free access to my home, and he'd seemed to be making checking on me every couple days a habit.

"Nico, what do you want?" I ask, reaching for the square glass beside me with about an inch of rum sitting in the bottom of it. I had slipped up again in the last week and found myself turning yet again to the bottle.

I'd like to say I did it because I always seemed to revisit the same habits again and again. But for once it was the escape I felt I needed to get away from the pressure I felt constricting around me. From the need to find a way to save a girl I'd only met once, and would likely never meet again, to taking apart a criminal organization which of fucking course both were connected somehow with the addition that it could cause people to lose their lives, followed by my third hobby which had brought me to being up until midnight then night before coding the very program I was relying on to aid in the former two points. Then there was that I needed to remain at the top of my class and ahead so that I could effectively do what I was doing. I should probably tell someone.

Fuck, Nico is right here.

Yet I held it all in because how was I meant to explain this all? How would I explain that I'd been investigating a criminal organization with murders under its belt, that was also linked to an innocent girl who I was trying to help from afar. How would I make that sound at all better than incredibly illegal, especially when it was purposely being kept under wraps because the police were also investigating them, and I was silently involved.

God help me not go insane from this.

"Nothing, I was coming to check in on you, but you're being surly, or morose, I'm not sure which," Nico says sitting down beside me on the steps while the pool's surface flickered with moonlight.

"Surly, and contemplative. I don't want to talk about it so, I'm fine," I say, going to lift the glass back to my lips, but before I could take another sip, Nico had snatched it and was sniffing it, a disappointed look rising onto his face as he looked at me.

"Whatever you're going to say, save it. I'm fine Nicholas," I state meeting his gaze with equal verb.

"You said you were going to quit Adrian. Or are you turning into a liar, as well as a recluse," it wasn't said to wound, as usual Nico was speaking with only facts, and no matter what I wouldn't rid him of that. Not just because he was right, but because out of all the boys he was practically my brother.

"I did quit, I'm just fucking overwhelmed. Like I said I-"

"Don't want to talk about it, because you're not one for addiction, or being easily stressed, so something is going on and you're either not able to talk about it. Or you're choosing not to for one reason or another. I've known you my whole life, and you've not once been unreasonable. Stone walling all of us is unordinary. Even for you."

I said nothing in return.

"You're not getting the truth out of me. The only thing I'll tell you is I've been trying to protect someone, and it's gotten bigger than it was supposed to get," I counter and he just fucking nodded.

"Protect someone..." he ponders, and for once the calculated look on his face irritated me. "Who?"

"I don't know exactly just yet," it was a lie, I only didn't know her name, but Nico didn't need to know that. Though if he suspected me to be omitting any part of the truth he didn't pry.

"But you care?" he replies slowly, his eyebrows raising while I offered a blank expression in response.

"I'm certainly not doing it because I've suddenly decided to become a fucking monk," I mutter flatly, gaining a slight lift of the corners of his mouth out of him.

"I'm not going to ask you how much you care, because you wouldn't tell me, or why it matters. But that's..."

"What?" I press, the spike of irritation flaring up again.

"Just new," he offers staring off at the water while silence fell between us, filled on my end by the urge to tell him what I knew. He wouldn't betray that trust, I knew him well enough for that, yet I still found that I couldn't quite get the words to come out. What I could think about was that my mind kept comparing the way I cared about Sav, and the way that I felt about the girl I knew nothing of actual substance about.

"What's the difference between being obsessed and being in love since both will kill someone in the end?" this seemed to catch his attention, and a look like ponderance caused his eyes to shift towards the sky.

"Obsession is about the perfect version of someone idolized in your mind until you crave more of them. Love is when you see the good and the bad of someone, every little thing and still stand by them through all of it because they're your person," he says with slow deliberacy, as if he also didn't quite know the actual answer, and settled for speculation.

"You've spent too much time with your nose in a book and talking to my lovely optimist sister," I quipped, trying to gauge just how accurate my comment had been, and instead got a completely separate instinctual feeling from how

"People always find the very thing they run from Adrian, I just hope for you it's better than you can imagine mate" Nico says with a sigh as I took back my glass and emptied it.

"If someone ever loves me, then I'll believe you. Until then, no one will be able to convince me that it exists," I mutter the slight burn from the aftertaste lingering in my throat.

"You can look for things in the wrong places. It doesn't mean it doesn't exist, it means you aren't looking in the right place."

Sighing I glanced back at my house, and its empty interior. It made me wonder just how I was meant to turn it into any form of a home when my entire life was characterized by being alone. I knew better than to believe that anyone I interacted with didn't know who I was, even the majority of New York's news teams took almost any chance they could to do an article on me, which was part of the reason I did so much to make sure my face never ended up on TV because I wanted the liberty to blend into standard New York crowds without someone trying to take my fucking picture.

"If there's a right place, I don't know where to look," I admit with a sardonic chuckle. "I'm a fucking billionaire, not a soul is going to look past that."

Nico didn't say anything for a long moment and when he did it wasn't what he said that stood out to me, it was the way he seemed like he'd come to a conclusion on something, but didn't want to say.

"Not all people are materialistic, some do truly judge people based on who they are. You're one of those people, there's bound to be someone else in this world like that," and then he stood and walked back to the doorway. "Don't drink too much, I don't want to have to attend another Winters funeral."

Fuck.

And for the first time ever, I went back inside to put the bottle beside me back on the shelf.