“Tell me who sent you to me!” Adrik roars. His eyes are like black suns.
“Are you insane? No one! None of them! I don’t even know who the—”
"Must have been someone who knows me," he muses. "Someone who knows my type."
Even with everything else going on, my mind catches on that little detail. Knows my type.
What does that mean?
I squeeze my eyes closed to focus, to try making sense of what he's saying. "Adrik, I'm not working with any mafia. I don't even know what that means. What could I possibly do for them?"
"The world needs women." He brushes a fingertip across my cheek. Shivers race down my spine and settle low. "To fuck. To produce heirs. Was that your job? Surrogate for the don?"
Immediately, I lift a hand to slap him, but he catches it.
"You can't beat me, Emery. And you can't lie to me," he says again. "I won't allow it. Not this time. Tell me the truth." He wrenches my hand brutally, twisting until I cry out. “Tell. Me. The. Truth.”
"I am, Adrik! I am."
Panic is starting to creep in. My skin burns, itches. I need space. I need fresh air. I feel claustrophobic, like I’m trapped in my own body.
"Let me go," I rasp. "Please. Don’t…"
“Don’t what?” he presses. “Don’t squeeze the truth out of you? Don’t choke it out of you until your last breath exhales what you’ve been hiding from me?”
“You don’t understand—”
“No, I understand perfectly,” he hisses. “You fucked your way through the Volandris and then decided to become a spy. How long have you all been planning this?”
With every passing second, he looks less like himself. It’s like he’s possessed. His eyes flare wide, his pupils practically eating away the blue entirely.
“I’m not planning anything, Adrik. I’m not—”
“I bet Isabella was part of the plan, too, wasn’t she?”
Immediately, I go deathly still. “Don’t talk about my daughter.”
“Just like I’m not supposed to talk about her father?” he asks. “There’s an idea. Maybe Isabel’s father is my enemy. Maybe you let him fuck a baby into you, and now, you’re using that baby to—”
A rage I’ve never felt before courses through me. I’m not in control of it. It’s like fire lapping at dry tinder, a bonfire from the moment it begins.
Before the plan is even fully formed in my mind, I lean my head back and then slam it forward with all my strength.
My forehead smashes directly into Adrik’s face.
And he falls back.