Fortune Favors The Bold

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE: JEALOUS GUY

“Adonis Fortune, I presume?” the man opposite him asked hostile not disguising his open animosity, and Adonis resisted the urge to launch his fist in his face. He was physically well-built, burly enough to be an adequate adversary, but Adonis was not scared. The only reason he was containing himself was because he wasn’t particularly keen on exhibiting a public display.

“The very person. I didn’t know I was that famous,” he drawled lazily, eyeing his rival’s hand in deliberate offensive haughtiness. Born and bred as a Fortune, he was an expert on making another person feel inferior with a mere glance.

To his credit, Pretty Boy didn’t even flinch, the latter just held his gaze with surprised arched eyebrows. In resignation, he dropped his hand without a fuss and just took the insult sportingly. Then, the man turned to Alaya who still haven’t even looked in their direction and was sipping her martini like her life depended on it.

“Won’t you introduce us Al?” he asked in a slightly puzzled tone.

The use of such familiarity made Adonis’s anger escalate several notches. How well did she know that man? What was his role in her life? Was he also another f*ck buddy, one she’d call whenever she had a scratch?

That theory was unthinkable considering that she’d just shattered in his arms only hours ago, so maybe she was using the man as rebound. A way to clear him out of her mind. The idea was so repulsive to Adonis that he immediately rejected it.

But once planted, there was no way he could shake off the nascent premonition. Was it that easy for her to switch from one branch to another? When he could not go by one single minute without thoughts of her invading his mind. Maybe Izo was right, he had acted like a dumbass by not expressing his intentions sooner.

Was it too late now?

Frowning, he glanced at the opponent again, and took a wild guess that he was also from the police. Only law officers would have bodies so well-maintained, and there was a rough edge to him which said that he’d seen the bad sides of things too often.

Suddenly, Adonis wasn’t sure he wanted to stick around to find more. That bastard seemed perfect for her, same profession which meant that they must have a lot in common, plus he seemed to genuinely care for her as his blue eyes darted to Alaya when she remained silent.

Then when she realized she couldn’t get away with it, she spoke in a shrill tone which Adonis had never caught before. “Adonis, meet Nik. Nik meet Adonis.”

The thick eyebrows of Pretty Boy arched even higher at the obvious lack of disposition from Alaya, and Adonis felt furious enough to strangle her.

Her guilty demeanor made it totally clear that there was no doubt she was fooling around. Something akin to immeasurable sadness caught up with him, and he admitted that he’d been kidding himself all along. He’d been telling himself so many lies all this time, and finding it now was such a rude awakening.

What he felt for Alaya was in no way light or flimsy. If seeing him with another man could cause such a deep blow to his heart, then it must surely mean something. For the first time in his life, he felt completely at a loss of what to do.

All he wanted was to pick her up like a caveman without any regard to propriety or without giving a f*ck about the media. He would bring her to a private place so that he could convince her of his feelings. Another male in his territory had forced him to view things into a perspective he’d been denying for far too long.

Pretty Boy sighed loudly at whatever he saw in Adonis’s face. “Let me introduce myself properly. Nikolay Petrov,” he said with a steely note in his voice which made no mistake of who he was. Instead of feeling intimidated or threatened, Adonis could only sag in relief.

They shared the same surname, so it made them what? Family? So was he the brother? Well, at least one of her brothers. Why couldn’t it have clicked before?

With hindsight, he could see the slight similarity between the siblings – Nik had the same hair color, and the exact copy of her smile, although it wasn’t very obvious at first glance. But he was no lover of hers, Nikolay was not competition. To think that Adonis had been about to make a fool of himself in front of thousands of people.

Mortified, he threw another look in the direction of the woman who was still in the same posture, in an attempt to deny all acknowledgement of his presence. Did she really that by denying him, he would just disappear? Had they come down to the point where they could barely see each other?

“Why don’t you sit down?” Pretty Boy, well Nik asked in a polite but distant voice, and Adonis hoped he hadn’t completely f*cked it up with the brother. He hadn’t expected to meet one of her families so out of the blue. Alaya hadn’t mentioned anything, or he would have been better prepared.

Peeved with her, he was the one who offered a hand towards Nik. “Adonis Fortune,” he said in a grave voice before taking the seat opposite the siblings. Nik took the extended hand and grabbed it in a firm handshake. “Nice to finally meet someone from Alaya’s family.”

Instead of facing an amorous opponent, he was now opposite a more formidable enemy. Alaya, damned her was still hiding her sorry little ass in her martini glass. Adonis wanted to strangle her pretty neck.

“You’ve heard about me?” Nik asked in obvious surprise. “Not good things I presume?”

Adonis felt torn between the two. He figured it was a test – Nik was asking him to choose sides, a deliberate attempt surely to measure his mettle. If he replied in Alaya’s favor, he would make an enemy to the brother forever, but if he opted for the other party, Alaya would be pissed with him for a long time. It was like being caught in an impasse. So, he decided to be honest.

“Alaya doesn’t talk much about you guys. But she did say that she breathes more easily down here,” he replied charmingly, in a light tone to clear away the sting of his words. He didn’t want to implicate anything, certain that the brother and sister would already be aware of their differences.

Nik scoffed and produced a grimace. “Yeah, we do tend to stifle her sometimes,” he acknowledged with a wink, and Adonis felt like he’d score a point. Alaya on the other side looked pretty pissed that they were talking about her like she wasn’t here. “Family’s not always so easy to deal with.”

Tough luck. He relaxed against the back of his seat, signaling the waiter for another drink.

“Tell me about it,” he sighed tiredly, glad that he could relate to someone without being subjected to judgements. “Families are always complicated. Alaya is working on the murder case of my father. I’m scared that anytime I might get a phone call with the bad news that a member of my family is the killer,” he admitted loudly, and Alaya’s head shot up to stare at him.

It was the first time he was saying the words aloud, and that too to a complete stranger. But neither was fooled, his confession was for Alaya’s benefit.

Nik nodded in understanding. “I get that. But some things are sometimes totally out of our control.”

Adonis lifted his nose upwards in agreement, wondering if it was worthy to launch in the discussion. Then, he figured if he wanted Nik to get to know him better, he’d better drop his barriers.

“My family is ... different,” he started with much thought. Even saying things like that was a challenge to him, he’d always been so cautious about what to say in case it was wrongly interpreted and turned into something else altogether. He’d been too used to the media or gold diggers to not thread cautiously.

“Well, at least, we think we’re different,” he corrected himself. In real, we’re not so unlike the others, except we might have a more lavish lifestyle. But the griefs and happiness are more or less same. Things that matter.”

There was a pause and he glance up at Alaya to see that he’d finally caught her attention. “My father has always been the monarch, the one who’d kept it all together as one. I never realized how hard it was for him, he’d always been a tyrant to us. He would be the one deciding and informing us of how we should act, react or feel.” He sighed so long that it turned to a scoff.

“I think it’s expected of me to step in his shoes, but I cannot be like him. I cannot be a dictator and look what’s happening around me. The sandcastles that he’d build is crumbling around me, and there’s nothing I can do about it.”

He paused because he was unsure of whether he should go on. It certainly wasn’t the perfect place for such morbid confessions.

“Like you said, rich or poor doesn’t matter. We’ve lived the same fate with our father,” Nik said in a rough voice after a lengthy silence. Alaya’s brown eyes popped up in greater shock when Nik spoke. “After our mom died, it was only him and us. Alaya was only three. And we were just kids.”

“Are you the eldest?” Adonis asked in curiosity.

“Hell, no. I’m right before Al, the youngest male. I think the two years gap helps me understand her better than the others. Vlad is the eldest and he’s ten years older than me. So, we’re not very close. He’s married and settled with his wife in Guadeloupe. We rarely visit him, and he comes home maybe once a year,” Nik said emotionlessly without a trace of whether he was sorry about the circumstance.

“After him come Ivan and Alek with only one year difference between them. Those two are such accomplices that they don’t need any of us. They’d always been together, have similar tastes, and even look so alike that many mistake them for twins. Then, right before me comes Pavel who’s very introvert and reserved. Unlike me and Alaya.”

Adonis glanced at her, and she looked at Nik with a warm smile. “Yeah, growing up without a mother was no big feast. Dad was the only one around playing the villain and the carer at the same time. I know from experience that it’s not an easy job,” she said looking at Adonis with a conspiratorial smile.

Adonis let out a dry laugh. “Tell me about it. I can never know when I’m trying too hard and when I should let go.”

Nik lifted his glass to express his good wishes, and Adonis clashed his glass accordingly. “There’s no right balance unfortunately. You will learn to handle the wheels with time. I already know you’re doing a good job.”

Adonis gave a thankful nod of acknowledgement before sipping on his whisky. “Thanks,” he said, having the uncanny premonition that the visit of Nikolay Petrov wasn’t a mere coincidence. Was he getting involved in the case? “What brings you to Washington?” he asked trying to sound casual.

The question hung in the air for a long moment before Nik finally raised his glass towards his sister.

“Alaya,” he replied without flinching, his eyes unwavering as he stared back at him with unspoken challenge. Adonis wasn’t sure whether he was warning him off his sister, or whether there was something more behind his cryptic look.

Whatever it was, he was soon going to find out.