THE BILLIONIARE DON WANTS ME DEAD

CHAPTER 2

Adrick’s POV

Fucking hell.

I roll the dice and it lands on two. I need a twelve to win this game with Damanos. Now he’s going to tell me I’m on a losing spree. And I don’t lose, I never lose.

I’m in a casino, because I’m taking a break from how hectic things have been going. A reset, but since Damanos is involved, it’s not.

Damanos is both my biggest supporter and biggest hater. He’s relevant to me in a way that’s irrelevant. He laughs as he says, “You’re going to lose another one Dracko.”

I look at him, then I smirk and say, “I don’t lose Damanos.” I roll the dice again and land the twelve. He leans forward and sees it too, then he adjusts himself on his seat, almost like he didn’t expect it. But he should know better, he should know I always win, even if it’s in the dying moment.

I lean forward and pack all his coins to myself, because he apparently bet on everything. He coughs and asks, “How did…? This is rigged.”

I picked two coins and slid them between my middle and index finger, “You know it's not.” The edges of my lips tip up again with my eyes on him, savouring every last bit of my victory. This break really was a nice one.

I stand then, being done with the game. “See you in the office,” I say to Damanos and walk out of the Casino.

There’s a black limo waiting outside for me, with my driver standing by the door. He opens the door, and I duck my head as I get in. There’s a scent in the car, the scent of money and success, and that is the only thing that's going to cling onto me.

My driver, Samuel, gets into the car, turns the engine on and the car starts driving. “The office,” I said, just to clarify. Samuel was new, my old driver was gone, dead.

The drive is slow, my hand trails to my tie as I loosen it, my mind goes back to Damanos and the three other people under me. ADC, that was the name of the company Samuel was currently driving to.

ADC was a corporation that handled the visions and the art of the people, that's how it seemed on the surface. We had branches for things like hiring artists, screenwriters, directors, managers, and everything in between.

We hosted events, had a brand, and had competitions to find ‘talented youth.’ That was the kind of thing people ate up. Slap a pretty face across billboards and the general public will be in awe. Degenerates.

Samuel drives to the front of the building, and when he’s there, he gets out of the car and comes to open the door on my side. I step out, having the cold air flow into my already slightly open shirt.

I walk forward with everyone shuffling out of the way. I go straight to the elevator, the interiors has the same scent of the car too, the scent of money and success. The scent of me. I press on the highest number in the elevator, 67.

The elevator moves up and I’m watching as it reaches each number, from 2 to 6 to 17 to 49 to 59 and finally I was at 67. I walk out of the elevator, and straight into my office. My desk has papers, a lot of them. Half new, half sorted through.

I sit in my chair and take a breath in. I have contracts to sign and documents to read, and as I see the paper directly in front of me, I’m reminded of the reason I took the break to begin with. Instead of checking for my next big thing, I was checking on my next small thing. The things—women I have in my home.

The manager, or whatever he’s called is part of the underground training and sale of people. And I thought, why not? I went into his business not expecting anything much. I saw the first girl, then the second and third, and that one had a slight hint of Lucia. I decided to check each one of them, then I saw another hint of Lucia in the next girl.

It felt like I was acquiring pieces of Lucia, until I reached seventeen. She was different, not special, just much more like Lucia than the bits I was acquiring.

I didn’t need to look at the rest of the girls to know, she was unmatched. Almost unrivaled. And as I sit on my desk with her file, I just can’t help but think about Lucia. I just can’t help wanting to tear the sheet, destroy it, break the copy named Lyra, find Lucia, and break Lucia after.

I throw the three girls' files to the side, and I’m looking at what could be the next face of my company. She disgusts me too, there’s a smile on her face, happiness, joy, hope. That’s what ADC stands for. She has a portfolio of working with kids, a career too, I pass.

A woman who has options isn’t getting me my next deal. I picked the next option, this one is seventeen, pitched as ‘young and talented’ but the number seventeen pissed me off. I was smart, smarter than my own annoyance, this girl could potentially bring me towards a greater sense of money and success.

That’s it, that’s always the goal. I am going to go places I’ve not gone yet, there’s going to be more conquering eventually, more winning, because that was how I always operated, and I was going to find the one person that dented my streak. Lucia.

But before I get there, before I get her and kill her, I am going to take it out on her copies.