Adam: The last man

Chapter 23: Judgment

"Your father is nothing more than a coward who thought I would not find it out," a female voice murmured in his ear—a memory of so many fateful days.

"I only did what he asked me to," he had replied with a neutral expression.

"It was strange to me that a boy as bright and polite as you came to want to conquer a spoiled adult woman like me," she accused, offended. "They took advantage of the fact that my liking for you was obvious..."

Although the woman was not a good person at all, it didn't feel good to have played games with her, but his father had given him the ultimatum. The man did not care what happened to them. They were totally the children of another man. If he hated them so much, why did the damn man take a fancy to his mother? A mother who did not care about her children either. Now Adrian paid the consequences of that.

"If I didn't listen to him... He wouldn't pay for my sister's medical treatment..."

The refined blonde pulled a gun from her drawer. It was elegant, worthy of her, given by her father, one of the most influential men and dangerous smuggling—the firm competitor of the great Manuel Fuentes, Adrian's stepfather.

"You got into the wolf's mouth," said the woman. Adrian swallowed hard when he saw her approach. He was taller than her, but he knew her character, how capricious she could be, and worse, if she had a weapon in her hands, everything she wanted, she got it. "He will never pay anything. You have also been cheated on. I know because my dad talked to him earlier, and I listened. I bet you didn't know that."

"No..."

He felt anger running through his veins. His sister was everything to him, and he was willing to do anything. His false father didn't need to threaten to stain his name so that he would never have a job or would never pay for the girl. The man did it, but it wouldn't have been necessary.

His father had apparently gone to give him away, not to do his part of the deal. The little girl's days were numbered, and he had been naive enough to fall into the trap. The man was right when he repeated that Adrian was only a sixteen-year-old brat, silly.

"I propose you something." The woman slipped the barrel of the weapon over his lips. He felt the cold and rigid material, the faint and characteristic smell, a device made to kill. "I'll pay for your sister's treatment only if you really become mine instead of giving me crumbs. I want you to give me all the pleasure I want, pretty-eyed boy," she added, pressing the barrel under his chin, but Adrian didn't withdraw his challenging gaze. "Don't make that face. You know you don't have an option..."

"...You will belong to me whether you want it or not."

Adrian contemplated the white ceiling after having spent the whole morning walking from one side to another in the square where they had locked him up, hungry, without even having slept. 

The memories of that day when he entered the capsule tortured him. On top of that, not knowing about Teresa had him on edge.

A section of the glass wall slid away, allowing Carla to enter.

"Have you changed your mind?"

He returned his gaze to the ceiling.

"Where do you have Teresa?"

The leader snorted.

"I don't understand why you bother to pretend that you care about a woman. You, a tremendous unconscious creature that you are." A drone came bringing a magnetic tray on the surface of which was a weapon. She took it. "What is this?" Adrian looked at her in surprise. "Do you think I don't recognize it? I know very well how the weapons that you all invented looked."