Page 112 of Kingmakers, Graduation

“Can you give us a second?” he says to Vlad.

Vlad raises an eyebrow, curious, but he leaves the room without speaking. Jasper stays exactly where he is.

Adrik sets the towel down, standing up from the bench. I forget how much taller he is until he’s looking down at me, his chest an inch from my nose. He’s making me tilt up my chin to look at him. His jaw is stiff, those pale-blue eyes burning with anger. Adrik has a temper, too. Even if he keeps a lid on it, it’s always there, simmering under the surface.

“You want to try that again?” he says quietly.

“Did you spend all the Markovs’ money?” I demand.

“It’s not the Markovs’ money. It’sourmoney. I used it to buy raw materials.”

“All of it?”

“Yes, all of it.”

He’s unashamed and unrepentant.

I’m so fucking furious I’d like to slap him.

“You made me a promise! You said when we were in a better position, we’d keep a reserve?—”

“It’s not time yet.”

“Who the FUCK says?” I shout.

“I SAY.” Adrik points his finger in my face. “I do.”

He’s trying to make me take a step back but I won’t fucking do it. I’m sick of him making decisions without me, in direct opposition to what we agreed.

My face is burning, my eyes, too, though there’s no fucking way I’d let a tear fall. It would make me look weak, womanish. Everything he thinks about me when he makes these kinds of decisions over my head.

“What makes you think you know better than me?” I hiss.

“This is my country. My people. I know what we have to do to take territory.”

“Well I know business! You don’t have a ninety-day cash flow, you don’t have contingencies?—”

“I have what I need,” he says. Cold, arrogant, autocratic. He’s a fucking dictator in a country of dictators.

“You’re vulnerable,” I tell him.

“I’mvulnerable?”

Now his voice has dropped even lower … a soft and dangerous rumble deep in his chest. Adrik steps forward, closing his hand around my throat and spinning me around so I’m facing Jasper, my back pressed against his chest.

Jasper watches us, his dark red hair falling down over one eye, his mouth thin and pale.

“Let me tell you something about Sabrina,” Adrik says, speaking to Jasper, not to me. “She likes to use sex as a weapon. She uses it to control men, and women too … but she’s a dealer who gets high on her own supply …”

I try to twist away from him. His arm is iron across my chest, his fingers clenched around my throat. I’m burning with pure, flaming rage.

Adrik takes his other hand and slides it up my waist.

“She’s the biggest addict of all,” he says. ”She’s completely controlled by it …”

He’s groping my breast, right in front of Jasper. Lifting it. Squeezing my nipple through my shirt.

Jasper watches, pale and immobile. His eyes drop to my chest and then he jerks them up again, a little color coming into his cheeks.

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