Page 29 of Vice

13

Viper

As soon as Dele shakily walks out the room, I want to get up and follow her. To ask her why the hell she’s here and what was worth putting on that show. But I can’t. Not yet. I have to maintain the illusion of cruelty. Callousness. Of being just like everyone else in this room who gets off on this particular kind of depravity. Of Dele being nothing more than a random fuck.

I don’t know how much longer I stay. Long enough that everyone else is too drunk or too high or too focused on being tended to by a caterer to pay attention to me when I finally do slip out the room. Long enough that even Travis has discarded his jacket and is letting a male caterer occupy his attention. I almost stay to make sure my plan is secure. But I want to see what the hell Dele thought she was doing. There’s nothing else I can do beyond what I’ve already done to set Travis up. Staying to watch him fall into the trap won’t make a difference.

I don’t even get to the elevators before movement from the crack in a door of one of the rooms in the hall catch my attention. The only reason I stop is because I recognize Dele’s dark hair.

She’s not alone.

Revnor is with her. With his arms wrapped around her still naked form while she leans toward him.

Rage. Jealousy. Betrayal. It all swirls in me in a dark inferno because Dele is mine. No man is allowed to touch her like that and live. Not even Revnor. No matter how useful he is.

“Am I interrupting something important?” I ask, causing both Dele and Revnor to look up at me.

“Adrian,” Dele says.

“Sir,” Revnor says calmly. He’s about to say something else, but I don’t give him the chance.

I cross the room, grab him by the collar with one hand, and wrench him away from Dele. I slam him into the closest wall, punch him, am about to punch him again when Dele jumps between us, a jacket—Revnor’s I’m guessing—draped over her shoulder.

“Fuck. Adrian. Stop it. He wasn’t doing anything.”

“Certainly didn’t look like it.”

“He was just making sure I was okay.”

“Why wouldn’t you be okay? And why would you care?” I direct at Revnor.

“He knows, Adrian. He’s known since my meeting with Pray. He’s not going to tell anyone.”

“Why was he touching you like that?”

“He wasn’t—”

Revnor interjects, not looking at all bothered by the fact that I’m holding his life in my hands.

“I was just making sure she was okay. I know she’s yours. I’ve always known that. I’d take my own life before I interfered with that in any way. Let alone like this,” he says. “You know that, Adrian.”

This is why I’ve always liked Revnor. Never any cheap shots. Never any exaggeration. Just facts, whether he thinks I’ll accept them or not. And it’s the fact that he knows Dele belongs to me and that he still respects that after all this time that makes me finally let him go.

“Good,” I say. “Would have been a shame to have to kill you. You’re actually a useful person that I like. Now get the fuck out of here.”

He doesn’t say anything in response. Simply straightens out his shirt, nods towards Dele, and walks out the room.

I turn to Dele and demand, “Why didn’t you go to my suite like I said?”

“My legs were too unstable to make it.”

Her statement takes me by surprise.

I had deduced that by the way she shakily but stubbornly walked out the room earlier. But just because I suspected that doesn’t mean I expected Dele to admit that to me. She doesn’t typically admit to weakness, even when it’s clear she has one. She finds a way to make her weakness seem like a strength.

I expected her to respond with the usual defiance and stubbornness she exhibits when I give her an order and she disregards me. Like maybe saying I didn’t exactly tell her where my room was and she wasn’t sure who to ask. And even if she eventually would have admitted her weakness, it wouldn’t have been like this. In such a small voice. Something that almost sounds… defeated. Almost. Not quite. Dele would never let herself be defeated. But it’s close.

“Let’s go,” I say nodding toward the door.

---