Chapter 225: I Promise That The Ending Always Stays The Same

ADRIEN’S POV

The silence in the hallway breaks all at once.

It is not a scream or a loud crash. It is just the sudden, harsh sound of a deadbolt snapping back, followed by the frantic thud of boots on the wood paneling.

I am standing near the elevator at the end of the corridor, my hand resting on the railing. Orion is a few feet away, listening to a report on his phone, his posture cold and unbothered.

Then Niko comes out of the suite door.

His face is stripped of that usual mocking grin. He doesn’t look sarcastic, and he doesn’t look relaxed. He looks shocked, his eyes wide as he looks straight at Orion and gives a single, sharp motion with his hand.

"Boss," Niko says, his voice tight, cutting through the low hum of the floor. "We have a situation."

Orion stops talking mid-sentence. He lowers his phone, his eyebrows pulling together into a narrow, dangerous line. He doesn’t ask what happened. He simply steps forward, his long strides carrying him down the hall toward the open door.

I follow them. My legs feel strange and light, like I am walking through deep water.

When we step over the threshold, the room looks exactly the way I left it twenty minutes ago. The curtains are still drawn tight against the afternoon sky. The bed is still neat, the sheets barely wrinkled.

The air conditioner continues to blow its steady, cold breeze across the carpet.

Everything looks normal until you look at the guards standing by the small bathroom door.

Three of Orion’s security team are crowded in the narrow doorway. They are men who deal in violence every day, men who don’t flinch at gunshots or blood, but right now they are completely motionless. They stand in total silence, staring down at the tile floor inside, their faces drained of color.

Niko pushes past them, stepping inside for two seconds before stepping back out. He rubs a hand over his face, a sigh slipping past his lips.

"She used a pocketknife," Niko whispers, keeping his voice low, though the quiet in the suite makes every word echo. "Hidden in her coat lining. We missed it during the initial pat-down."

My heart stops.

The air in my chest turns to ice. I push past one of the guards, my shoes sliding on the plush carpet, and look into the bathroom.

The bathtub is full of water. It is a soft, pale pink hue, smooth and still under the overhead lamp. Louise is lying back against the porcelain edge, her eyes closed, her dark hair floating like thin ribbons across the surface. Her face looks pale and devoid of the sharpness that had defined her entire life.

She looks like she is sleeping.

There is no loud horror to it, no wild scene of struggle. Just a quiet, motionless room, the soft drip of a faucet, and a girl who decided she was done talking.

"Get her out," Orion commands from behind me.

His voice is laced with a cold, controlled fury that makes the guards jump into action. Two men move forward immediately, their boots squeaking against the tile as they reach into the water.

I step backward out of the bathroom, my shoulders hitting the door.

My mind refuses to make sense of what I am looking at. The people who swore this room was secure, the men who checked every corner and removed every breakable object, are now standing around in total shock.

They failed.

In their haste to lock her in a cage and guard the perimeter against outside threats, they never imagined she would turn her own hands against herself.

I am not sad. I don’t feel a sudden surge of romantic grief, nor do I feel like a piece of my heart has been ripped out. She was not the love of my life. She was not someone I dreamed of befriending.

She is—was my step-sister. She was the girl who shared the same sour air in the Dubois manor. She was the person who helped ruin my childhood, the person who leaked my past to the news, and the girl who spent her life throwing punches at me.

Yet, as I stare at the empty bed in the main room, a hollow, suffocating ache takes root deep in my ribs.

She is gone. The girl I grew up with, the girl I hated, pitying her even when she spat at me, is dead in a hotel room on the top floor of a building she couldn’t escape.

"Adrien," Orion’s voice breaks through the static in my head.

He steps up beside me, his heavy hand coming down to grip my shoulder. His touch is firm, possessive, and warm, but his face is an unreadable wall of stone.

He is angry. He is furious that a prisoner managed to cheat his security, that a loose end pulled her own thread out of his hands before he could clean up the mess.

Louise’s death does not fix the scandal. It doesn’t take down the news articles circulating across the financial hubs, it doesn’t repair the damaged logistics contracts, and it doesn’t quiet the whispers from Lady Dimitra’s faction.

If anything, it leaves a new trail of blood and unanswered questions that will haunt the Vassilis family for months.

"We are leaving," Orion says quietly, his grip tightening on my shoulder as he tries to turn me toward the door. "Niko will handle the cleanup and contact the authorities quietly."

"Wait," I whisper, my voice dry and raspy. I pull back slightly from his grip, staring at the closed bathroom door. "Orion... wait a second."

"There is nothing to wait for, Adrien," Orion says, his dark eyes locking onto mine with an absolute, unyielding intensity. "She made her choice."

She made her choice.

The words echo in my ears as Orion guides me out into the hallway. We walk past the silent guards, down the long carpeted corridor, and into the private elevator. The doors slide shut with a soft hiss, cutting off the hotel floor completely.

As the elevator drops toward the underground garage, my mind begins to race, spinning out of control.

I remember her fury at the lake house when Niko pulled her out into the sun. I remember the way she cursed Alice, her voice cracking with a pure, unadulterated hatred that caught me completely off guard.

She had called Alice a coward. She had insisted that releasing the video was her chance to get back at her mother, to ruin everything Alice had worked so hard to build.

Why would she say that?

I spent years believing they were a team. I spent years watching Louise and Alice stand side by side in my father’s house, united in their goal to tear me down and take everything that belonged to my family.

If they were working together, why did Louise talk about Alice as if she were her worst enemy? Why would she use her final days on earth to strike a blow against the woman who raised her?

Her death makes it impossible to ask again. She locked the truth behind her teeth and took it into the dark with her, leaving me to piece together a story that makes no sense.

And then, most of all, her final words return to me.

They linger in the quiet interior of the elevator, sharp and clear, cutting through the hum of the mechanism.

What an underwhelming dream you have, Adrien Dubois.

I lean my head back against the polished metal wall of the elevator, closing my eyes.

Why did she say that?

I repeat the line over and over in my head, searching for a pattern, searching for a clue buried in the corners of my memory. Was it just a final insult? Was she simply mocking me one last time before I walked out the door, making fun of my place beside Orion, making fun of my desire to avoid violence and live a soft life?

Or was she referring to something else? Something I have forgotten?

I try to recall every fight we ever had. I try to picture the cold hallways of the Dubois estate, the awkward dinners over expensive cutlery, the sharp insults she threw at me when my father wasn’t looking.

Nothing fits. There was no conversation about dreams, no discussion about what we wanted from the world. We only spoke in sharp edges and bitter bites.

I cannot connect her statement to anything real. It sits in my mind like a stray piece from a completely different puzzle, useless and confusing.

The elevator doors open with a quiet chime, revealing the dim, cool air of the underground garage. The dark sedans are idling in a line, their exhaust fumes rising into the fluorescent light overhead.

Orion walks beside me, his hand resting lightly against the small of my back as he guides me toward the open car door.

He is already on his phone again, issuing orders to his legal team, managing the aftermath with his usual ruthless efficiency. He is moving forward, controlling the narrative, ensuring that his empire remains solid despite the chaos.

I step into the back seat of the sedan and slide across the seats.

Orion gets in beside me, pulling the door shut. The driver pulls out of the bay, the tires screeching softly against the smooth concrete as we head out into the grey afternoon fog.

I look out the tinted window at the city passing by. The tall buildings, the rain-slicked streets, the crowds of people walking along the sidewalks with umbrellas— everything looks dull and far away.

Louise is gone.

She didn’t leave a confession. She didn’t leave a explanation for Orion, a message for her mother, or a final truth for me. She simply closed her eyes and left us to deal with the fire she started.

She took her answers with her, leaving me sitting in the back of this quiet car, surrounded by memories that do not fit together.