Chapter 196: Chapter 196: The Reason They Hated Me

He said there was nothing I could do to separate the two of you."

A bitter smile twisted his lips.

"Unless we helped each other."

Adrian stared at them, his eyes wild but fiercely Mocking. "Two pathetic... miserable... brothers," he panted, his voice trembling from the heat in his blood but still sharp as a knife.

"Shut up!" Kevin roared, stepping closer. "Kelly wanted you, and I wanted Matteo. So I agreed to work with him. I came to Central City pretending I knew nothing, only to walk into Matteo’s house and find a piece of trash like you dating him."

His face twisted with jealousy.

"He treated you so well. He spoiled you. The way he looked at you got under my skin and made me hate you instantly. You might be good-looking, but you don’t deserve someone like Matteo. I do!"

Kevin laughed bitterly.

"And before you ask, yes, I knew Matteo would run a background check on me. I wasn’t worried. I was born and raised abroad under my grandmother’s surname. I only came to Central City twice when I was a kid. There was nothing for him to find except my family overseas."

Kevin grabbed Adrian by the collar and yanked him forward against the ropes.

"I thought it would be easy to separate the two of you, but you’re like glue," he spat. "Every time I tried, I failed. The way Matteo protects you, and the arrogant way you talk, made me hate you more and more. And eventually, I started hating Matteo too."

His eyes burned with resentment.

"Everything I felt for him turned into pure hatred."

Adrian spit a bead of sweat from his lips, glaring right into Kevin’s eyes at point-blank range. "You’re... nothing," Adrian whispered defiantly, his body shaking from the intense drug, but his spirit entirely unbroken. "He will... never... want you."

"We’ll see," Kevin growled, tightening his grip on Adrian’s collar.

"I’ve wanted to teach you a lesson for a long time because of the way you talk to me. Matteo is the reason you’re this arrogant. He spoils you and lets you get away with everything. But that’s about to change. Once this is over, your relationship with him will never be the same. He won’t be able to look at you the way he does now. Everything you have with him will fall apart."

A cruel smile twisted his lips.

"And when that happens, you’ll finally understand what it feels like to lose everything."

Kelly raised the chair a bit higher, watching Adrian’s face flush from the heavy drug. "Do it, Kevin," Kelly urged with a twisted grin.

Adrian looked at the syringe in Kevin’s hand, his breathing heavy and ragged, his body burning from inside out. But he held Kevin’s gaze with absolute defiance. "Do it," Adrian challenged, a deadly smirk breaking through his sweat-soaked face. "I would rather die right here than sleep with either of you loser brothers."

Kevin’s face darkened completely. He walked right up to Adrian, plunging a second dose of the drug directly into his shoulder.

Adrian let out a groan, a sound caught between sharp physical pain and the overwhelming surge of artificial arousal. The heat in his veins doubled, blurring his vision as sweat poured down his neck.

He swallowed hard and forced his heavy eyelids open to look at them.

"Just because... Matteo rejected you," he panted, his voice trembling, "you decided to hurt me."

His hazy gaze shifted between the two brothers.

"You were the ones who started all of this. I spoke to you out of anger, and you chose to harm me for it."

He looked directly at Kelly.

"Both of you... will regret this."

"Beg us to sleep with you," Kevin sneered, leaning in close to enjoy his suffering. "Beg us for help."

"Never," Adrian snapped, his teeth grinding together as he fought the intense tremors wracking his body. "I would rather die."

Frustrated by his stubbornness, Kevin tore open another syringe and slammed a third dose into his skin, followed immediately by a fourth.

Adrian’s chest heaved rapidly. His skin was flush red, and he was hyperventilating, his entire body straining against the tight ropes as the massive amount of the aphrodisiac completely saturated his system. Yet, through the blinding haze, he still refused to beg.

As Kevin reached for a fifth syringe, Kelly finally stepped forward and grabbed his brother’s wrist. "That’s enough, Kevin. Take it slow."

Adrian was entirely weak now. He couldn’t hold his head up anymore, and heavy tears began to mix with the sweat rolling down his pale face. He looked at the two brothers, his heart breaking as he found the strength to speak one last time.

"You are so jealous of what I have now..." he choked out, shaking his head as the tears fell faster. "But what about when I didn’t have this happiness? What about when I was just living like a ghost in the dark? Why didn’t anyone choose to be jealous of me then?"

He let out a ragged, trembling breath, his voice fading to a whisper.

"Matteo’s love for me... I didn’t buy it. I didn’t seduce him into it. He loves me on his own terms."

A weak smile touched his lips.

"So I believe... no matter what happens to me, even if I die, and even if he chooses to move on someday..."

His eyes locked onto Kevin’s.

"...he will never choose you, Kevin."

Kevin’s expression twisted into pure, unbridled malice. He slammed the fifth aphrodisiac back into the bag and instead pulled out a different vial, a potent paralytic drug. "Let’s see how much you can talk after this."

He forcefully injected the new drug into Adrian’s neck. Within minutes, the paralytic began to take hold. It was designed to last for five hours, completely freezing his motor functions. Adrian felt his muscles lock up entirely; he couldn’t move a single finger, and his jaw went completely slack, robbing him of his voice. Yet, the intense, agonizing arousal from the previous injections remained trapped inside his frozen body.

Adrian’s head fell back helplessly against the chair, completely paralyzed. The only thing he could control was his eyes, and the tears wouldn’t stop pouring down his cheeks, flowing silently without him making a single sound.

Seeing him finally helpless, Kelly and Kevin unknotted the ropes and carried Adrian’s limp, heavy body over to the nearby bed, tossing him onto the mattress.

Adrian lay there, staring blankly at the ceiling, completely unable to fight back. Kevin leaned over him, unbuttoning and stripping away Adrian’s clothes until he was left in only his boxers.

"Wow... look how clean you are," Kevin murmured, his eyes scanning Adrian’s trembling, paralyzed body. "Yet Matteo could sleep right beside you and not touch you... practicing restraint out of pure love." He leaned down, a disgusting smirk on his face. "Now, I will help him out."

Kevin leaned down and began to press his lips forcefully against Adrian’s neck, sucking on his skin. Adrian’s eyes widened in sheer, silent horror, but he couldn’t move an inch to push him away.

From there, everything became a dark, fast blur of absolute nightmare.

Meanwhile, all day long, Matteo searched the city for a single clue, but found absolutely nothing. The kidnapping had been executed too cleanly. Out of pure desperation, he paid several top-tier private intelligence firms to track the untraceable text messages, but the investigators told him the encryption was highly sophisticated and demanded twenty-four hours to break the code.

To keep Matteo from becoming suspicious, Kevin quietly left the hideout and returned to the estate late that afternoon. He lied to the perimeter guards, casually telling them he had gone out for a walk because he was bored and lonely.

By the time night fell, Matteo and his team finally arrived back at the estate, completely exhausted and empty-handed.

The moment they stepped inside the living room, Kevin rushed toward them, his face masked in a perfect expression of anxious concern. "How is it? Did you find Adrian yet?"

Tony walked past him, throwing his jacket onto a chair, his face grim. "No."

"This is absolutely terrible," Kevin exclaimed, pacing the floor and wringing his hands. "Where could he possibly be? Who would do something like this?"

He turned to Matteo, his voice thick with false concern.

"And you guys still don’t want to inform the police?" 𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂

Matteo stopped in the middle of the room...