Adrian Volkov doesn't deserve all the hype he gets

Before anyone comes from me I just want to say that I consider myself a pretty seasoned dark romance reader, and have definitely read much darker books than this series. However, I just finished the Deception Trilogy by Rina Kent and I found myself hating Adrian Volkov as an MMC. I've seen him get so much hype on booktok, and I was so intrigued to read this series because I loved Jeremy Volkov, but I fear I found myself actually hating this man.

I honestly felt SO bad for poor Lia. Like girly was just living her life, killing it in her ballet career, living a quiet peaceful life and then in comes Adrian. He bulldozed into her life. Was toxic as hell. He put fucking camera’s in her apartment to keep tabs on her. R*ped her on multiple occasions. Forced her to marry him. Pretty much held her captive in his house. Drove her to wanting to commit suicide to get away from him. She tried to get her doppelganger to impersonate her so that she could run away from him. Isolated her from everyone, like she had absolutely no friends besides his bodyguard (who he was constantly threatening to kill when he got “too” friendly with her, which in my opinion wasn’t even in a disrespectful way). 

I know Lia had mental health issues prior to meeting Adrian but I feel like he just heightened them.

Like Adrian pretty much forced her into his life without giving her any choice at all, and then pretty much held her captive there because it wasn’t safe for her to go out because of all of his enemies that would do something bad to her in order to get to Adrian. 

Like even when Lia pretty much demands that Adrian take her and Jeremy on a family vacation he takes them back home to Russia because it’s not safe for them to go anywhere else. And they’re pretty much just stuck in the cabin the entire time. 

The only thing this man had going for him was that he was good in bed and his after care. 

Like even in God of Pain and God of Wrath when we get scenes of Lia talking to Annika and Jeremy she seems so depressed and sad. And then I remember oh yeah, she’s still literally pretty much held captive in his house and is only allowed out to go volunteer at the shelter.

All that being said I just do not understand the hype surrounding this man. Kirill from the Monster Trilogy was so much more likable in my opinion. Also even Jeremy Volkov I found myself liking more than Adrian. Even though he stalked Ceceily and everything, she had it way better than Lia. Jeremy literally bought a whole ass island to propose to her, treated her like a queen, begged her to be with him and marry him. Actually groveled when she refused to speak to him and was mad at him.

I just feel like I've read even darker books that this series where the MMC's treated the FMC's WAY better than Adrian treated Lia.