Without answering, Akim pointed toward the back door of the car, and I caught sight of pink hair against the seat. Inna moved, Caitlin’s name leaving her mouth as she opened the door. Within seconds, the two of them faded into the background of whatever Akim needed to say to me.
He stepped closer and took a few seconds he normally never needed, which told me those seconds mattered. He then reached behind him, pulled the gun from the back of his trousers, and held it out to me.
I looked at it.
I gave him that gun years ago, the day I made him my best man, as a symbol of what the position meant and of my trust. In our world, returning it meant surrender. Akim never surrenders. In all the years I had known him, through everything we built together and everything we burned to the ground, he never once handed that weapon back to me.
“What is this?” I asked.
“I wish to surrender.” His jaw stayed tight, but his eyes never moved from mine. It was the look of a man who had already made his decision and intended to stand behind it no matter the consequences. “I let my emotions take over and killed your bodyguard.”
My jaw locked.
He killed Ivan.
“She needs a doctor,” Inna called from behind us, her voice cutting through the tension. “We need to get her to a hospital.”
I exhaled and took the gun from him. “Get them inside and call the doctor.” I turned toward the entrance. “And follow me to the office.”
I walked into the mansion and went straight to the office. Crossing to the cabinet, I pulled out a bottle, poured myself a drink, and took a slow sip before moving toward the window. I stood there staring into the darkness outside while the glass rested in my hand.
Akim had just killed a man we grew up with—a man who bled beside us during operations and buried bodies with us. Yet, hearing the distant sound of ocean waves, my mind replayed what had happened on the beach instead. There was no other explanation for why my hands still itched to touch her. Fucking her again would no longer feel like a choice or a loss of control, but something my system decided it needed.
The knock at the door pulled me out of my thoughts, and I realized I was visibly hard. I picked up the bottle and moved to the table, lowering myself into the chair.
Akim didn’t walk in after knocking, as he usually did. That easy confidence he carried as a man who knew he was welcome in any room I occupied was gone. The hesitation told me he had already decided that stepping down was the punishment he deserved.
“Come in,” I said.
He entered, looking as if the evening had taken pieces out of him. Akim stopped in front of the desk with his hands folded before him.
“Sit.”
He nodded once, hesitated, then sat down.
Akim spent years choosing this business over everything that ever mattered to him, though he never realized I noticed it. I watched him let Ivan win arguments he should have ended in seconds. I watched him step back from positions he already earned because Ivan was our oldest friend. He convinced himself that loyalty to that friendship mattered more than his own ambition.
What he failed to understand was that Ivan took things by nature. That was the kind of man Ivan was. He looked at whatever stood closest to what Akim wanted and started reaching for it until it became his. He took Caitlin even though he knew Akim noticed her first, and Akim spent the next three years pretending it meant nothing to him. What he also didn’t know was that Ivan had been eyeing his position as best man for just as long.
“Where’s the body?” I asked.
“I handled it, Boss.”
“So you finally stopped pretending she was never yours to begin with.” I took a sip while watching him.
He looked up. “Boss?”
I scoffed and pushed the bottle across the desk toward him. “I know more than you account for. You could have done this three years ago and saved everyone the inconvenience.” I took another sip. “You chose the business over the woman back then, but now you’re choosing her over the business?”
“I’m not choosing her.” He sounded like a man arguing with himself as much as with me. “I killed your man without your authority. That’s what I’m answering for.”
“You’re my underboss. I put you in that position and gave you the authority that comes with it. Do you think that authority requires a phone call every time someone beneath you needs to be removed?” I set the glass down. “You took too long. Ivan was building toward your position, and if he reached it, you would have been the first problem he solved.” I nodded at the bottle. “Drink. I didn’t offer it to the atmosphere.”
He reached for it and took a long pull. The tension in his shoulders dropped.
“What I won’t entertain is whatever follows that death bleeding into your work. Ivan has two brothers, and they will come for you.” I continued.
“I’ll handle them.”