Page 55 of Mafia King

The words settle easily. The rage that had driven Nikolai to the edge of the city the previous evening has not vanished, but it has changed temperature. It is colder now, more precise, directed outward at the unseen client rather than at the boy sitting opposite him in one of his shirts.

Nikolai sets the cup down and shifts into the tone he uses when the personal must yield to the necessary.

“Contact Tracker. Tell them you are safe. Tell them you have managed to gather nearly all of the financial details they required.”

Nikolai keeps his eyes on Theo as he speaks.

Theo nods once. He opens the laptop already waiting on the table, fingers moving quickly across the keys. Nikolai watches the screen from his side as the encrypted message is composed and sent.

The two of them sit in silence afterward, the only sounds the quiet tick of the wall clock and the occasional soft shift of Maximus’s ear when Theo absently adjusts him.

While they wait, Theo’s voice returns, quieter…

“I’m truly sorry for how this started,” Theo says, a note of regret in his voice. “I don’t know if I can ever forgive myself for the way I came into your life.”

Nikolai studies the boy’s face—the genuine regret, the lingering fear that the previous night’s mercy might still be revoked. He answers without softening the truth, but without cruelty either.

“Our beginning was unusual,” Nikolai says, a little smile at the corner of his mouth. “But it was the only way we could ever have met. In that sense, it simply had to happen. Our destiny was to be together, even if it wasn’t exactly… regular.”

Theo’s mouth curves into a small, real smile. He looks back at the laptop, refreshing the encrypted inbox every few seconds.

Nikolai leans back in his chair and lets his own thoughts drift for a moment. He wonders, almost idly, whether Maxim and Milo had needed such a twisted introduction—betrayal, revelation, near-execution—before they found whatever steady ground they now occupy.

The comparison is useless, yet it lingers.

Nikolai is broken out of his thoughts though as Theo’s posture suddenly changes.

“He’s responded,” Theo says, tension in his voice.

Nikolai rises and moves behind Theo’s chair, one hand resting lightly on the back of it as he reads the short message over his shoulder.

TRACKER: Perfect. Payment will be made in cash. Location details to be sent later. I knew you wouldn’t let me down, Theo.

The words are clean. Professional. And wrong.

Nikolai feels the familiar cold prickle along the back of his neck, the same instinct that has kept him alive through more than one carefully laid trap.

Cash.

A later location.

No mention of the usual layered transfers or the verification steps that serious buyers insist upon when the sum is large enough to matter.

“This isn’t right,” Nikolai says.

Theo glances up. “Clients often pay in cash, Nikolai. Or at least in part. Especially the careful ones.”

“Perhaps.” Nikolai’s voice stays even, but the calculation behind it has already accelerated. “But I am still very unsure. I haven’t lived this life for so long and not learned how to smell bullshit and betrayal. Or how to spot a trap.”

Nikolai returns to his seat, finishes the last of the espresso, and reaches for his phone. The situation with Tracker can no longer be allowed to drift. If the client is connected to the Rossinis—as Nikolai increasingly suspects—then every hour of delay is an hour the enemy can use to prepare the next move.

Theo is now openly under his protection. That fact alone changes the board.

A meeting with Maxim is required. Not another round of careful, open-ended discussion but an agreement, there and then.

Time is no longer a luxury any of them can afford, Theo most of all.

Maxim’s private members’ club occupies the top two floors of a discreet limestone building overlooking the older commercial quarter of the city.