The restaurant overlooked the city like it owned it.
Floor-to-ceiling glass wrapped around the private dining room, lights below glittering like a kingdom laid out for inspection. No other guests. No waitstaff lingering. Just one table, two chairs, and the uncomfortable truth that nothing in this room existed by accident.
Yuren arrived ten minutes early.
Not because he was eager—but because lateness suggested entitlement, and entitlement was a luxury he couldn't afford yet.
He wore cream instead of black. Soft fabric. Open collar. The kind of clothes that suggested youth and sincerity rather than ambition. He sat with his hands folded neatly in his lap, spine straight but not tense, eyes occasionally drifting to the city below as if overwhelmed by its scale.
When the door opened, Yuren didn't turn right away.
He waited two heartbeats too long.
Kairav noticed.
"You weren't afraid I wouldn't show?" Kairav asked.
Yuren looked up then, startled, lips parting slightly. "Oh—no. I mean. I knew you would."
Certainty without arrogance.
Interesting.
Kairav removed his coat and draped it over the back of his chair with meticulous precision. Every movement he made carried intention; he was a man who understood exactly how much space he occupied and expected the world to adjust accordingly.
"Sit," he said—though Yuren already was.
A pause.
Kairav's mouth twitched. "Comfortable?"
Yuren nodded. "It's beautiful here."
Kairav leaned back, eyes narrowing faintly. "That's not what I asked."
Yuren hesitated, then nodded again—slower this time. "Yes."
Good. He corrected himself.
Better.
Dinner arrived without a word exchanged between staff and host. Plates were set down silently. Wine poured, untouched on Yuren's side of the table.
They ate in near silence.
Kairav watched him the way men watched puzzles—patient, invasive, almost reverent in its cruelty. Yuren felt it like fingers tracing his spine, searching for weak points.
"You don't ask many questions," Kairav finally said.
Yuren swallowed a bite and dabbed at his mouth carefully. "Should I?"
Most people would have leapt at the opening. About business. About rumors. About power.
Kairav smiled faintly. "Most people do."
"I'm not most people," Yuren replied softly, then immediately looked embarrassed by his own boldness. "Sorry. That sounded—"
"Honest," Kairav finished.
They held eye contact.
Yuren let warmth rise slowly in his cheeks—not from shyness, but from memory. From the image of blood soaked into concrete. From the sound of a voicemail ending too soon.
He had practiced this.
Let them feel special. Let them think they were discovered, not targeted.
"You know what they say about me," Kairav said casually.
"They say a lot of things," Yuren answered.
"And you're not curious which ones are true?"
"I think…" Yuren paused, fingers tightening just slightly around his fork. "I think people are rarely just one thing."
The words landed.
Kairav set his cutlery down.
"For someone so young," he said, "you sound like someone who's seen more than he should."
Yuren smiled, small and sad, like a confession without detail. "Life doesn't always ask permission."
That was the moment the switch flipped.
Kairav rose from his chair and moved around the table. Yuren stiffened—not in fear, but in anticipation. When Kairav stopped beside him, his presence eclipsed the city lights, casting Yuren in shadow.
"Look at me," Kairav said.
Yuren did.
Kairav reached out, fingers brushing a loose strand of hair back from Yuren's face. The touch was light. Testing. As if gauging whether the boy would flinch.
He didn't.
Instead, Yuren's breath caught—soft, involuntary. Human.
Kairav's thumb lingered against his cheek.
"You should be careful," Kairav murmured. "Men like me aren't safe."
Yuren's pulse fluttered beneath his skin. "I know."
"Then why are you here?"
Yuren met his gaze, eyes steady, voice barely above a whisper.
"Because I don't think you're the worst thing in the room."
That wasn't flattery.
That was alignment.
Kairav smiled—this time real enough to be unsettling. "You're staying with me tonight."
It wasn't a question.
Yuren hesitated just long enough to make it believable. "If… if that's what you want."
Kairav leaned closer. "It is."
Kairav's penthouse was all steel and glass and silence.
No personal photos. No warmth. Everything carefully curated to suggest control rather than comfort. The bedroom overlooked the river, lights reflecting off black water like a fracture.
Yuren stood near the window, hands clasped behind his back, appearing uncertain.
"You can sleep," Kairav said, loosening his cufflinks. "I won't touch you unless you say so."
A lie.
Or maybe a rule he intended to break slowly.
Yuren turned, surprised. "You don't have to—"
"I want to," Kairav interrupted calmly. "I don't collect things that resist me. I collect things that choose me."
Yuren nodded.
"I choose you," he said.
They lay on the bed fully clothed, the space between them deliberate but thin as breath. Yuren stared at the ceiling, listening to the rhythm of Kairav's breathing, memorizing it. Learning it.
When Kairav's hand finally found his, Yuren didn't pull away.
He laced their fingers together.
Kairav tightened his grip instinctively.
Possession.
Minutes passed. Maybe more.
"I lost someone," Kairav said suddenly.
Yuren's heart skipped. "Did you?"
"Yes." A pause. "I learned never to be weak again."
Yuren turned onto his side, facing him. "Loving someone isn't weakness."
Kairav's eyes darkened. "It is if they leave."
Yuren smiled faintly. "Then don't let them."
A promise.
A threat.
Kairav slept first.
Yuren watched him.
Studied the angle of his jaw. The faint scar near his collarbone. The man who ordered deaths with a signature and never looked back.
When Kairav's breathing deepened, Yuren gently slipped his hand free.
He reached into his pocket and withdrew his phone. No sound. No hesitation.
On the screen was a list.
Names.
Dates.
Locations.
Mafia partners.
Shell companies.
Ghost accounts.
He added one more note beneath a name circled in red.
Access confirmed. Trust established.
Yuren lay back down, slipping easily into Kairav's arms.
In the morning, he would smile.
He would laugh.
He would kiss Kairav like love was blooming.
And somewhere deep beneath the city, the countdown would begin.
Because tonight wasn't the start of a romance.
It was the start of a slaughter—
carefully planned,
perfectly timed,
and wrapped in the softest lie of all.
Love.