anwhile...
Billionaire coughed up blood, wincing at the pain stinging his abdon and other parts of his body. He wiped the blood dripping from his nose, saring it across his upper lip. His vision blurred slightly as he looked around the place he was in now.
As expected, he had been taken to one of the guards’ houses near their posts.
"Fuckers," he spat to the side, blood staining his spit.
Billionaire and his crew had taken down a few n stationed at the port, but because of their numbers, they were outnumbered. So, they were easily seized in a matter of five minutes. Yet, he chuckled at the thought.
"That’s long enough," he muttered. And he was still alive.
"Hey!" he shouted at the door, cuffed to the wooden chair he was seated on. "I’m leaving now! You think cuffing to this wooden chair will stop from leaving?!"
He could easily break the chair and go on with his life.
Billionaire didn’t plan any altercation against these people. However, upon seeing one familiar guy, he couldn’t contain himself. Besides, he needed to distract them—another reason to draw the guards in and open an opportunity for Haji and his crew.
"Hey—" His voice died in his throat as the door suddenly opened from the outside.
His brows wrinkled as he lifted his gaze to the towering figure standing at the doorway. The cockiness he carried slowly faded the mont he saw the man’s face.
The man had a white beard, a straight posture, and a clean coat—very fancy. He quietly walked in, his steps feather-light. Dragging another chair over, the man sat in the corner. Yet, he didn’t say anything as he took a cigar from his coat and lit it.
"..." Billionaire leaned back against his chair, clearly not expecting this guy to show up.
And if this person were here, Billionaire knew he had probably overdone it.
Silence filled the small wooden house, thick smoke from the cigar curling through the air. Along with it was the steady drip of blood from Billionaire’s chair. He reached up and wiped the blood from his brow, shaking his head as if that would clear his vision.
"Any explanation of what pushed you to cause trouble?"
Finally, the well-dressed middle-aged man spoke. His voice carried raw masculinity—low and slightly coarse. He snapped his eyes toward Billionaire, puffing smoke leisurely, as if he had all the ti in the world.
"Explanation?" Billionaire scoffed. "Were my n’s deaths not enough?"
He wasn’t referring to the guys with him, but the ones caught in the crossfire in the territory—the two of his people who had lost their lives.
"I am angry," he hissed. "And what made even more angry is that those guys had been in and out of this place, making acquaintances with a few of your n. Yet when they died, you just tossed their bodies back onto a boat like so dead tunas and drove them back to my turf."
Such violence had beco normalized in the territory, and it was no longer surprising. However, Billionaire had been in business with them, supplying what they needed from the outside. He was, essentially, one of the region’s middlen.
So he had expected at least a little respect.
"That happened quite so ti ago," the middle-aged man said. "Strange that you’re only acting now."
Billionaire snorted. "It happened so ti ago, but they’ll be dead forever. Not to ntion that motherfucker just had to show up in front of after assaulting a pregnant woman I happened to know."
"You think I’d just smile and not burn that motherfucker alive?" he added in ridicule. "If you’re going to kill , then kill . But I will not apologize for burning that fucker—or finishing the job if he’s still alive."
The man studied the look on Billionaire’s dirty face, remaining silent, giving nothing away. But what he could tell was that there was truth in it.
"He’s alive," the man replied, watching Billionaire’s face twitch.
"Fuckin—"
"Bring him in," the man cut him off calmly.
The door opened again, revealing three n—two of them dragging another between them. His face was burned, his condition unmistakably poor, drenched from head to toe from jumping into the water when he caught fire.
Billionaire had already been beaten until he’d lost a tooth. But this man—no one could tell whether he was just burned or beaten as well.
They dragged the burned man toward the middle-aged man seated coolly in the corner.
"The mayor sees value in you, Billy," the man said, his cadence unchanged. He took another long drag of his cigar before slowly puffing out the smoke. "In fact, he likes you, and he doesn’t want to ruin the long-standing relationship he has with you over minor matters."
Slowly, the man guided the cigar toward the captive. He pressed the lit end against the man’s already burned forehead.
"Ahhhh!"
A piercing scream filled the room, yet it didn’t drown out the hiss of the cigar being extinguished against his flesh.
The middle-aged man kept his eyes on Billionaire, unfazed by the screaming beside him.
"He understands that you were driven by emotion and caused significant trouble for us," he continued, shoving the extinguished cigar into the man’s mouth, making him choke. "However, he hopes this will be the last ti you cause such trouble, Billy."
The man rose from his seat, sliding a hand inside his coat.
"After all," he continued, "he let you off despite knowing you are friends with the people who caused that incident years ago."
When his hand erged, a pistol was already in it. He pressed the muzzle against the burned man’s forehead and pulled the trigger without blinking.
BANG!
Blood splattered across the floor and the hem of the man’s coat. The two n released the body, letting it fall with a dull thud.
The middle-aged man stared at the corpse briefly with disinterest, then turned back to Billionaire.
"I hope you still rember your promise to him, and why you’re still alive today," he said, handing the pistol to one of the n. "And I also hope this is the only reason you caused that trouble. Otherwise, you know what will happen to you, your n, and your people if there’s another reason."
With that, the man walked out with calm confidence, leaving Billionaire alone with the body.
Billionaire watched their backs until the door closed. When his gaze drifted to the corpse on the floor, he let out a deep breath.
"Fuck," he whispered. "They better not get caught."
Because if another problem arose—if sothing like that incident happened again—Billionaire would be the first to die.
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