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I reach out, grab Rei by the shoulders, and pull him hard against my chest. “Thank you,” I whisper into his hair.
He stays leaning against me for a moment before easing back just enough to look me in the eye. “I’ve decided to sell the company,” he says softly.
I blink, caught completely off guard. “Rei… you don’t have to do that.”
“I do,” he answers, shaking his head with conviction. He sits back on his heels. “I never really wanted it in the first place.”
“Rei—”
“I don’t even know what I feel toward Dad right now,” Rei cuts in. “A part of me still remembers him as the man who protected me. But I can’t sit in that office every day knowing the entire foundation was bought at your expense, Kento. I don’t want a life built on what was stolen from you. I won’t keep it.”
I press my lips together and sigh. “What do you want to do instead?”
Rei gives a small shrug with a smile touching the corners of his mouth. “I don’t know yet. I’ll figure something out. Dimitri said he’d help me look into a few independent projects, or maybe I’ll just take some time and study something I actually care about.” He reaches out, placing his warm hand over mine.
I sigh and pull him into a hug again. “I’ll support you, whatever it is.”
About twenty minutes later, a blur of pale blond hair comes darting across the room. Before I can even set my glass down, Ilya ducks directly behind my chair. He drops down onto the plush carpet, pressing his chest against the back of my seat. He peeks over my good shoulder, his emerald eyes wide, brimming.
“Kentooooo,” he whines into my ear. “They’re being mean to me.”
He points to Dimitri and Alexei. My eyes narrow into two black slits. “Do you two want to die?” I ask, my tone entirely lethal.
Dimitri stops in his tracks, throwing his free hand into the air with an explosive Russian curse. “Oh, give me a fucking break! We weren’t even doing anything!”
“You were,” Ilya hisses from behind my head, tucking his chin over my collarbone so that his soft hair brushes the skin of my neck. “They’re bottom-shaming me, Kento.”
I slowly tilt my head back, looking upside down into Ilya’s face. “Is that so?”
“I’m not bottom-shaming. I’m just saying you—”
I click my tongue. “Hey, Rei,” I call out, my voice dripping with sugary malice.
Rei pauses, looking up, his brown eyes blinking with innocent curiosity. “Yes?”
“Do you want to hear a funny story?”
He blinks. “About a year ago,” I continue smoothly, leaning back against the cushion so Ilya can comfortably rest his chin on my shoulder, “your boyfriend had a habit of bringing company back to the Solovyov estate. In fact, he had a particular fondness for Ilya’s bedroom. He fucked someone on Ilya’s bedsheets.”
An audible gasp leaves his lips.
“I just think,” I add thoughtfully, tapping a finger against my chin, “you might want to thoroughly inspect the mattress at the mansion. Who knows what kind of stray biological material he brought home if he was treating other people’s rooms like a public motel.”
“You—you—you,” Dimitri stammers, completely losing the ability to form coherent Russian or English. “Little fairy! Listen to me—that was before!”
Rei lifts his chin, leveling a look of cold disdain directly at Dimitri’s chest.
“Sleep in the hallway tonight,” Rei says, his voice ice-cold and smooth as glass. “Actually… sleep in the driveway.”
Dimitri scrambles forward, looking like a panicked, three-hundred-pound bear trying to negotiate with a hummingbird. “I didn’t even know you existed yet! Rei, wait—!”
“Hey, Marco,” I call out, and Alexei blanches.
Marco, who was just walking back into the room holding a plate of fresh fruit tarts, stops and blinks. The silk ribbons in his dark curls flutter as he tilts his head. “Yes, Kento?”
“You know,” I say conversationally, gesturing in Alexei’s direction, “I find your boyfriend terribly impressive. A true linguistic genius. Proficiency in ten languages, Italian included. Ilya was just telling me that Alexei spent months learning it after he came back from Italy when he was ten years old.”
Alexei’s eyes snap toward Ilya, glaring.
