Owned By The Psychotic Billionaire (Mafia BL)

Chapter 132: The Color Of Dishwater

The small room sits in near total silence, broken only by the low hum of a distant cooling fan. Soft light filters through thin blinds, drawing dull gray lines across the wooden floorboards.

On top of a cluttered wooden desk rest two objects.

The first is a completely standard black smartphone, its screen dark and unlit. Directly beside it lies a second device, a cheap, plastic flip phone with a dull red casing.

A man sits in the heavy leather chair behind the desk. His posture is loose, almost sloppy, with his head tilted back against the leather cushion. He rests one elbow on the armrest, holding the cheap red phone against his ear.

"How are they doing?" a woman’s voice asks from the speaker.

Her tone is sharp and devoid of warmth. It is the voice of an executive reviewing a quarterly update, expecting clear figures without any unnecessary fluff.

The man lets out a soft, lazy exhale.

He taps his thumb against the plastic frame of the phone, watching a speck of dust drift through the air.

"They are fine. Doing better than expected, honestly. They look almost like a real couple now. Well, as real as a couple can look when one of them spent seven years hiding in back alleys and the other spent those same seven years tearing the city apart to find him. It is kind of fascinating, really. Yesterday morning they were eating eggs and drinking tea like normal people."

There is a brief pause on the other end of the line. The quiet rustle of paper drifts through the speaker before the woman speaks again.

"Define better," she says flatly. "Is the relationship progressing?"

"It is," the man replies, stretching his legs out under the desk until his boots bump against the wood. His tone is casual, like a guy discussing the local weather with a neighbor over a fence.

"They spend most of their mornings together now. Eating breakfast, talking about random things. The constant running seems to have stopped. But you know how it is. You sit outside on a warm morning, look up at the clouds, and wonder if it is going to rain. The sky today has this weird gray tint, like old dishwater. I was looking out the window earlier and thinking maybe I should buy a new jacket, something waterproof, because this humidity is really—"

"Focus on what I am asking," the woman interrupts, her voice slicing through his rambling without an ounce of patience. "Where are they living? What is their legal status?"

The man sighs, rolling his head against the leather cushion. "Fine, fine. Straight to business, as always. They are at Orion’s primary estate. The one with the high walls and the weird garden statue. Adrien stays there willingly most days, but this morning Orion took him out to the docks earlier, but that was just a personal display. A little show of devotion. Or ownership... Hard to tell where Orion draws the line these days."

"A show of devotion," the woman repeats. She does not sound amused. "How entranced is Orion?"

"Completely gone," the man says, tossing a small wooden paperweight from one hand to the other. "The man revolves around him like a planet around the sun. It is almost funny if you watch it long enough. He looks at the boy like he hung the moon himself. It is almost sweet, if you ignore his violent streak."

"And the marriage?" she demands softly. "Did it actually happen?"

"Oh, it is entirely legal," the man chuckles softly under his breath, a faint, lazy sound that barely carries across the quiet room.

"Orion made sure of that. Though I would not call it a traditional proposal. After that whole kidnapping mess, while Adrien was still completely unconscious from the drugs and the shock, Orion brought out the official papers, he took the boy’s hand, pressed his thumb onto the ink pad, and stamped his thumbprint right onto the signature line. Signed, sealed, and legally binding before Adrien even opened his eyes."

"A forced thumbprint," the woman murmurs. "Classic Orion. And the rings?"

"Matching platinum bands," the man says smoothly, tracing a faint scratch on the wooden desk with his fingernail. "Heavy ones, too. Must have cost a fortune, not that money means anything to him. But Orion had custom engravings made inside the inner curve of the metal. Both of their names are carved deep into the platinum on each ring."

"Orion wanted to make sure that even if Adrien takes the band off, the memory of that weight stays right there. They are practically living a newly married life now, even if Adrien looks at his hand every ten minutes like he still cannot believe it is real."

The woman remains quiet for a long moment. When she speaks again, her voice carries a thoughtful, sharp edge. "And Adrien accepts this?"

"He doesn’t fight it the way he used to," the man answers, his voice dropping into a relaxed, careless drawl. "He is tired. The fear is still there, sure, but it has changed into something heavier. He relies on him now, whether he wants to admit it or not. It is like when you watch a stray cat finally stop biting the hand that feeds it. It still twitches at loud noises, but it eats the food anyway. I used to have a cat like that, back when I lived down by the lower district. Orange thing. Missing half an ear. It would bite your ankle if you looked at it wrong, but if you left a bowl of milk—"

"The kidnapping," the woman cuts in, her patience clearly wearing thin. "Tell me about the incident with Masamune. I received the preliminary report, but I want your direct perspective."

The man sighs lazily, rubbing his eyes with his free hand. "Right, right. Masamune. It went about as smoothly as a wrecking ball through glass. Masamune took Adrien."

"And?"

"And everything went to shit," the man says simply, leaning back in his chair until the springs squeak. "Orion did not act like a businessman or an underworld boss during those hours. He stopped functioning normally altogether. You know how Orion usually is. He plans three steps ahead, keeps his cool, and calculates every single risk down to the exact percentage before he moves a finger. But when Adrien was taken? The man lost his mind. He was genuinely shaken. His efficiency dropped through the floor."

He pauses, tossing the paperweight up and catching it with a soft thud.

"He wasn’t just angry in the usual way," the man continues softly, his voice carrying a slight thread of genuine amusement. "He was scared out of his mind. Plain and simple. He was terrified that he might lose the boy for good this time, right after getting him back. He couldn’t focus on the operations, couldn’t give clear orders to his men. He was running on pure panic until he got Adrien back into his arms."

A quiet hum echoes from the speaker. The woman seems to ponder the information, taking a few long seconds to absorb the report.

"So," the woman says softly, her voice cool and calculating through the receiver. "That means Adrien is truly his weakness."

"Without a single doubt," the man replies, his lazy, careless tone returning as he stares up at the dull white ceiling. "If you want to break Orion, you don’t target his money, his warehouses, his shipments, or his guards. You just have to reach out and touch the boy. Hold Adrien, and Orion will crawl on his knees..probably."

Silence stretches over the line again.

The woman says something else, a quiet, low sentence delivered so softly it does not register clearly through the static of the cheap connection.

It is an instruction delivered in a flat, unyielding tone, hidden behind the faint hum of the wire.

The man listens quietly. The lazy, joking expression slips from his face, replaced by an unbothered calm.

"As you wish," he says softly.

A sharp click cuts through the room as the call disconnects. The speaker goes dead, leaving only the quiet hum of the cooling fan once more.

The man lowers his arm slowly. He sits up in his chair, holding the dull red flip phone in the palm of his right hand.

He studies the cheap plastic device for a second, his fingers curling casually around the edges. Then, without a word or a shift in his relaxed posture, his fingers close tight.

A sharp cracking noise breaks the silence as the plastic casing buckles under sudden, immense pressure.

The small screen shatters, spiderwebbing into dozens of tiny fractures, and the plastic frame snaps completely in half with a dull pop.

Tiny shards of black and red casing tumble from his palm, landing quietly on the dark wood of the desk.

He tosses the ruined phone into the small metal trash bin beside his seat, where it lands with a heavy metallic clatter right beside a pile of shredded papers.

He stands up slowly, smoothing down the front of his casual dark shirt.

He walks across the wooden floorboards toward the wide glass window at the far side of the room. Outside, the gray sky hangs low over the city, casting long shadows across the rooftops and distant harbors.

The man stops a few inches short of the glass, placing his hands loosely into his pockets as he looks out over the landscape.

The light catches his reflection in the glass panes. In the dark, mirrored surface of the window pane, his face remains soft and relaxed, but his eyes shine through the gloom with a pale, cold amber hue.