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CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Viktor opened the basement door to reveal Gabriel’s art room. For a moment he just stood there and stared. He hadn’t been to this room in an entire month, but it was almost like he’d stepped back in time and that Gabriel would be in here. But everything had been left untouched.

And Gabriel wasn’t here.

In truth, he’d avoided the art room for so long because it reminded him of Gabriel. But then again, so did the master bedroom, the living room, and even the dining room. It seemed the only place he could stay in the longest was his office, since Gabriel had never actually been in there. But still, it was hard to stop thinking about him.

Thinking about Gabriel left an aching emptiness inside his chest. He wanted to distract himself with work, but thoughts of Gabriel wouldn’t leave his mind. He’d hurt Gabriel. Considering how he’d treated him, he was convinced the boy wouldn’t ever want to see him again, even when Viktor craved to see him, to have him, to hold him.

And now he found himself here. He had a fleeting idea to get rid of the art room, but wiped it from his mind as quick as it had come.

Removing this room would mean completely removing Gabriel from his life, and he didn’t want to do that, even when he’d already let him go.

Walking into the room, Viktor spotted the stack of canvases leaning against one corner of the wall. Sifting through them carefully and one at a time, he saw different patterns and many colors, then stopped when he reached the canvas at the very back of the pile.

He saw his own face.

Everything was white except for the black paint that made up the shapes of his head, eyes, nose, mouth, and jaw. In the background were black splashes and drips that ran from the top to the middle, some running down the entire length of the canvas. Viktor stared at his eyes on the canvas that were looking back at him. They were a bright blue, the only color that demanded all his attention.

He gazed at the entire canvas for a moment longer before putting it back, then leaning all the other pieces against each other, just how Gabriel had left them.

Viktor switched off the light and stepped out of the room, shutting and locking the door behind him before walking down the hall to his office.

Viktor sat behind his desk for a while, gazing out the window to his front yard. The door to the office opened and he looked toward it to see Sasha walk inside and shut the door behind him.

“Everything is complete, and the shipments are final,” Sasha told him.

“Good,” Viktor said.

“Is there anything else for today?”

“No, that’s all.”

Silence settled in the room and Viktor looked out the window again, an image of Gabriel sitting on the porch steps outside coming to mind. Viktor wondered how long it’d take for him to forget Gabriel—if that would ever happen in the first place.

If Gabriel was still here, Viktor would have taken the rest of the day off to spend time with him, but now all he could do was stay sitting in his quiet office, waiting for his right-hand man to leave.

“You should go and see him,” Sasha said.

Viktor looked from the window to Sasha. “I’ve already let Gabriel go.”

“I don’t want this to be taken the wrong way, but since Gabriel’s been gone you’ve hardly even stepped foot in your own bedroom.”

Viktor felt his eyebrows draw in. He knew Sasha wasn’t trying to be disrespectful, he was simply stating the obvious.

Since he’d let Gabriel go, Viktor hadn’t slept in his own bedroom. The first night Gabriel had gone, Viktor went to the master bedroom and froze by the doorway. When he looked at the bed, he’d remembered Gabriel lying on his belly, naked between the sheets as he slept.

Viktor had grabbed his pajama pants and a plain white T-shirt before walking down the hall and to a spare bedroom, where he’d been sleeping ever since. If he slept in his own bedroom, he felt that he wouldn’t be able to stop thinking about Gabriel. But then again, he couldn’t stop thinking about him regardless of where he was, in or out of the house.

Despite understanding what Sasha was telling him, Viktor wanted to know what else was going through his mind. “What’re you trying to say?”

“I’m trying to say that I think you might be regretting your decision to let him go.”

Viktor exhaled a breath. Sometimes he forgot how perceptive Sasha could be. There was no point denying it. Sasha had worked with him for so long, lying wouldn’t fool him. It wasn’t surprising how well Sasha understood him, even when Viktor was good at hiding and controlling his emotions, and kept his thoughts to himself. Viktor had been sleeping in the spare bedroom without even mentioning it to Sasha, yet he already knew about it. There was no point in asking Sasha how he knew, since Viktor wasn’t trying to hide that he was sleeping in there in the first place.

“Yes, I regret it,” Viktor admitted. “But it’s over now.”

Sasha’s lips quirked into a slight smile. “We know where he lives.”

“I’m not kidnapping him again,” Viktor said.

“Of course not,” Sasha said. “I mean, he’s not exactly lost or impossible to find, so you could always see him again.”

Viktor rubbed his jaw, feeling the hairs of his beard prickle against his fingers. He knew without a doubt that Gabriel had had a lasting effect on him. He was unlike anyone Viktor had been with before, and for an entire month his mind had been occupied with Gabriel. Even when he was dealing with business, Gabriel was a constant.

But Viktor still had his concerns. After all, he’d released Gabriel because he didn’t want to lose him to the criminal underworld.

“What if I lose him like I lost Katya?” Viktor said. “I can’t go through that again.”

“I know how much you loved Katya,” Sasha said, his brow furrowing slightly. He and Katya had also been like brother and sister, and Viktor knew he wasn’t the only one who had suffered from her loss. “But... is it worth never being able to experience love again? Gabriel is different.”

“Yes, he’s grown up in the mafia world. He understands the lifestyle, but I can tell he doesn’t want to be part of it. And I don’t want him to be involved.”

“You can still protect him by keeping him out of it,” Sasha said.

“If I go to him, and he wants to be with me again, how can I be sure he won’t... be murdered? Kidnapped? Tortured?”

“We can’t know for sure,” Sasha said. “But I suppose every relationship comes with risks.”

Silence grew between them as Viktor considered it. He lived a dangerous lifestyle with no guarantees, but he wanted Gabriel more than he wanted to continue being a part of the criminal underworld. Viktor may have had his heart broken by the murder of his sister, but that didn’t mean he wanted to spend the rest of his life alone, thinking about what he’d lost and what he could have had.

He loved Gabriel and he shouldn’t have let him go in the first place.

“It’s not too late to be with Gabriel again,” Sasha said, almost as though he had read his mind.

His right-hand man was right.

It was never too late.

But Viktor needed to do something else before he decided to go to Gabriel again.

“I’m quitting the mafia,” Viktor said.

Sasha stared at him for a moment, his eyes widening slightly. “You’re... quitting?”

“Yes. I should have done this a long time ago. And if I want to be with Gabriel, I need to leave it all behind. It’s the only way I can keep him safe.”

Viktor knew this was the best decision for him to make. As for money, he decided he’d continue investing, as it was legal, and it was already generating more than enough for him to continue his lifestyle, without criminal involvement.

Sasha nodded. “I understand.”

“You should pursue your dream to be a chef, Sasha. I haven’t forgotten about that.”

Sasha smiled at him. “I will, boss.”

Viktor returned the expression. “Just call me by my name from now on.”