Nikolai hopped in a car to be driven back to his penthouse. Clearly, leaving Angelo to his devices was a bad idea. He impatiently patted his knee as the car sped out of the casino’s parking lot.
It was strange to be concerned for someone else, but was it really concern? Nikolai was slowly being driven insane by the loneliness, and very few people caught his attention, so he was merely protecting his interests.
He had carried the laptop along but he didn’t open it, glancing at it occasionally like it drew him in. Nikolai’s skin tingled, he might return to the apartment complex to find his men scraping Angelo’s mangled remains off the concrete, but that just added to the thrill.
There wasn’t a single boring moment with the assassin, it wasn’t often he got to meet someone who was unfazed by what others would term as extreme and have their own macabre inclinations.
There was nothing unusual in the parking lot when he got there, and Nikolai couldn’t say if he was disappointed or not. He didn’t want Angelo dead, but having the assassin invalid and completely reliant on him had its own charm.
He ditched the laptop in the car and made his way up the stairs, forgetting to light up a cigar like he usually would. The men in the hallway immediately went alert at his appearance but none of them said a word to him.
Nikolai reached for the door, opening it to find a scowling Angelo waiting for him on the bed. He closed the door behind him, in an inexplicably good mood. "Back so soon?" He asked humorously, taking a seat on his favorite sofa. He didn’t hide that he was watching Angelo like a specimen, mirth in the depth of his dark blue eyes.
Angelo stared intently at him, his eyes a swirl of crushed jade. "I wanted to kill you."
"Hmm?" Nikolai asked good-naturedly, like he hadn’t heard what he said.
"It wasn’t a commission." Angelo went right on - he had had enough. What was he doing here playing sitting duck with his last tether? "It was a personal vendetta."
Nikolai’s expression brightened, just when he thought the assassin couldn’t get any more fun. "How distressing," He murmured but his tone was a direct opposite of his words. "How could I not remember what I could have done to warrant that?"
Angelo didn’t give an answer, Mafia King Nikolai wasn’t his villain. The Mafia King was the furthest from a decent person but he really hadn’t offended Angelo. His self-consuming rage and quest for vengeance didn’t choose however, he wanted to drag everyone down with him.
But now that it had come to this point, Mafia King Nikolai’s death didn’t matter to him anymore. Angelo closed his eyes slowly - the reason he had done this even though his quest for revenge had ended... He opened his eyes again to find Nikolai still staring at him with that unsettling smile and amusement in his eyes.
Angelo had done this to die, he knew he had no chance of killing Mafia King Nikolai, and that was fine, because he never held hope that he could. He had just wanted to die.
Mafia King Nikolai was supposed to shoot him dead on the spot or at least torture him slowly and then kill him, either would have been preferable to this. Instead, the Mafia King put him in a glass box and then watched him with sick amusement like one would do an exotic bug.
He couldn’t bring himself to end his life and the one person who should have done it without any thought was refusing to do even a single thing to him, except the one thing he detested.
"Clean up," Nikolai ordered, not pushing to find out why Angelo wanted to kill him. "We’ll have lunch together."
Angelo felt like laughing, this had to be his own hell. He had killed so many people that their faces started to blur into each other; at first, he told himself they were bad people who deserved it, but as the years went by, he became the very person he hated the most.
Mafia King Nikolai didn’t move from where he was seated, the Alpha had his men bring him a laptop and a crystal tray that held a couple bottles of liquor.
"Don’t you have better things to do than babysit me?" Angelo had to ask. He usually said little but the Mafia King in the room with him seemed to bring out only the worst in him, he couldn’t feign indifference, not when the Alpha was so good at being aggravating.
"No," Nikolai answered like it was the most obvious answer. He poured himself a shot of amber liquid and then held it out to Angelo, "Interested?"
Angelo rose from the bed, if he stayed any longer in the Mafia King’s presence, he might spontaneously combust from anger. "No." He said stiffly, grabbing the set of clothes that had been laid out in clear view before ducking into the bathroom.
Angelo’s anger was a little silly but he couldn’t help it. Why couldn’t the Mafia King just do what he was supposed to? Why was it so difficult to die? He was literally taunting the most dangerous Mafia King, was he doing something wrong?
He took a burning hot shower, even hotter than usual, hot enough to leave his skin tingling like he had been scalded. Angelo had to say, it really helped to clear up his head and come to the semblance of a plan.
Seeing as Mafia King Nikolai had resolved not to kill him because he knew that was what Angelo wanted, he would just have to play statue until the Mafia King got bored of him. Escaping was futile, not just because it would put Silvia in danger, but also because the deranged Mafia boss would probably enjoy that.
Angelo would have done it anyway but it wouldn’t get him what he wanted - death - so he would pass. He had no intention of giving Nikolai more of a reason to keep him around after all.
The Mafia King had to get bored eventually, Angelo would wait him out.