BIA Ch. 129

The Last Day

At the jarring alarm sound, Samuel’s eyes snapped open. It felt like he’d only closed them for a moment, but it was already eight o’clock. He quickly found his phone, turned off the alarm, and sat up. There was no one else in the room. Chester had slept in another room, and Bran… had probably woken up long ago. At least an hour ago, surely.

He was an extreme short sleeper. He wasn’t the type to need much sleep originally, but the sleep disorder he started suffering from a few years ago seemed to have become his pattern. Truthfully, Samuel firmly believed that anyone in this line of work who slept a lot was the real oddball. A psychopath, in a sense.

Of course, Samuel wasn’t a psychopath either, so he hadn’t slept properly for months after being deployed on the operation. Fortunately, his laid-back nature helped him regain stability quickly, but things had been a mess lately. It was because Chester had started acting out, Bran had made uncharacteristic decisions, and the higher-ups had continuously grilled only poor Samuel.

It culminated in the last two days, which had been absolute hell, constantly exchanging messages with the higher-ups behind Bran’s back and attempting separate contact with Martino’s side. Especially yesterday, he had barely slept, clinging to his phone set on silent mode until dawn, checking messages and sending replies.

“Damn it, what happened to my handsome face.”

Samuel muttered as soon as he entered the bathroom and looked in the mirror. His eyes were bloodshot red, his skin was rough—it was a total disaster. Feeling gloomy, Samuel washed his face and shaved more meticulously than usual. Then, as he applied the toner and lotion from the sink, his eyes widened at the sensation of it soaking moistly into his skin. What on earth was this? Startled, Samuel re-examined the skincare product he had used. It bore a logo he’d never seen before, clearly French judging by the lettering.

This must be something Bran brought.

Samuel committed the hard-to-pronounce brand name to memory and left the bathroom. He then accessed the internet on his phone, searched for the brand name, and screamed, throwing his phone at the unimaginable price. Then he erased the number he had just seen from his memory.

Dispirited, Samuel picked up the jacket hanging on the clothes rack. No, it’s okay, if this job wraps up well, I should get a special bonus. He tried to psych himself up, putting the jacket on over his wrinkled shirt, knotting the same tie he wore yesterday, and left the room.

On the landing heading down to the first floor, he met Grace holding an armful of orange roses.

“Grace.”

“Good morning, Samuel.”

Contrary to her greeting, Grace’s expression wasn’t exactly bright. Understandably so. For the past few days, she had been yelling at Cedric day in and day out. Just five days ago, Samuel had heard her shouting furiously while throwing whatever she could get her hands on.

‘Did you think I pulled him out of that drug den for this? His job was done once he married into the Cornwell family. Can’t you just let him live a normal life!’

Unaware that her son hadn’t quit drugs, was unlikely to marry into the Cornwell family, and couldn’t live normally even if he didn’t become the mafia boss, Grace had pressured Cedric, even threatening separation and divorce, but ultimately lost to her husband’s stubbornness.

Thus, today was the day her precious only son would finally succeed his father as the mafia boss. And, unbeknownst to her, it would also be the day her anxieties became reality. Samuel spoke as politely as possible to the woman facing the saddest morning in the world.

“That looks heavy, may I carry it for you?”

“Oh my, it’s alright. More importantly, is Chester in the guest room? Or…”

“Ah, no. He’s not in the guest room.”

“I see.”

Grace sighed as if she had expected as much.

Over the past ten days, the times Chester had slept in the guest room could be counted on one hand. Except for the first three or four days, he almost always slept in his own room in the corner of the second floor. Of course, Cedric didn’t know this. Grace, who went to wake Chester every morning, knew, but she didn’t tell her husband. Apparently, even Bran, who had initially watched Chester’s sleeping habits—Chester snored, ground his teeth, and showed mild signs of sleepwalking—with amusement, later openly told the guy to get lost somewhere else.

So yesterday too, Chester went to his own room. No, initially, he went to the guest room. Samuel heard that shortly after dinner started, the guy got dead drunk and was carried to the guest room by his subordinates. However, after dinner, when Samuel went to the guest room with Bran, Chester had already moved to his corner room on the second floor. It seemed he couldn’t resist and did drugs again there. Because around midnight, he suddenly threw open the guest room door and shouted.

‘Alright, let’s have a threesome then!’

His eyes were completely glazed over, and he reeked of marijuana. But he definitely hadn’t only smoked marijuana.

‘Let’s make that our pledge of brotherhood, how about it? You and I become brothers, bound by a hole thicker than blood! But I’m older since my birthday’s earlier. I’m the boss anyway!’

His tongue was so twisted, Samuel could only understand half of what he was babbling. He was drooling so much he looked like he needed a bib.

‘Chester!’

Manny, who had been sitting anxiously on the edge of the bed near the door, sprang up like a spring and dragged Chester out of the room. Chester resisted, even kicking, yelling, ‘Who the hell are you? Get lost! You’re not part of this,’ but was eventually hauled away to the corner room by Manny. And then it became quiet.

‘Chester… why has he become like this.’

Bran replied to Samuel’s appalled, self-muttering words while turning a page in his book.

‘Who knows, maybe he misses Aunt Angelina?’

So this was how one could elegantly express ‘itching to die’. Samuel was genuinely impressed.

Despite drinking so much at dinner, Bran showed no sign of being drunk. Even after getting ready for bed, he immediately picked up a book as soon as he lay down.

However, his mood didn’t seem particularly good. Samuel found that strange. Thanks to Lanius dropping the bomb, the plan had been successfully adjusted to use the side door of the church instead of the back, and they said the sniper Chester hired would now have trouble finding a new angle. Since Bran knew the layout of the Taten lodging well, shouldn’t he be quite pleased, looking forward to tomorrow, even if not raising a toast in advance? So why was the atmosphere so tense?

Could it be… he couldn’t possibly know about our separate deal with Martino’s side.

As soon as the thought occurred, cold sweat trickled down his spine. No way, it’s not like Bran is a mind-reader, how could he know something like that. Samuel pulled the covers up and exhaled sharply through his nose. He tried everything to calm down, but it wasn’t working. Hearing what he heard from Lanius made him even more anxious.

— Why would Bran entrust such an important task only to you, leaving aside all his other subordinates?

— Because he knows the possibility of you siding with Chester is zero.

…How on earth did he know?

Thinking about it again, it was unbelievable. Then again, there was definitely a part of him that resignedly thought, yes, there’s no way Bran wouldn’t know, it doesn’t make sense that such a perceptive man wouldn’t have known until now. It was also natural human psychology to lean more towards the latter explanation now.

He had resolved to act exactly the same regardless, but once he was alone with Bran, he couldn’t bring himself to speak. He was afraid he might make a mistake by running his mouth trying to smooth things over unnecessarily.

So he just said goodnight early and closed his eyes. But sleep was impossible. Bran seemed to continue reading, as the sound of pages turning could be heard.

Then, past one o’clock, he suddenly started talking on the phone with someone. It was Lanius. For a moment, Samuel debated whether he should shout, ‘I’m still awake!’ but decided to just keep pretending to be asleep. If it was something he shouldn’t hear, Bran would have left the room first. The fact that Bran was talking on the phone without concern meant it was okay for him to hear. And indeed, it wasn’t anything particularly significant.

According to Maxim’s report, that was their relationship. At first, Samuel thought the guy must have misunderstood something. After all, he had often seen the two together but had never sensed that kind of atmosphere. And as far as Samuel knew, Bran had never been with men. It wasn’t that he couldn’t get an erection with men, but they weren’t romantic partners for him. His romantic partners were always women.

Or maybe… was it a tactic to win Lanius over, seducing him physically? Yes, that’s plausible. Honestly, nothing works better than that. He charmed that construction company president with a similar method before. The person from the auditing organization was so smitten with Bran they didn’t even visit our establishment and just let it slide. And who else was there…

Samuel was under the covers, recalling one by one the people who had fallen for Bran’s charm offensive.

“Then conversely, does seeing a gun make you think of the moon? And does that in turn, make you think of me?”

Bran said, his voice tinged with laughter. It was the first romantic remark Samuel had heard since their call began. Why was it? Samuel felt his own heart pounding.