Three months had passed since Shanghai, and the city's bright chaos now felt like a distant fever dream. Beijing was colder, both in temperature and temperament. Steel and glass stretched across the skyline like rigid blades, and everything felt more formal, more calculated.
Qin Yu sat in his office, the wide windows behind him casting a wash of pale morning light across the room. His desk was immaculate, every document arranged with precision. But he hadn't touched a single file in the past thirty minutes.
Instead, his gaze was locked on the muted phone screen beside his computer.
No messages.
He hadn't expected one. Not really. But still.
A. Is a lie, you expected a lot
He exhaled quietly and turned away from the screen, straightening the cuff of his charcoal grey jacket. His schedule was full today board meetings, an internal audit, a call with the European investors-but his mind kept drifting.
To the plane.
To the elevator.
To that kiss in his house in Shanghai.
Oh, that kiss!
To the taste of stolen heat and the echo of a grip too tight to be innocent.
Three months ago, everything had been a storm.
Now, it was the stillness after. The silence. The echo that came after something cracked.
"President Qin," Shen Wenlang's voice came through the intercom. "The team from Zurich is on the line."
Qin Yu blinked, pulled himself together. "Transfer them in."
As he conducted the call in fluent English, his tone crisp and unshakeable, his mind drifted. He wondered where Yan Rui was now. What battlefield was he carving through? Who was he watching with those calculating eyes?
He told himself it didn't matter.
He knew he was lying.
A. Lie lie, pants on fire😩😉
Across the city, in the far more private and fortified estate of the Yan family, the air was equally heavy.
Yan Rui stood on the rooftop of his private residence, a tall, sleek tower within the Yan compound. The wind pulled at his long coat, brushing against the loose strands of hair that curled at his temples.
The city spread below like a map of possibilities. But today, it held no interest for him.
His gloved fingers held a cigarette, but it burned forgotten between them.
Behind him, Yan Shuo waited at a polite distance, hands behind his back.
"Spanish cleanup is done," Yan Shuo said, voice low. "Madrid and Barcelona cells are officially dissolved. The bodies have been handled."
Yan Rui didn't respond immediately.
Yan Shuo hesitated. "Do we still pursue the acquisition in Palermo?"
Yan Rui flicked the cigarette over the ledge, watching the ember vanish. "No. Let it rest."
There was a long silence.
"Do you want to fly back to the south compound next week? The elders are asking."
"I'll deal with them later," Yan Rui said, voice clipped. "Have a gift sent instead. Something antique. Something that screams diplomacy."
Yan Shuo nodded and turned to leave. But he paused halfway, glancing back. "It's been three months."
Yan Rui said nothing.
"He hasn't called."
Still nothing.
Yan Shuo sighed. "Maybe he won't."
Yan Rui's eyes narrowed. "Maybe."
He turned back toward the skyline, one hand slipping into his coat pocket. His fingers brushed the screen of a locked phone.
One message.
Unread.
Sent weeks ago.
No reply.
He never sent another.
Still, the man had taken up residence in his thoughts, uninvited and stubborn, like a ghost refusing to leave. The silence between them wasn't peace. It was unfinished business.
And Yan Rui hated loose ends.
He pulled his coat tighter and turned toward the stairs.
"Prepare the car," he said. "We're going out."
"To where?"
"Wherever I can't think of him."
Yan Shuo didn't say it aloud, but they both knew there was nowhere that far.
Back in Qin Yu's Mansion in Beijing, the silence had returned after a long day.
He stood in front of the tall windows, one hand nursing a glass of whiskey, the other shoved in his pocket. City lights blinked back at him from the dark. Somewhere far below, people lived, argued, kissed, cried, and forgot each other.
But he hadn't forgotten.
Not the way Yan Rui had pressed him against the bed in the cabin.
Not the sharp command of his voice.
Not the way his body had betrayed him.
Qin Yu didn't like to remember things he couldn't control.
He took a sip.
And still remembered.
He told himself it was just the intensity of the moment. The pressure. The chaos.
He told himself it meant nothing.
But he still hadn't slept with anyone else.
Elsewhere in the city, Yan Rui sat in a dimly lit lounge, expensive bourbon in his glass, but he hadn't touched it.
The music was low, the company forgettable, and the woman beside him was already annoyed that he wasn't looking at her.
He stood abruptly.
"You're leaving already?" she asked, reaching out to touch his sleeve.
He looked at her like she was nothing.
"I already left," he said coldly, brushing past.
Outside, in the cool night air, he pulled out his phone again.
Stared.
Still no reply.
He considered deleting the message. He didn't.
The message he'd sent weeks ago still sat there in Qin Yu's phone:
"Don't make me come find you."
Qin Yu hadn't replied.
But he'd read it.
Twice.
And every night since then, he'd kept his door locked for no reason at all except that maybe, just maybe, he wasn't ready if Yan Rui actually showed up again.