Page 17 of Mafia King

THEO

The apartment sits quiet around Theo, the kind of late-night hush that only settles after midnight when the financial district finally exhales.

City lights still glow beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows, but they feel distant now, filtered through the thin curtains Theo never bothers to close all the way.

Theo likes the soft spill of neon and streetlamps. It keeps the place from feeling too closed-in. He is curled on the low sofa in the living room, legs tucked beneath him.

Soft grey sweatpants sit low on his hips, the fabric worn and familiar.

A tight white vest clings to his torso, the thin cotton stretched across his pecs and the faint outline of his nipples where the cool air from the vents brushes his skin. He feels clean. Just the residual scent of shower gel and nothing else; no city smell, no trace of the metropolis that could swallow a boy whole for taking one wrong turn.

The laptop rests open on the coffee table, screen casting a pale blue wash across his face and the curve of his collarbones. Theo leans forward, elbows on his knees, and starts typing…

Nikolai.

He tries the full name first—Nikolai Chekov—then variations.

Nothing useful surfaces on the open web. A handful of property records that lead nowhere. A single blurry mention of a private security firm that dissolves under closer scrutiny.

No social media.

No news articles.

No LinkedIn profile dressed up as a quiet businessman.

“Hmmm,” Theo exhales. “Looks like we need to go deeper.”

The man simply does not exist in the places ordinary people look. Theo’s mouth tightens. He closes the browser tabs and opens the layered sequence of VPNs and encrypted gateways he has used for years.

The underground forums load slowly, each one requiring its own set of credentials and rotating keys. These are the places where information actually moves: the dark corners where corporate secrets, debt lists, and quiet warnings about certain names get traded like currency.

Theo posts carefully, under the handle he has used since the early days. Short. Neutral. No desperation…

Looking for background on K. Chekov. Russian. West side. Quiet operator. Anything solid.

Theo sends the same query to three separate contacts he trusts more than most… people who have never asked too many questions about his own work. Then he sits back and waits.

The silence stretches.

Theo’s gaze drifts to the soft shape resting against the arm of the sofa.

Maximus.

The blue cow stuffie Theo has carried since he was ten years old. His once-bright fabric has faded in places, one ear slightly lopsided from years of being gripped too tightly.

Theo reaches for him without thinking, pulls him into his lap, and presses his face against the worn plush for a long moment. The scent is still there: faint laundry detergent and the ghost of childhood bedrooms. It steadies something inside him that the forums and the encrypted messages never quite touch.

Theo’s work is sharp edges and cold calculation. Military training turned sideways. Watching people, cataloguing weaknesses, delivering what clients pay for without ever letting them see the boy underneath.

Maximus is the opposite of all that. He is the last unbroken thread to a time when the only threats were men in suits on a gravel driveway and a grandfather who refused to bend.

Theo holds the stuffie tighter for a few more breaths, then sets him carefully beside him and returns to the laptop...

A new message waits in the encrypted inbox.

Theo opens it…

Keep clear. Seriously. Nikolai Chekov is the kind of trouble no one needs in their life.