(BL) Mafia Love; He who falls the hardest loses-Chapter 171: An Order

However, none of those rational warnings could make him coldhearted towards Haruki. None of them was able to quench the pity he felt towards Haruki.

They were only sufficient to prevent him from pulling Haruki into his arms. They held him back from giving the man comfort, they held him back from stepping closer into Haruki’s personal space.

"Do you need my help?" Hiroshi blurted out before he could stop himself. He said those words as fast as the thought came to his mind. Maybe he could do something, just anything to help Haruki. When Haruki didn’t respond, he asked, "What do you want me to do to help?"

Finally, he got Haruki’s attention as Haruki turned to him and met his gaze. His black eyes stared intently before his lips curved up into a smile that didn’t get to his blank expressionless eyes.

"What?" Haruki asked as though he hadn’t heard what Haruki said.

"What do you want me to do to help?" Hiroshi paused for a few seconds before asking. He wondered if he was worthy of asking someone like Haruki such a question.

However, there was no way he could ignore the sad look in those eyes. It reminded him so much of his mother, if only there was something he could have done for her, something to stop her from her many attempts before she succeeded.

The smile finally got to Haruki’s eyes. It was as though he was amused that Hiroshi was offering to help but as he laughed, Hiroshi noticed it was self-mocking.

"I am serious. I want to help. At least I could do that much for someone I shared the same bed with for more than eight months."

Since Haruki needed a reason and they were no longer in the kind of relationship where he could be vulnerable and truthful, he chose some random reasons.

Haruki laughed again this time seriously amused. He mopped the sides of his eyes before meeting Hiroshi’s gaze coldly. The laughter ended abruptly as though he never laughed.

"Kill Aiichiro."

Hiroshi felt his heart race at such an order. He knew well who Aiichiro was to Haruki.

From his lawyer’s report, Haruki had met with Aiichiro and there was a high possibility that he had made a deal with him to kill Ren because a few days later, Ren was stabbed by Aiichiro.

He didn’t want to believe in the possibility of Haruki getting along with Aiichiro so hearing Haruki order Aiichiro’s death, he could see that Haruki had used one of his enemies to eradicate an obstacle.

All Haruki had left to do was to eradicate that enemy.

"I will do it, if you want me to." After those words left Hiroshi’s lips, he realised the weight of the words.

His heart raced. All his life, he had focused on saving people’s life but he was offering to end someone’s life as though it meant nothing.

Haruki glared at him as if he had lost his mind and turned away. This time he didn’t bother staying close to him. "Don’t do anything stupid," Haruki warned coldly as he walked away.

Hiroshi heard Haruki’s warning but those words he had said worked like a spell on him binding him to a vow he never knew he just made. As he walked to the temple’s parking lot, he thought of different ways he could get Aiichiro killed with his own hands.

He knew Aiichiro was very wealthy and powerful and getting close to him casually wouldn’t be easy but he wanted to try.

He pulled out his phone and called his lawyer. They exchanged short pleasantries as he buckled his seatbelt. "I need a good assassin."

The other end was silent. It was easy to imagine the lawyer’s bewildered look as he asked after a long pause, "What do you mean?"

"I want Aiichiro dead. I need a good plan set in motion. Tell me when you have something and pay any amount asked."

Hiroshi knew his words conveyed how serious he was as his lawyer asked worriedly, "Why?"

"Haruki wants him dead," Hiroshi replied as a matter of fact.

"Your contract with him has ended. Nothing good comes from getting involved with him."

The worry in his lawyer’s voice made him smile slightly. He could understand the man’s worry. It went beyond their professional relationship to clear worry for a close acquaintance.

"I am done with him but he needs help and I want to help him. I can afford to." If it was beyond his means, he might not gotten involved but this was something he could afford to do. He wouldn’t be killing Aiichiro with his own hands but he will be helping Haruki.

"I . . ."

"I think I am wealthy enough to hire someone competent, right?" Hiroshi asked bring it back to their professional relationship.

The lawyer on the other end remained silent for a few seconds before clearing his throat and sighing a response, "Yes."

"Then pay them well to do a clean job. The sooner the better."

"You know this is a crime, right?" the lawyer asked worriedly.

"I know but the person I want dead is a criminal. He killed someone and yet the world is so silent about it because the person he killed was a criminal. It is time for him to die too." When the other end went silent again, he asked, "Or is it impossible? If it is, I will give up."

The reluctance was evident in his lawyer’s voice as he replied, "No, it is possible."

"Good." Hiroshi hung up unwilling to let his lawyer persuade him against it. Aiichiro’s death was long overdue but he did nothing. Haruki used that incident as a bargaining chip to kill Ren.

Now, Haruki wanted Aiichiro dead, he had no reason to hesitate on it. It was a vengeance for him and a means to help Haruki.

If his mother had requested such a thing from him as a kid, he would have found a way to make it happen despite how powerless he was as long as he knew it would keep her from dying, from living in a colourless world before she could take it no more.

Realising his thoughts had dived into something deeper, he snapped out of it. He took a deep breath to calm his pounding heart and pressed the ignition button of his car.

***

Ren was dead and all his subordinates felt like orphaned ducks even with the presence of Ren’s second in command. He was about Haruki’s age and although he handled very serious underworld business beside Ren, he was not Ren.

The man sat opposite Haruki as they discussed what would happen next. Each family member had sent their clan leaders (those who handled their underworld businesses for them under Ren who represented Haruki in the underworld).

Each clan leader had their territories but at the end, they were all under Ren’s rule and the only ones who truly tried to handle underworld matters outside Ren’s control were his late granduncle.

The fact that their underworld businesses were all overseen by Ren was the reason Haruki held back from completely abolishing such dealings. Ren was dead and this felt like an opportunity to completely dissolve their direct connection with the underworld.

This was what the meeting was about. Shortly after he became Chairman he continued his grandfather’s plan and brought all the men without direct connection with their yakuza businesses into other legal businesses they could survive in.

He even opened a couple of companies to fit them in and expanded their security company. That had worked perfectly because those without records in the Yakuza world saved themselves from the tie that could ruin their futures forever.

However, some of them had records in the Yakuza and some had criminal records while working with his grandfather and that made it impossible to return to normal civilian lives keeping them stuck in the underworld like Ren’s second-in-command.

This was the second day of such a meeting. He could see the hesitancy to let go of a life they were deeply involved in but Haruki had made up his mind to fulfil his grandfather’s dream and Ren’s death seemed to be the best way to.

Haruki sighed and looked down at the lists of the underworld businesses Ren had handled for him and those of the other clans and flipped through the pages tiredly.

He knew he didn’t want to involve the police in their reintegration because that would seriously break their trusts so he proceeded to use the bypass plan he made with Kiyoshi. He gestured to Kiyoshi to explain it to them.

Afterwards, they were given the chance to choose to either remain in the underworld independently or get reintegrated into society. They got complete positive votes from everyone at the table.

After further discussions, Haruki sent them back to their subordinates to carry out the same votes. Some of them were living in hiding, were ex-convicts, runaways, or orphans who saw their clans as their families.

Haruki could easily guess how expensive it would be to achieve this plan, the same plan his grandfather hadn’t succeeded at before his death. However, abandoning all of them was one of the things his grandfather warned him of in his will.

As everyone else left the room with the conclusion of the never-ending meeting, Haruki’s phone vibrated.

He picked up his phone and opened his inbox. There was a message from Aiichiro.

-- Your lover tried to kill me.