32. Akira

CHAPTER 32

Akira

" W hat's this?" Misha asked in mock astonishment a few hours later, clutching at his heart and pretending to reel. His heeled shoes clicked against the floor. "Kyle Randall is here early ?"

Akira watched from his place at the whiteboard as Kyle turned his head and glared at his friend through bleary eyes. "Coffee," he grunted.

Mish laughed, jutted his chin at the coffee pot in the corner of the staffroom, and when Kyle began an ungainly lumber towards it, skipped ahead and poured a generous amount into a chipped mug that read I'm Hot: Blow Me. He handed it over without any further teasing, clearly realising that it would be unwise to stand between a man and his caffeine.

"Better?"

Kyle nodded, wrapping his hands around the mug and taking long, deep sips despite the heat.

"Tell me your secret, Master," said Misha as he stared at the blonde in wonder. "What did you threaten him with that actually got Kyle to work on time? Can anyone use it?"

"What do you want from him?" Akira asked, amused. "And are you prepared to sacrifice your sanity to get it?"

"That bad, huh?"

His lips wrapped around the rim of the mug and his throat moving enticingly as he swallowed, Kyle showed them both his middle finger without looking their way.

"Thank the stars that coffee survived the end of the world," he mumbled into the porcelain. "I would die without it."

"Can't miss what you never had," Mish retorted cheerfully, slapping his friend on the back and making him splutter.

Akira wasn't sure he agreed. Because he missed the freedom he'd never experienced, longed for the ability to roam without a ceiling above his head and walls on all sides. Just knowing it had once been possible made the want strong enough to feel like a need – or was it some ancient instinct embedded in humanity and passed down through the generations? His great-grandparents had once walked the Earth, not hampered by the metal sheeting that penned Xerxes' citizens in like animals, or the fear of nothing beyond it but gravitationally-induced death. They could go wherever they liked.

Be with whoever they liked.

By the time Kyle had finished his coffee, the rest of the staff had arrived and were watching Akira expectantly. Happy to never be predictable, he took a seat alongside them.

"Your new manager has the floor today," he declared. Then he looked over at Kyle, forcing their attention his way.

Kyle grinned. "Listen up, you lot," he announced to the room, rubbing his hands together with unabashed exuberance. "While Master's busy doing his super-secret House business stuff, I'm going to be in charge."

Misha wrinkled his nose. "Whose dumb idea was that?"

"Exactly," agreed Kyle. "Five push ups."

"What?"

"Anyone who talks back gets punished," Kyle informed them all with a broad, shit-eating grin. Akira shook his head ruefully at the realisation he'd created a monster . "I've decided it's the most efficient way to prevent any of you losers mouthing off to me."

Misha flipped him off instead. "How's that?"

"An effective loophole," Kyle admitted. "But it's still five push ups."

"I'm starting to feel sorry for your clients," Sanjay chipped in from where he was seated next to Akira. "If the best punishment you can come up with is exercise ."

"You get ten," Kyle told him cheerfully.

Sanjay's face adopted an unimpressed glower. "Why do I get more?"

"Because you have muscles that Mish doesn't," Kyle explained. "So while I get to laugh at his pathetic attempts to even get into position, your punishment enables me to salivate over your flexing biceps."

"Wait, so all of this is so you can leer at us?" Misha asked with suspicion.

"Well, duh ."

Both men threw their new manager rude gestures that time. Akira wondered idly if he should start fining them for it. He'd make his million credits back in a single night.

"Oh, where did I go wrong?" Kyle asked the room with mock dejection. "Subbies, you have my permission to make these two Doms' lives hell the next time you play with them."

There was a round of enthusiastic cheers.

Sanjay cocked his head and cracked his knuckles. "Bring it on," he warned them in a low, menacing tone. "I'll have you on the floor and crying for your mummies before you know what hit you."

"I heartily approve of that plan," said Kyle, pointing at him. "If I get to watch, I'll downgrade your penalty to nine push ups."

"Bite me, Kyle."

"You know what? I'd love to, but I'll be too busy sorting out all your shit tonight. And that includes rearranging all of our shifts on the cameras to cover Adam from 11pm," Kyle added, "because it's fairly inevitable at this point that his 10pm client is going to request another extended session. Rick, did you get chance to oil the hinges on room two's door to stop that ear-splitting creaking, or do you want me to take a look at it?"

And with that, he transitioned effortlessly from light-hearted banter into efficient management, fielding the staff's questions and resolving the night's potential problems with the ease of someone who knew the House's operations well.

Akira watched him work, both proud and pleased.

He'd known Kyle would do well in a leadership role, but had feared that Kyle himself wouldn't agree. The man had always gotten on well with others, able to empathise with their positions and see beyond the facts to the people beneath. He kept calm in a crisis – hanging off the edge of Xerxes had been a rather amusing exception. And he could think ahead, yet was willing to adapt his plans to suit changing circumstances.

He was also famously terrible when it came to money: Kyle would readily donate his last credit to anyone who gave the slightest indication of hardship, which was why Akira was retaining control of the financials.

He probably should have promoted him on a day other than when he'd docked his pay for an unauthorised discount, considering the pay increase would wipe out the impacts of the punishment, but Akira didn't have it in his heart to make Kyle's life any more difficult than it was. Besides, he genuinely needed help managing the House.

He'd reached out to his former clients and just as Theta had predicted, most of them had been eager to get back on Akira's books despite the years that had passed. Many of them were old and lecherous, but all of them were rich, and the steady stream of appointments he'd been able to line up within minutes had been simultaneously reassuring and depressing.

But it meant he was away from House Epsilon more often than he was here, and combined with spending his days ensuring Kyle was kept safe – a significantly easier task now he was sleeping behind the bullet-proof glass and biometrically secured doors of the House and Akira no longer needed to skulk around his shitty apartment block – he was beginning to run on fumes.

Stars, he was exhausted.

Even if he could make several appointments a night at his exorbitant rate of a thousand credits per hour and not allow himself any nights off, it was still going to take him most of a year to repay Master Theta his million credit debt.

Akira should regret it. After working so fucking hard to open his own House and free himself from the daily pawing of sweaty, lust-addled men who saw nothing more to his body than two available holes, he should hate that he'd been forced back into selling himself by the hour.

But watching Kyle as he bounded energetically across the room, alternating between making scribbled changes to the whiteboard schedule and fixing up someone's eyeliner here or harness buckle there, regret was the furthest thing from Akira's mind.

"Casey," Kyle was saying, excitedly ushering the other man over. "What do you think about setting up a-"

The rattle of automatic gunfire shook the air.

Some of the men screamed. Others stood frozen, mouths parting in silent shock.

Akira grabbed the two closest to him and shoved them to the floor.

"Down!" he yelled. "Get down on the floor!"

But he didn't take his own advice, not until he'd made it to Kyle and hauled both him and Casey down to the worn linoleum. Kyle was shouting the names of the other men, an Akira! accidentally thrown in there too, although in all the noise and panic it had hopefully gone unnoticed.

There was a loud crackle as something hit the window.

Akira glanced up to see the runes etched in the corner of the glass glowing so fiercely that he worried they'd burn out. But then they gradually faded back into dormancy along with the sound of the gunfire, leaving the ugly marks of a dozen blunted bullets embedded in the glass.

The other side of the glass. The expensive runes he'd commissioned for bullet-proofing the windows had been worth every credit, keeping his House and his staff as safe as the Runic Engineer who'd crafted them had promised.

But no one could protect against idiocy.

"No!" Akira snarled when he caught sight of the staff members beginning to run for the door. "Stay put!"

But these were Xerxes' Lower citizens, born and bred in a city of violence and misfortune. The gunfire might have startled them, but it didn't keep them cowering on the floor where they'd be safe.

Either curiosity or indignation drove some of them down the stairs only seconds after the shooting had ceased, and the rest followed in a raucous, wide-eyed mess that spilled out of the front doors of the House and onto the street.

"Fools!" Akira spat, shoving one of them bodily back into the building as he followed them outside, and reaching for the next. "They could come back!"

Kyle shot him a concerned look and began to usher Adam and Eric inside, but none of the other men moved. They were staring up at the outside of the building, and when Akira dared spare it a glance himself, he cursed.

The security runes may have protected House Epsilon's vulnerable insides, but they hadn't done anything to stop the destruction of its shell. The building he'd been admiring only a few hours ago now looked ravaged and ruined, innumerable wavy lines of chipped paint and exposed brickwork showing where the bullets had hit.

The gunmen either had no skill, or didn't care about accuracy, for the damage wasn't concentrated in any single spot. From the steps at the front door to the highest level of windows on the third floor, the spray of bullets had been indiscriminate.

"I'm so sorry, Master," Misha whispered, and the excessive empathy Akira assumed had produced the ridiculous apology crystallised into something closer to fear when he looked sharply at the man, only to see him flinch. Others avoided Akira's furious gaze, keeping their heads bowed or turned away.

He forced the snarl from his lips and relaxed his fingers from the tight fists they'd become.

"Get back inside," he said shortly. "All of you."

"This was Kyle Randall's fault." Casey's voice, sombre but clear, rang out in the night air.

Then it was Casey's turn to cower when Akira rounded on him. How dare he say such a thing?

Warm fingers closed about his wrist, holding him back.

"Keep going," Kyle urged Casey, who was standing in the doorway to the House and looking nervous and pale. Kyle's firm grip on him was all that was keeping Akira from sinking his fist into the other man's terrified face.

"You can avoid any further unpleasantness," Casey continued shakily, "at no cost to yourselves. All you need to do is hand him over. One man's freedom for all of yours: I'm sure even you Lowers can do the maths."

Casey took a shuddering breath before reading out the final line on the piece of paper Akira had only just noticed had been pinned to the front door.

"Don't take too long to think about it, or Xerxes may find itself with one fewer House."

Akira was frozen: with fear, with fury, with utter helplessness. It seemed the Mackenroths were escalating their attempts to get their hands on Kyle, threatening not just him but the whole of House Epsilon and its staff.

"Ma…Master?" Adam asked, quavering.

"I said, inside ," Akira snapped when he'd recovered his voice, and all of his men rushed to obey.

All but Kyle. He still had his hand around Akira's wrist, the tightness of his grip suggesting he was taking as much comfort from the touch as he was giving, and had turned sad eyes on the damage caused by the bullets.

"They're scared of me," Akira said dully. Not what he'd meant to voice at all : he'd wanted to reassure the other man, not demand his pity.

"No," Kyle answered, dragging his gaze back to meet his. Akira's heart lurched at the pain he could see in them. "The staff are scared, generally. They need to know you have their backs."

"Then remind them," he urged.

But Kyle shook his head. "It can't be me, not this time."

"Well, it can't be me! I'm terrible at that..."

"Feelings stuff?" the blonde asked wryly, raising an eyebrow. "Expressing yourself? Yeah, we got that."

"You're the manager now," Akira stubbornly insisted, panic rising in him as it always did when he was confronted with pressure to act human. To be comforting and supportive and all the rest of the shit Kyle did as easily as breathing. "It's your job."

He received a dismissive noise in response. "Akira, that note had my name on it. The men won't accept me trying to console them when they'll be attempting to do the same to me in return."

"Please? "

Kyle pulled his hand free and slapped him encouragingly on the back before heading inside. "Save your begging for when I have you on your knees, sweetheart. You've got this."

And despite Akira's fears that he'd only fuck it up, the words gave him the confidence to try.