Chapter 5 #2
“I quit.” Nuri clenched his hands into fists at his sides, fuming. Somehow, he’d managed to hold onto the anger the entire drive over here, and it fueled him even now. “Effective immediately.”
Something caught Silver’s attention over Nuri’s shoulder. “Close the door.”
“Of course, majesty,” Marta replied a second before the sound of the door clicking shut echoed through the office.
A part of Nuri was glad she’d seen. He’d need proof later that this actually happened and he knew it.
“Is this about your trip?” Silver asked, sounding all too calm given the situation.
It only pissed Nuri off more.
“You had absolutely no right to do that,” Nuri said.
“I don’t need rights,” he replied. “I’m the emperor. And your boss.”
“Not anymore you aren’t.” He motioned toward the letter. “I quit. I’m done. With all of this.”
“This?”
“The manipulation and cleaning up after your messes,” he said.
“Calm down, Narek.”
“Don’t tell me what to do!”
“You’re taking this too seriously.”
A deprecating laugh bubbled up the back of Nuri’s throat and he didn’t even bother trying to contain it like he usually would. “That’s rich,” his words were tight and accusatory, a death wish from anyone else, and yet he didn’t soften the blow, “coming from you.”
He’d well and truly lost his mind it seemed, but then, he’d meant it when he’d stormed in here, determined to finally do the thing that’d been haunting him for over a year.
“I quit,” he repeated before Silver could reply to his other comments. “It’s finally over, and the best part? The best part is you probably don’t even understand why. You have no idea what you’ve done.”
Silver tilted his head ever so slightly, a sign that Nuri was right, though his expression remained dark and set in a partial scowl. “The why doesn’t matter. Because it isn’t going to happen. Your resignation has been rejected.”
“Then I’ll simply stop coming and eventually you’ll have to fire me.” Nuri had prepared for something like this.
Slowly, the Emperor set his tablet aside and rose from his seat, towering over Nuri’s shorter height, even with the desk between them. “Careful, Narek.”
“No,” he shook his head, “you should have been careful. Backing me into a corner? Not a smart move. I asked for one thing, and you couldn’t even let me have that.” Nuri retreated a pointed step, straightening his spine as he adjusted his jacket.
“Nuri.”
“I’ll have Marta prepare an announcement about my leaving, whether it says I’ve quit or you’ve fired me is up to you.” He snorted at his own choice of words and rolled his eyes. “Then again, everything always is, isn’t it. Up to you.”
“Which is why I’m telling you not to bother walking out that door.”
“Goodbye, CEO Rien.” Nuri bowed low once, not wanting to give the other man an opportunity to continue with threats that would surely shake his resolve.
He was running on pure fury at the moment, but the second that ember dwindled he already knew he’d feel sick to his stomach over all of this.
He couldn’t falter here, in front of Silver.
“Nuri.”
He spun on his heels, intent on making a quick exit, but giving his back to the Emperor proved a costly mistake.
The breath whooshed out of him when he was yanked back, and in a flash, he found himself up against the wall, Silver’s larger form pinning him in place. One hand settled around his throat, lightly squeezing, only easing up when Nuri’s shocked gaze lifted and met Silver’s furious one.
“You can’t leave me,” the Emperor’s voice was dark, quiet despite the clear threat. “I forbid it. You’ll remain right here, by my side, like you always have.”
Nuri’s mind was struggling to catch up to what was happening. The anger was easy enough to identify, but there was something else there, some other emotion written across Silver’s face. He’d never seen an expression like that on the Emperor before.
“It didn’t have to come to this,” Silver continued. “You momentarily forgetting your place is what brought us here. Get your act together, Narek. You’re the Royal Secretary. My Royal Secretary. You don’t get to walk away from me. You don’t get to run off to another planet—”
Mention of Vitality snapped Nuri somewhat out of his stupor, and he forced his arms between them and attempted to shove him away. It was futile, but he didn’t give up.
“Move,” Nuri demanded. “Let me go!”
“You’re seriously still thinking about leaving?
” Siler’s hand tightened, cutting off Nuri’s oxygen for a split second, just long enough to get him to cease struggling.
“Have you really not figured out what’s going on here?
My father tasked you with caring for me.
He gave you to me. Not for a brief period of time.
For forever. Your life is mine, and you sure as hell won’t be allowed to spend it on another planet away from me, be it Vitality or any other. ”
His body acted without thinking. Nuri kneed Silver between the legs, bolting for the door the second the Emperor emitted a pained sound and faltered.
Silver recovered quickly enough to bellow out his name as he raced through the outer office, practically running by his desk—no, Marta’s desk now—and the pale woman seated there gapping after him.
“Nuri! Get back here!” Silver yelled.
He half expected the Emperor to shut off the elevators, even though that would be an extreme course of action even for him, and Nuri knew logically he didn’t mean nearly that much to the other man, but he took the stairs anyway.
No one stopped him in the parking lot, and he made it into his car, not even risking a glance in the rearview mirror until he was several blocks away from Rein Inc. and the man who up until twenty minutes ago, had been his whole universe.
Now that it was done, the anger was starting to fade, overtaken by a well of grief that threatened to swallow him whole.
Fat tears rolled down his cheeks and he furiously wiped them away with his sleeves, clenching his jaw tightly in an attempt to keep himself from completely breaking down and bawling like the pathetic idiot he felt he was.
There was still a laundry list of things he needed to tackle now as well, like calling his sister and explaining why he couldn’t make it—and then figuring out how he was ever going to be able to.
He wouldn’t be able to leave the planet until Silver lifted his name from the no-fly list and…
After the way he’d just acted, he wouldn’t put it past the Emperor to refuse out of spite.
While he didn’t consider Silver the vengeful sort—because that entailed actually caring about other people and the way they made him feel, which he did not—he certainly wasn’t the type that liked to lose.
Having Nuri quit on him? He wouldn’t view that kindly, which Nuri had known even when he’d stormed into that office, and yet…
Silver’s reaction hadn’t been anything like Nuri had anticipated. He was used to getting what he wanted, to people doing as he pleased, sure, but the way he’d thrown Nuri against the wall like that, and the words he’d spoken…It was all too out of character to not leave Nuri shaken.
Maybe he should have waited. Maybe he should have given himself a chance to calm down first, to work through his anger before confronting the most powerful man on the entire planet. If he wanted to, Silver could completely and irrevocably ruin Nuri’s life.
He shook his head at himself and slammed a palm against the steering wheel as he slowed at a stoplight. This was why he hadn’t been able to leave sooner, because the second he even considered it, his thoughts turned against him and placed the blame where it so very logically didn’t belong.
It wasn’t Nuri’s fault that Silver was an asshole.
He’d done everything right leading up to his vacation.
He’d scheduled ahead, found a replacement for when he was gone, and informed Silver multiple times of his departure so there was no way the other man could forget and be inconvenienced further.
Silver may be the emperor, but Nuri was still a regular employee with rights. He was allowed to take time off.
Hell, he couldn’t even recall the last time he’d exercised that right, so caught up in what Silver wanted and needed. He’d neglected himself and his family for far too long, and all in the name of the man who’d never look twice at him unless it was to give him another work-related assignment.
The N.I.M. ball in his pocket was vibrating, letting him know that his multi-slate, which he could also feel in his other jacket pocket, was receiving a vocal communication.
With a hiss, he yanked both devices out and tossed them unceremoniously into the back seat, ignoring the way his chest constricted at the sound of them slapping against the tough leather.
He’d always cherished N.I.M. more than he should, attached to it because it’d been a gift from Silver, even knowing that in actuality the emperor had merely been using him as a free guinea pig to test out a new product.
Hadn’t he just made things clear? Confusing as his words had been, one thing was painfully obvious.
Silver thought of him as nothing more than a tool gifted from his late father. He was clinging to Nuri not out of affection or friendship, but because he’d gotten it in his head that Nuri belonged to him.
That Nuri’s sole purpose was to work for him and do his bidding for the rest of his days.
In Silver’s eyes, Nuri wasn’t an employee or a subject, he was property.
All those years spent together, studying and building Riem Inc…
apparently they’d meant nothing to the Emperor.
Nuri had been fooling himself into thinking otherwise.
Into believing, even slightly, that there was any sort of bond between them, person to person.
People weren’t people to Silver.
Quitting was a good thing. It would give him the space he desperately needed so that he could finally put his head on straight and get over this childish one-sided crush once and for all. So what if he had to basically implode his own life to do it? It was about time.
It wasn’t like he’d ever even wanted anything from Silver.
He hadn’t. He was delusional, clearly, but never by that much.
He’d never hoped for a relationship with him, hadn’t fantasized about being his boyfriend or his Royal Consort.
In fact, Nuri rejected the very idea. Being Royal Secretary was already too much responsibility for him to bear.
It kept him from his family and friends, from those that actually, truly cared for him.
So, no, Nuri had never had any interest in moving any further up the ranks than he already had. But was it so wrong to have longed for some type of connection with the man he’d been bound to since childhood?
The words he’d spoken to Acker Hue now seemed bitter on his tongue.
How pompous they’d both been that day, believing either of them meant a damn thing to a man like Silver Rein.
Traffic started moving again and Nuri drove forward, mind caught up on all of the things he needed to tackle and sort through now that he was unemployed for the first time since he’d been a teen.
Between that and the tears still stubbornly filling his eyes, he must have been too distracted and caught up in his own world to hear the blaring horns until it was too late.
His head whipped to the side just in time to catch sight of the hovercar speeding toward him before it made impact. He jerked in his seat, the sound of crunching metal and smashing glass ringing in his ears a second before his head rebounded off the driver’s side window.
Nuri tried to remain conscious, but black spots winked in front of his vision and his head ached something fierce. He only managed a couple of blinks before everything went dark.