His father, the Butcher, was a predator — but for every predator, there is always a stronger one, that's how the world works. Nathaniel became that predator, abandoned the path his now deceased mother had tried to set him on, stroking the little boy's head and saying.

"You're not bad, Nathaniel, you don't have to become like him," she whispered to him once at night. He didn't disobey — Nathaniel became worse.

He let himself lose her. He wasn't even allowed to bury his mother, Nathaniel did it in secret. It was the day he swore to himself that he would kill his father — he still remembers the sound of the knife turning in his body. Pigs die like pigs and Nathaniel always keeps his vows.

Now it's his hell and he's king. His men are obedient, they fear, his cronies are loyal as dogs. And there's you, a ray of light. You don't belong to the mafia — you're a professional exy player, and you're the only thing that makes Nathaniel exhale after hours spent listening to other people's screams of agony.

It feels like he can't breathe when he learns from his men that an assassination attempt has been made on you. There's a lot of thoughts inside. "What the hell?" — the first of them. His men must have been watching you on the court, especially during matches, especially when those who shouldn't know about your connection to him somehow do.

"Useless bastards," he hisses into the phone, not loudly — you're resting next to him — but venom oozes from the words. "Ichirou, I'm going to gut them. Every fuckin' one of them if you don't explain to me how this happened,"

The bullet didn't go deep, it went through your thigh. But the bullet shouldn't have been there at all. And still, one left you here, resting from suturing. He knows it concerns him, must. You're his weak spot. The only thing that still keeps him sane.

Now he won't lose anyone. Never again.

"Shut the hell up, Ichirou, I'm going to kill your fuckin' brother—" his speech is cut short the second you move, sleepy, under his palm on your chest.