Chapter 314: Sort It Yourself

After several unanswered calls, Tharok finally picked up.

He had been snubbing the old man on purpose. For a long time now, the respect he showed Durnik had less to do with Durnik himself and more to do with the useless family network still hanging behind that name. Without that shield, Durnik was just another loud rich bastard with a temper and too much free time.

But ignoring him forever was dangerous.

If Tharok kept letting the phone ring like this, the old bastard might decide humiliation was the same thing as betrayal. And men like Durnik did not handle betrayal with meetings. They handled it with graves.

So when the phone started ringing again, Tharok answered.

He was still with his men. Without ceremony, he put the call on speaker and set the phone flat on the table between them. If Durnik was about to start screaming, there was no point pretending this would be private.

The second the line connected, Durnik’s mouth opened like a weapon.

"Why the fuck didn’t you pick up the fucking phone?!"

No greeting. No pause. Just pure rage pouring straight through the speaker.

"Listen to me carefully," Durnik snarled. "I want that bitch Gracie. I want you to get her. And this time, I don’t want any fuck-ups. I don’t want excuses. I don’t want a single fucking story about how somebody stopped you, delayed you, or breathed near the job wrong. Do you understand me?"

The men around the table stayed quiet.

Tharok leaned forward slightly, elbows on his knees, eyes on the phone. His voice came out controlled.

"I thought you said I should leave her alone."

That one sentence hit the line like a spark on dry fuel.

"Who the fuck are you to tell me what to do?" Durnik exploded. "I decided to go after her again. That’s all you need to know."

There was something ugly under the shouting. Not just anger. Shame. The kind that made a man louder because he refused to say the real reason out loud.

He did not tell Tharok what Gracie had done to him.

He did not mention the locked office.

He did not mention the files.

He did not mention how completely she had made a fool of him.

All of that stayed trapped behind his teeth.

What came out instead was simpler and more dangerous.

"I want her found," Durnik said, voice rough. "I want her brought in. And once I have her, I’ll teach that bitch the lesson of her life."

On Tharok’s side of the call, nobody moved for a second.

Then Tharok spoke.

This time his voice was colder than usual. Not raised. Not rushed. Just stripped of the last bit of patience he had been wasting on Durnik for years.

"I’m not going after anyone again."

The words came out flat and final.

"If you’ve got issues with somebody, sort them out yourself. And don’t call me again about whatever shit you’re going through."

Around the table, his men stayed quiet. They could hear the difference immediately. This was not the careful tone Tharok used when he still felt the need to manage Durnik. This was the tone of a man who had already done the math and decided the old arrangement was no longer worth the risk.

He had endured enough.

For a long time he had tolerated Durnik’s shouting, his mood swings, his sudden orders, and the constant sense that respect was being demanded by a man who no longer inspired it. But things had changed. Tharok had seen Lucas’s strength with his own eyes. He had watched what happened when people moved against anyone under that man’s protection. And Gracie, whether Durnik liked it or not, was no longer just some celebrity target floating alone in the city.

She was connected.

Lucas had already given Tharok two chances to walk away from death. Two. That was more mercy than most men in their line of work ever received. Going after Gracie now would not be business.

It would be suicide with extra steps.

On the other end of the line, Durnik went still for half a second, like his brain needed time to reject what it had just heard.

"Did you just talk to me?"

His voice climbed fast.

"I said fucking bring Gracie here in the next one hour!"

Tharok did not answer.

He reached for the weed on the table, calm as if the screaming coming through the speaker belonged to a different world. He rolled it slowly, tamped it down, and lit up while Durnik kept shouting into the empty space of the call. Smoke rose between Tharok’s fingers. He took a drag, eyes half-lowered, letting the old man’s rage burn itself out against silence.

"I pay for everything you do!" Durnik barked. "Without me, you’d be in a fucking problem! You hear me? I made you! I trained you! And this is how you talk to me?!"

Still nothing from Tharok.

No argument.

No apology.

No explanation.

Just the quiet sound of him smoking while the speaker vibrated with insults.

Durnik could not accept it. In his head, Tharok was still the man who answered when called, moved when ordered, and absorbed humiliation as part of the job. Hearing real refusal from him was worse than hearing failure. Failure could be punished. Refusal meant the leash had slipped.

"I said bring her!" Durnik roared. "Do you hear me?! Bring that bitch~"

Tharok cut the call.

Just like that.

No goodbye. No final insult. He ended it the same way a man ends a noise that has overstayed its welcome, then leaned back and took another pull from the weed. He needed the smoke. He needed the quiet. Most of all, he needed distance from a man whose pride was now more dangerous than his money.

On the other end, Durnik froze.

The line was dead.

He stared at the phone like it had personally betrayed him.

"Did this fool just cut the call on me?"

The question came out low at first.

Then the disbelief cracked open into pure fury.

"No. No. No."

His hand tightened around the phone hard enough to make the case creak.

"I’ll fucking teach him the lesson of his life."