Finally, the van slows, turns onto a rougher surface, and stops. The engine cuts. Doors open and close. The back doors swing wide, letting in a flood of harsh, fluorescent light from inside a large, echoing space. A warehouse.
They drag me out. The air inside is cold and smells of dust, oil, and something faintly metallic. Concrete floors, high ceilings lost in shadow, stacks of anonymous crates. Taewoo leads the way, his shoes clicking, while two of his men hold me up between them. My boots scrape as they walk me to a relatively clear space in the center of the floor.
They throw me down. I land on my side, the impact shuddering through my battered ribs. Before I can even try to roll, the beating starts in earnest.
They are not here to fight me, they just start in. Boots and fists, methodical and thorough. A kick to my thighs. A stomp on my calf that makes me cry out. A fist driving into the same tender spot on my ribs, over and over. I try to curl into a ball, but they yank my legs straight, hold me open. A boot connects with my hip, my stomach. I cough, and blood sprays onto the gray concrete, bright and shocking.
Through a swelling eye, I see Taewoo standing a few feet away, watching with his hands in his pockets. He looks like a man supervising a tedious but necessary task.
The pain is a storm, breaking over me in waves. It’s different from the pain Suha gives me. There’s no art to this, no dark pleasure hiding in its depths. It’s just violence, simple and mean. My body is a landscape of fresh, screaming damage laid over the older, familiar spots Suha carved.
Eventually, they stop. I’m heaving on the floor, every breath a knife in my side. My face feels huge and hot. I can barely see out of my left eye. I taste nothing but copper and salt.
Taewoo walks over, his shiny shoes stopping just inches from my face. He crouches down, his knees popping. “Had enough, worm? Ready to talk about repayment plans?”
I drag my head up, spitting a gob of blood and saliva onto the concrete between his feet. I have to work to get my mouth to form the words, my split lip protesting. I feel a crazy grin stretching my swollen face. It probably looks ghastly.
“Is that...” I wheeze, sucking in another painful breath, “...the best you got?”
I start to laugh then, a wet, choked sound that sends fresh agony through my ribs. But I can’t stop. Because it’s true. After everything Suha has done to me—the cage, the piercings, the geotag, the hours of edged torment—this? This crude, straightforward beating? It’s almost boring.
Taewoo’s expression shifts from smug satisfaction to something colder, uglier. My laughter is the wrong answer.
Taewoo stands up, brushing imaginary dust from his slacks. He looks down at me with an expression that’s more bored than angry now.
“You were given plenty of chances,” he says, his voice flat. “My boss doesn’t like it when people waste his time. Or his money.”
A door at the far end of the warehouse groans open, letting in a sliver of the sickly yellow light from the alley outside before it swings shut with a final thud. Footsteps echo, different fromthe scuffling of the thugs. They move with purpose across the concrete.
A new figure steps into the pool of harsh light where I’m lying. He’s older, maybe in his late fifties, with a solid build that hasn’t yet gone entirely to softness. His hair is steel-gray, cropped short, and his face has the lived-in, weathered look of someone who’s spent a lifetime making hard decisions. He’s dressed in a simple, expensive-looking dark sweater and trousers, no flashy suit, no jade ring. The real power doesn’t need to advertise.
He stops beside Taewoo, who immediately dips his head in a shallow bow, his obsequiousness so thick it’s almost too much. The older man doesn’t even glance at him. His eyes are on me, moving slowly from my bloodied face down the length of my bound and battered body.
“So this is him?” the man asks. His voice is low, gravelly, the kind that doesn’t need to be raised to be heard clearly in the cavernous space.
“Yes, sir,” Taewoo says quickly. “Ha Yujeong. The one who’s been skipping on his payments for months.”
The boss makes a noncommittal sound in the back of his throat. He pulls a pair of thin black leather gloves from his pocket and tugs them on, the motion smooth. Then he kneels beside me.
He grips my jaw firmly, his gloved fingers pressing into the bruises already forming there. He turns my head side to side, his gaze assessing. It’s not a sexual look. It’s the look a butcher gives a side of beef, evaluating the cut and the marbling.
“Young,” he muses, almost to himself. “Not too bad looking, either. Or you weren’t, before my boys got to you.” His eyes flick up to Taewoo. “You told me he was a decent fighter.”
“He is, sir. Slippery. Took down three of my men before we tased him.”
“A waste,” the boss says, turning his attention back to me. His thumb brushes over my split lip, making me flinch. “All that fight, and you use it to run from a few million won? Stupid.”
I stare up at him, blinking blood out of my eye. My mind, fuzzy with pain, claws for focus. I memorize the lines of his face—the deep groove between his brows, the slight twist of a scar near his hairline, the cool, almost colorless gray of his eyes. A tiny, hard kernel of victory flares in my gut, hot and bright. I got my look. I suppress it instantly, letting nothing show on my ruined face but pain and defiance.
I work my tongue, trying to gather enough moisture to speak. My voice comes out as a shredded rasp, each word scraping my throat. “I’m going... to warn you once.” I have to pause, sucking in a breath that stabs my ribs. “This is your chance. Let me go. Walk away.”
The loan sharks around us snicker, a nervous, ugly sound. The boss doesn’t laugh. His gloved hand stays on my jaw, his grip tightening slightly. “Why would we want to do that?” he asks, genuinely curious.
I feel the manic grin stretch my torn lips again. It pulls at the cuts, and I taste fresh blood. “I have a temperamental bonded,” I say, the words dripping with a crazy kind of glee. “And he really,reallydoesn’t like other people damaging what’s his.”
For a second, there’s only the hum of the warehouse lights. Then the thugs burst into loud, braying laughter. It bounces off the metal rafters. One of them slaps his thigh. “He’s trying to scare us with his boyfriend!” he wheezes.
But the boss isn’t laughing. He’s still looking at me, that same assessing look in his eyes. He finally releases my jaw and stands up, brushing his gloved hands together. “Is that so?” he says, his voice still calm. “Well then. We’ll make sure to call him when we’re done so he can come pick up the pieces.” He holds out a hand toward one of his men without looking. “Knife.”
