A switchblade is placed in his palm. He flicks it open. The sound is sharp and final in the quiet that has suddenly fallen. The laughter dies away.
He kneels again, bringing the blade into my line of sight. It’s a mean-looking thing, not long but wickedly sharp. The fluorescent light glints coldly along its edge. “Now,” he says, his tone conversational. “You’re going to give me the account details. You’re going to transfer every won you owe me, plus interest, plus my expenses for tonight. Or I’m going to start cutting it out of you. Slowly.”
He waits. The thugs hold their breath. Taewoo watches, a faint sheen of sweat on his upper lip.
I let my head fall back against the concrete. The cold seeps through my hair. I look up at the shadowed ceiling, at the distant, dusty lights. Every part of me hurts. The cage is a dull, heavy ache. The piercings burn. My ribs are a cage of fire around my lungs. But beneath it all, beneath the fear and the pain, there’s a weird, clear calm. This is just another kind of game. An uglier one.
“Do your worst,” I whisper, then louder, my voice gaining strength from the sheer absurdity of it all. “Do your worst.”
The boss sighs, a sound of mild disappointment. “Pity.”
He moves quickly. He doesn’t hesitate. He rolls me, grabs my left hand, yanking it away from my body as far as he can with my hands still bound. His grip is iron.
The blade touches my palm, just below the base of my fingers. For a heartbeat, there’s only the pressure. Then he drags the knife across.
The pain is blinding. It’s not the deep, throbbing ache of a bruise or the sharp shock of a broken bone. This is a bright, searing line of pure fire, etching itself into my skin. I hear myself scream, a raw, animal sound that tears out of me and echoes in the vast space. My body arches off the ground, back bowing,every muscle locking tight. The zip ties cut into my wrists and ankles. He holds my hand down mercilessly, the knife moving steadily, deliberately, from my palm up toward the inside of my forearm. It feels like he’s peeling me open, like he’s drawing a map of agony in my flesh.
He finishes the cut and pulls the knife away. Blood wells up immediately, dark and shocking red against my skin, spilling over the edges of the wound and dripping onto the concrete. The pain doesn’t stop; it pulses, hot and vicious, with every beat of my heart. I’m panting, my vision swimming, tears mixing with the blood on my face.
The boss leans back on his heels, watching me. He reaches out and wipes the blade clean on the leg of my jeans, leaving a smeared red streak. “Let’s try it again,” he says, his voice still that same, calm, reasonable tone. “The account. The password.”
I shake my head, a tiny, frantic movement. I can’t speak. My teeth are clenched so hard I think they might crack.
He nods, as if he expected nothing else. He shifts his grip, turning my hand over to expose the back of it. The knife comes down again.
The blade touches the back of my hand, a cold promise of more fire. I brace for it, my whole body going stiff, my teeth grinding together so hard my jaw feels like it might splinter. The scream is waiting in my throat, clawing to get out.
It never comes.
Instead, the world explodes.
The sound hits first—a deafening, shattering roar that isn’t one gunshot but a dozen, all at once. The heavy metal doors of the warehouse seem todisintegrate, blasted inward on a storm of splinters and twisted metal. The noise is so immense it swallows everything: the thugs’ breathing, the boss’s calm voice, even the frantic pounding of my own heart.
Shadows move in the chaos outside the doorway, then resolve into figures pouring through the wreckage. They move with a purpose that’s terrifyingly familiar. They move like a single organism, spreading out, flowing into the warehouse.
The loan sharks freeze for a single, stupid second. Then panic erupts. Taewoo shrieks something unintelligible. The thugs holding me down let go, scrambling for weapons they don’t have time to draw. The ones by the doors are the first to go down. I don’t see precise hits; I see a blur of violence. A man’s head snaps back from a blow that sounds like a baseball bat hitting a melon. Another is lifted and slammed into a stack of crates with a crunch that makes my own bones ache in sympathy.
It’s not even a competition, it’s an all-out dismantling.
I recognize the ruthless brutes immediately. I’ve memorized enough of their faces and the way they fight to know it on sight. Seeing them now, turning their focused violence on someone else, is a surreal and dizzying relief.
A wet, bubbling laugh escapes my lips. It hurts my ribs, sends a fresh spike of agony from the cut on my hand, but I can’t stop it. I cough, blood and spit flecking the concrete under my cheek, and the laugh turns into a wheezing sound. My lips feel cracked and swollen, but they curve upward anyway, a smile that probably looks as deranged as I feel.
The loan shark boss jerks upright. The knife clatters from his gloved fingers, the sound tiny and insignificant against the backdrop of breaking bones and guttural shouts. He doesn’t look bored or calculating anymore. He looks like a man who just heard the floor drop out from under him.
And thenhewalks in.
He just strides through the ruined doorway, stepping over a groaning thug without a glance, as if he’s crossing the threshold of his own office. The harsh warehouse lights carve his face into sharp planes of shadow and pale skin. He’s wearing black,head to toe, a long coat over his usual steam-pressed suit. He looks immaculate, untouched by the dust and violence swirling around him.
His eyes find me first.
They sweep over me, lying broken and bleeding on the concrete, my hand leaking a dark pool onto the gray floor. I see his gaze catch on the fresh cut, track up to my swollen face, my bound limbs. Something flickers in those dark depths, something hot and black and furious. For a heartbeat, his expression isn’t calm at all; it’s a silent, contained inferno.
Then it’s gone. Smoothed over. His face becomes a mask of frightening, absolute calm. He turns his head, and his gaze lands on the older man standing over me.
Suha’s lips quirk, just at one corner. It looks like he’s baring his teeth instead of smiling.
“Uncle,” he says. His voice is clear, cutting through the dying commotion. It’s pleasant, almost casual. “How nice to see you again.”
