Leaning against the brick wall, the world continues on. Cars drive by, people yell, but further back, hidden from view, I’m an outsider looking in. Nothing new there.
I take out my phone, checking my messages. Briar’s clipped text shines back at me.
Briar: Player meet. 7AM.
He’s lucky I’m a light sleeper and saw it after the night his sister put me through. Rolling my neck, I check my hip. Both blades are there, my gun stuffed down the back. Tucked in mybomber jacket, I look unsuspecting—a guy having a smoke on his break while the world turns. But I’m ready for anything.
I wonder if Maeve’s awake yet?
After our night, I’m learning—I left a note before sneaking away. I didn’t want to wake her after how rested she looked, but I made sure she knew she wasn’t alone. That I would be back.
“That’s a terrible habit,” a deep voice says to my left.
My body locks, butt hovering by my mouth, the smoke reaching high. I know that voice. It still haunts me—the yells, the shouts, the commands that drifted through the locked door.
My mother begging—pleading for it to stop.
I don’t let my fingers tremble—I’m too fucking old for that shit.
“Is it?” I smirk, inhaling again. Turning, I blow the smoke into his polished face. Pale face, dangerous black eyes that hold more secrets than warmth, and peppered black hair swept over his skull. Only a few inches shorter than me, he swallows up the air in the alley as if it belongs to him.
Typical. He thought even people were his property.
Yoon Kwan waves his hand, dispelling the smoke. “Yes. It could kill you.”
Tsking, I flick the spent butt away before grabbing another. Do I need it? No, but it irritates him.
“I don’t know,Appa, I think the bullets will get to me first.” Lighting the cigarette, I look to the mouth of the alley, avoiding his eyes.
Kwan is big on respecting your elders. Not looking at him when I speak? A big no-no. I had a good beating when I disobeyed him as a kid. At his irritated face, I remember the pain, but laugh. It fucking tickles me.
“Why are you here?” I flick away ash, watching the wind take it away.
“I’m here for a meet,” he answers. He comes closer, and my body tightens, coiling together as if I’m a small child again and he’s overshadowing me.
Instead, I push back against the wall and side-eye him.
“You don’t say.”
As I bring the cigarette to my mouth, his hand shoots out, halting it from touching my mouth. It’s cold—like a block of ice wedges against my skin—and I pause, dead eyes looking into his furious ones.
“You will show me respect, Kil-hyun.”
The little boy who used to listen to him abuse and take from his mother nightly shudders at the touch. The man who grew up in the dark and embraced the murderous psychopath inside his soul grins.
With two fingers on my opposite hand, I jab my thumb into the sensitive point of his wrist, using my index to hold him still. Grinding those bones together, his weak grip relaxes and frees my hand.
Placing the cigarette into my mouth, I flip his arm around, holding it behind him, high above his head. He groans—I love it—and I wrench it higher. At this angle, I could dislocate his shoulder.
He did it to my mother.
Slipping his dress shirt down, I glare at the expensive watch and admire the tattoo that covers his forearm. A winding dragon slithers up his arm, stopping short of the cuffs. I know that underneath the cotton, it covers both arms, over his chest, and most of his back. The dark blue ink etched into his skin will forever haunt me, gleaming through the night, as he holds a belt in one hand, rope in the other.
He used it on my mother when she fought too much.
My father is a monster in polite company, using his lucrative shipping business as a great cover. He’s a smart businessman,but at night, he gives into the depravity that formed my childhood.
“How’s business?” I ask around the butt. “Still stealing children and selling them to monsters?”
