Chapter 3
I’ve become a stalker.
Not the best look for me, I’ll admit, but desperate times and all that bullshit. Besides, it’s not like I’m lurking outside his bedroom window with binoculars or anything. I’m just... gathering intel. Doing my research. Making informed decisions about my future sex life.
Okay, fine. I’m stalking him.
The first thing I do is run that license plate. I’ve got a guy who knows a guy who works at the DMV, and for the price of two packs of cigarettes and a bottle of soju, I get a name: Yoon Suha. Registered owner of a sleek black Mercedes.
A quick internet search pulls up a business profile.
CEO of Yoonsung Enterprises, some vague import-export company with offices in Gangnam.
The photo is professional and very corporate.
He’s wearing a tailored suit, hair styled perfectly, expression neutral and controlled.
But it’s definitely him. Same sharp features, same intense eyes that looked so unbothered while watching his men beat someone half to death.
My heart does this stupid flutter thing when I see the photo. Down, boy.
I dig deeper. Yoonsung Enterprises has its fingers in a lot of pies.
Shipping, logistics, real estate, nightlife.
All legitimate on paper, but the more I look, the more obvious it becomes that this is a front.
The company’s been around for decades, passed down through the Yoon family like some kind of fucked-up inheritance.
There are gaps in the public records, inconsistencies in the financial reports, properties listed under shell corporations.
This is exactly what I thought. Crime syndicate dressed up in a nice suit.
I spend the next few days haunting internet cafés, using public computers to avoid leaving a digital trail back to me.
I’m not stupid. If this guy is as dangerous as he seems, I don’t need him tracking my searches back to my IP address.
I find news articles about Yoonsung Enterprises, society page photos of Yoon Suha at charity galas and business dinners.
He’s always alone in the photos, never with a date or partner. Interesting.
But the real goldmine comes when I start asking around in my own circles. The underground has its own information network, and I’ve been part of it long enough to know how to tap in without raising too many red flags.
Turns out, everyone knows about the Phantom Lotus Syndicate.
Or at least, everyone knows enough to be scared of them.
They control most of Gangnam’s high-end operations.
Gambling, prostitution, drugs, weapons. The works.
And Yoon Suha isn’t just some mid-level boss.
He’s the head of the whole damn organization, inherited the position from his father a few years back.
The stories I hear make my skin prickle with a mixture of fear and excitement.
Suha’s reputation is brutal. He doesn’t just punish disloyalty, he makes examples out of people.
There are whispers about bodies that never get found, about business rivals who suddenly decide to retire to the countryside and never come back.
About the way he can make grown men piss themselves with just a look and a whiff of his pheromones.
Perfect.
I know I should be terrified. Any sane person would take this information and run in the opposite direction. But I’ve never been particularly sane, and the thought of getting close to someone that powerful, that dominant, makes heat pool low in my gut.
The hard part is figuring out how to actually approach him. I can’t just walk up and introduce myself. “Hey, I saw you beating the shit out of someone in an alley and your pheromones made me want to drop to my knees—wanna fuck?” Yeah, that’ll work for sure.
So I do what any rational person would do. I start following him.
I figure out his routine over the course of two weeks.
He keeps regular hours at the Yoonsung Enterprises office in Gangnam, arriving around nine in the morning and leaving around six.
Very professional, very legitimate businessman.
But three or four nights a week, he makes other stops.
A high-end club in Apgujeong that I quickly learn is one of Phantom’s fronts.
A restaurant in Cheongdam that serves as a meeting place for his lieutenants.
A warehouse in an industrial area near the river where I’m guessing they store things that aren’t exactly legal.
I’m careful. I keep my distance, stay downwind so he can’t catch my scent, wear hats and masks to blend in with the crowd. I’m good at being invisible when I need to be. Years of dodging loan sharks and angry exes have given me plenty of practice.
The more I watch him, the more fascinated I become.
He moves through the world like he owns it, and I guess in a lot of ways he does.
People step out of his way on the sidewalk without him having to ask.
Restaurant staff practically trip over themselves to serve him.
His subordinates look at him with a mixture of fear and reverence that makes my mouth go dry.
And gods, he’s beautiful. Not in a soft way, but in the way a knife is beautiful.
All sharp edges and dangerous curves. I watch him smoke outside his office building, the way he holds the cigarette between long fingers, the way he tilts his head back to exhale.
I watch him get out of his car, the fluid grace in his movements despite his size.
I watch him laugh at something one of his men says, a cold sound that doesn’t reach his eyes.
I want him so badly it’s starting to hurt.
But there’s a problem. Actually, there are several problems, but the main one is this: there’s no way in hell a dominant alpha like Yoon Suha would ever consider sleeping with another alpha.
It’s not just taboo, it’s practically unheard of.
Dominant alphas are supposed to be with omegas, that’s how society works. That’s how biology works, supposedly.
Even if I could get close enough to proposition him, which seems unlikely given that he’s surrounded by bodyguards most of the time, he’d probably laugh in my face. Or worse, have his men break my legs for the insult.
I need a different approach. Something indirect, something that gets me in his orbit without triggering his alpha-on-alpha disgust response.
That’s when I start thinking about his ruts.
Every alpha goes through them, the biological imperative to breed that hits like clockwork every month.
For someone like Suha, who clearly doesn’t do suppressants or any of that modern pharmaceutical bullshit, that means he needs an omega to help him through it.
And given his position and personality, I’m willing to bet he doesn’t have a regular partner.
He probably just hires someone, keeps it transactional and impersonal.
Which means there’s a paper trail. Payments, arrangements, bookings.
I need Wooil.
I let myself in through the back door of Wooil’s pawn shop, picking the lock with the ease of long practice.
The hinges don’t even squeak as I slip inside, closing it quietly behind me.
The backroom is dim, lit only by the glow of a laptop screen, and I can hear the faint sound of something playing through the speakers.
Wooil is sprawled on his ratty couch, laptop balanced on his thighs, completely absorbed in whatever he’s watching. I take a moment to appreciate the setup before announcing myself.
“Hey.”
Wooil jumps like I’ve electrocuted him, slamming the laptop shut with a crack. “What the fuck!”
I can’t help the smirk that spreads across my face. “What’s the matter? Watching porn?”
His cheeks flush an impressive shade of red. “No!” The denial comes way too fast, which only makes my grin wider.
I move past him toward the small kitchenette area he’s got set up in the corner.
Wooil scrambles to his feet, setting the laptop aside with exaggerated care. “How the hell did you get in anyway? That door was locked.”
I snort, opening one of his cabinets and rifling through the snacks. “Since when has a locked door ever stopped me?”
“That’s not the point.” He crosses his arms, watching me with narrowed eyes as I pull out a bag of shrimp chips and a package of dried squid. “Don’t you have food in your own house? You do have a place now, right?”
I tear open the chip bag with my teeth, mumbling around it. “Yeah, but I try not to hang out there too long. Don’t want to make it easy for Taewoo’s dogs to sniff me out.”
Wooil gives me a flat look. “So you’d rather lead them here instead?”
“That’s why I used the back door, obviously.” I hop up onto his counter, settling in comfortably as I dig into the chips. “Plus, your snacks are better.”
“Those are for customers,” he mutters, but there’s no real heat in it. He’s used to me raiding his stash by now.
He moves back to the couch, picking up his laptop but not opening it. Instead, he watches me with that calculating expression he gets when he’s trying to figure out if I’m about to do something stupid. Which, to be fair, is most of the time.
“As it happens,” he says casually, “I was about to contact you anyway.”
I pause mid-chew. “Oh?”
“I got news on that alpha guy.”
My heart does a hopeful flip in my chest. I force myself to keep chewing, to swallow before I speak. “Yeah? What’d you find?”
Wooil tosses me a look that’s equal parts amused and concerned. “He’s booked into a master’s suite at the Central Plaza Hotel.” He pauses for effect. “Tonight.”
The grin spreads across my face before I can stop it, wide and victorious. “Is he now?”
“Don’t get that look on your face,” Wooil warns, but I’m barely listening.
My mind is already racing ahead, running through possibilities and plans.
The Central Plaza is one of the most expensive hotels in Gangnam, caters to the ultra-wealthy and doesn’t ask questions about what happens behind closed doors.
Of course that’s where someone like Yoon Suha would go for his ruts. Private, discreet, luxurious.
And tonight. Tonight.
I jump down from the counter, dusting chip crumbs off my hands. “Sounds like I have some prepping to do.”
“Yujeong.” Wooil stands up, pointing a finger at me with the kind of stern expression that would probably work better if I didn’t know he’d just been watching porn on his couch. “You’re not about to do something stupid, are you?”
I flash him my most cocky smile, the one that usually makes him groan and cover his face. “Oh, I absolutely am.”
“Gods.” He runs a hand through his hair, making it stick up at odd angles. “I don’t even want to know, do I?”
“Probably not.” I head for the back door, already mentally cataloging what I need to do before tonight. Shower, definitely. Find something to wear that doesn’t scream ‘broke street fighter.’ Figure out how the hell I’m going to get past hotel security and into Suha’s suite without getting arrested.
Details. I’ll work them out.
“If you die,” Wooil calls after me, “just know I can’t afford a funeral. You’ll just be cremated and dropped in the ocean, understand?”
I wave him off without turning around. “Wish me luck!”
“I’m not wishing you luck for whatever insane plan you’re about to execute!”
But I’m already out the door, back into the alley behind the shop.
The afternoon sun is bright overhead, and I have maybe six hours before Suha checks into that hotel room.
Six hours to transform myself from a broke, tattooed street fighter into someone who could plausibly be hired to service a crime lord through his rut.
No problem.