8. Chapter 8 #2
“Your mother teach you to speak like that?” I ask, because he just told someone on the phone that if they fucked up the delivery again he’d personally remove their intestines through their throat.
His hand goes still. The temperature in the room seems to drop about ten degrees.
“I don’t have a mother,” he says, his voice flat and cold in a way that makes my survival instincts scream at me to shut up. “I had two fathers. One’s dead.”
I should absolutely leave it alone. I should keep my mouth shut and let it drop. But I’ve never been good at self-preservation.
“What about the other one?”
“Might as well be dead.” His fingers tighten in my hair, not quite painful but getting there. “Will be, if I ever find him. Omega trash abandoned me the day I was born.”
The venom in his voice when he says omega makes my eyebrows rise.
That’s some serious baggage right there.
I file it away with all the other information I’ve been collecting—Suha has issues with omegas, probably because his omega father ditched him.
Explains why he only hires alphas and betas for his inner circle, why all the omegas I’ve seen in this house are either cleaning staff or being escorted out after servicing one of his guards.
“Mine aren’t dead,” I say, because apparently I’ve decided today is a good day to bond over shitty parents. “But they might as well be. Haven’t seen them since I was sixteen. So I guess we have that in common.”
Suha looks down at me, his expression unreadable. His hand is still in my hair, fingers flexing slightly.
“Is that why you’re crazy?” he asks.
I snort. “You’re one to talk.”
Something flickers across his face—amusement, maybe, or at least the ghost of it. His mouth twitches like he’s fighting a smile. Then he goes back to his contracts, but his hand stays in my hair, gentler now.
I count it as another win.
The semi-civil moments become more frequent after that.
Not often, and never predictable, but they happen.
Sometimes when we’re alone in the office late at night, him working and me sitting at his feet, he’ll ask me questions.
Where I grew up. How I ended up fighting in underground rings. Why I’m such a masochistic idiot.
I answer honestly, mostly because lying seems pointless when we’re bonded and he can probably sense when I’m being evasive.
I tell him about Busan, about my piece-of-shit alpha father who used his fists more than his words.
About running away to Seoul with nothing but the clothes on my back and a chip on my shoulder.
About discovering I liked pain more than I should, that I got off on being hurt by people stronger than me.
He listens, sometimes. Other times he tells me to shut up and fucks me over the desk, but even that feels less like punishment and more like... I don’t know. Communication, maybe. His way of reasserting control when the conversation gets too real.
I learn things about him too, in bits and pieces.
That he took over Phantom Lotus when he was twenty-six, after his father died of a heart attack.
That the transition wasn’t smooth—he had to put down three separate coup attempts in the first year, had to prove he was just as ruthless as his old man.
That he doesn’t trust easily, doesn’t let people close, keeps everyone at arm’s length except for his second-in-command Baek Doyun who’s apparently been with him since they were teenagers.
“You have friends?” I ask one night when he’s mentioned Doyun for the third time in an hour.
“I have assets,” he corrects, not looking up from his phone.
“That’s sad.”
“That’s smart.” He sets the phone down and looks at me, his expression hard. “Friends are liabilities. They make you weak. They give your enemies leverage.”
“So what does that make me?”
His smile is sharp and humorless. “A different kind of liability. One I’m keeping close so I can control.”
I should probably be insulted, but honestly it’s the most honest thing he’s said to me.
At least he’s not pretending this is anything other than what it is—ownership, possession, control.
I’m not his boyfriend or his partner. I’m his bonded pet, kept naked and collared because he can, because the bond gives him that power over me.
The fucked up part is I don’t hate it as much as I should.
One evening, after I’ve been kept for who knows how long, I’m kneeling on the bedroom floor, naked except for the collar that’s become as familiar as my own skin, when I hear the commotion outside.
Heavy footsteps, raised voices, the kind of urgent energy that makes my spine straighten even though I’m supposed to stay put like a good pet.
The door slams open and Suha storms in, and my stomach drops.
Blood. There’s so much blood.
His suit jacket hangs torn and ruined off one shoulder, the expensive fabric shredded.
His white shirt is soaked crimson on the left side, the stain spreading with each second.
His face is twisted in fury, lips pulled back in a snarl that shows teeth, and there’s a wildness in his eyes I haven’t seen before.
I’m on my feet before I can think about it, the instinct to move overriding every lesson I’ve learned about staying still until given permission.
“What the fuck happened?”
Suha’s guards tense at their posts by the door, hands moving toward their weapons like they think I’m attacking. But Suha waves them off with a sharp gesture, still pacing, still bleeding.
“I was shot,” he snarls, the words coming out clipped and vicious. “Some bastard with a rifle from a building across the street. During a meeting with my lieutenants at the warehouse in Seongsu.”
My heart is hammering. I’ve seen Suha angry before, seen him violent, but this is different. This is rage mixed with what looks almost like vulnerability, even though I know he’d kill me for suggesting it.
“By who?” I ask, taking a step closer even though every survival instinct I have is screaming at me to back away from an injured, furious alpha.
“Probably someone my uncle hired.” He yanks off what’s left of his jacket and throws it across the room.
The movement makes him wince, his hand pressing against his side where blood seeps through his fingers.
“Kyungho. My father’s younger brother. The old bastard thinks he should be running Phantom Lotus instead of me. ”
I watch him pace, three steps one direction, pivot, three steps back. Like a caged animal. The guards are still watching me warily, probably trying to figure out if they should restrain me or not, but Suha doesn’t seem to care that I’m standing.
“When I took over, there were... disagreements about the succession,” Suha continues, his voice tight with pain and fury.
“My father left everything to me. The business, the territory, the whole syndicate. Kyungho thought he deserved it more. Thought because he’d been my father’s right hand for thirty years, he’d earned the position. ”
He laughs, sharp and humorless. “So I pushed him out. Stripped him of his titles, his territory, his power. Let him keep his life because he’s family, but that was it. He ran before I could decide whether that was a mistake or not.”
The blood is still flowing, dripping onto the expensive carpet. I can smell it now, copper and salt, and underneath that the sharp spike of Suha’s pheromones. They’re all over the place, broadcasting pain and rage and something that might be fear, even though he’d never admit it.
“You need a doctor,” I say, because he’s still bleeding and pacing and not doing anything about the hole in his side.
“I need my uncle’s head on a fucking spike,” Suha snaps back. He stops pacing long enough to glare at me. “And I need you to sit the fuck down before I remember you’re supposed to be obedient.”
But he doesn’t sound convincing. His voice wavers slightly on the last word, and when he takes another step, his leg buckles. Just for a second, just enough that I see it.
I move without thinking, closing the distance between us and reaching for him. His guards definitely react to that, weapons actually clearing holsters this time, but Suha holds up a hand to stop them even as he tries to push me away.
“Don’t,” he growls, but there’s no real force behind it.
“You’re bleeding all over your fancy carpet,” I point out, ignoring the guns pointed at my head. “At least let me look at it.”
For a long moment, he just stares at me, his jaw clenched tight enough that I can see the muscle jumping. Then something in his expression shifts, some of that fury bleeding away into exhaustion.
“Fine,” he grits out. “But if you try anything stupid, Haesung will put a bullet in your skull.”
I glance at the massive guard by the door, who nods grimly to confirm this is absolutely true. Great. Nothing like performing first aid at gunpoint.
Suha lets me guide him to the bed, sitting down heavily on the edge.
Up close the damage looks worse. The bullet went through his side, just above his hip, and while it doesn’t look like it hit anything vital, he’s losing blood fast. His shirt is completely ruined, stuck to his skin with drying blood.
“I need to take this off,” I say, gesturing to the shirt.
He nods, lifting his arms slightly so I can work the buttons.
My hands are steadier than I expected, considering there are still guns pointed at me, and I’m naked and collared, and this is absolutely insane.
But I’ve patched myself up after enough fights to know the basics, and right now Suha needs someone who isn’t going to faint at the sight of blood.
The shirt peels away from the wound with a wet sound that makes my stomach turn.
The entry wound is on his left side, just above his hip, a neat hole that’s still oozing.
I lean around to check his back and find the exit wound, larger and messier, but at least it means the bullet went through clean.