Episode 1 #3
“He didn’t teach you to submit to just anyone.
He just made you afraid of him. But something was already in you.
Your mother, maybe.” Sevastyan leaned against the doorway.
He had to keep talking, had to bring this cornered predator back down to the realm of rational thought, or barring that, to something biddable.
Right now he was dancing with a dragon, one that shouldn’t have been able to take out two men but had done so despite the odds.
He took his eyes off the young man and checked the room again.
“There are those who break, those who make you kill them because they will never bend the knee even as a lie, and there are those who break you if you try to break them.”
And then there are the cowards and the hopeless. No reason to mention them now. Gang Junseo was neither. Had never been. Would never be.
Junseo was breathing more regularly now.
Blinking. Coming back, just a little. Sevastyan moved his hands slowly out of his pockets, showing empty palms. “I don’t normally make house calls, but I was the closest. You, Mr. Gang, are too hot to keep.
Now this . . .” He gestured at the room at large, “Is a mess. But a smaller mess than what your lover is about to make. I see you’ve made erudite points. ”
Gang Junseo frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“Damian Sathers finds you more valuable than all the money his company makes in this region. In the last few hours, he’s already cost the city millions of won in policing expenses and agency overtime hours.
And he’s communicated to some people, who communicated to those I work for, just how much further he is ready to go.
He’s proven he’s capable. My job was to come here and tell the police chief to get his rocks off elsewhere and let you go. Obviously, you let yourself go.”
“There’s still a household full of people,” Gang Junseo said.
Rei had always said Gang Junseo was intelligent. Turned out he was observant as well.
“Five,” Sevastyan said, making an educated guess.
“The food service staff left already. So now we have a problem.” They had a lot of problems, but mentioning them one at a time was prudent.
They were only just now getting to a place where he could trust Gang wasn’t going to deploy those chopsticks against him.
It would have been simpler to put a bullet between those fiery eyes. His bosses would have approved. Dead K-pop stars didn’t testify.
But he couldn’t do that and face Rei. His caged bird knew there was blood on Sevastyan’s hands and still came to his call. If it were Gang’s blood, though, Rei would never answer.
Gang Junseo narrowed his eyes at Sevastyan. “What, exactly?”
Ah, yes, the problem.
“I’m not supposed to be here. You should have never seen me.
” Sevastyan crouched down, making eye contact.
Gang Junseo was injured, but how severely needed to be determined.
“The police chief should have arranged to send you back in deniable fashion after I ordered him to. Perhaps even staged a police rescue, claiming that you were snatched by a rich, overzealous fan other than himself. But he left his meeting early just to get here, and I got here late. What you don’t have yet is any kind of evidence other than your own word.
” Sevastyan reached into his pocket. “You should move.”
“What?”
Sevastyan waved his lighter. “I really don’t want to kill you, especially as I do think your champion will burn down the world for you . . .”And Rei would be gutted. “But there’s way too much going on here.” He flicked on the lighter.
The young man scrambled to his feet. The outer hanbok robe slipped down over his shoulders, dragged back by the weight of the liquid it had absorbed. He pulled it off, letting it fall. Sevastyan dropped the lighter into the fabric. Cotton and alcohol. Perfect starter fuel.
Flames shot up almost at once, hungry and hot. “Vodka burns so well.”
“It was soju.”
“And vodka,” Sevastyan said stubbornly. There was a bottle of vodka broken open on the floor. “The fire alarm will ring any moment. I suppose the foot soldiers will save them.”
If they were alive. Which he would have to determine later.
He got Gang Junseo outside, despite his bare feet.
There was a set of keys lying on a desk on the way, and the logo matched one of the vehicles outside—perfect, a second vehicle.
He swiped the keys. Behind him, Gang Junseo grabbed a blanket from the bed to wrap around his shoulders.
In the parking area, Sevastyan offered Gang Junseo the keys.
The young man was starting to shake. “I don’t know how to drive.”
Sevastyan cursed in three languages in his head. It was one of the useful aspects of knowing so many. “Ah, well, that rather puts a wrench in things.”
He was going to have to drive Gang somewhere without being seen himself. The clock was running out. He checked his watch. “We have forty-five more minutes to get you to Damian Sathers, and we are over two and a half hours away. Any ideas?”
“Let me call him? Video call him?”
“He’d be a fool to completely believe you.”
“I have ways,” Junseo said.
“And yet we don’t have a phone.” At least not one he was willing to link to this incident. He hadn’t gone undetected as a criminal actor in over thirty countries by being careless.
“Steal one from the house?” Junseo suggested.
They both looked back. Someone inside was running toward the fire, their movements casting shadows against the opaque screens of the windows. There was a fire alarm after all, if nearly silent. Sevastyan bit back another curse and jerked his head toward his own car.
If he dumped Gang Junseo at the nearest sign of civilization, Gang could contact his lover himself and Sevastyan might get far enough away to not be linked to the fire.
“You’re going to get me killed,” he told Junseo. The engine of the four-wheeler was still warm. It turned over immediately. He rolled out of the driveway until they were around the turn and then stepped on the gas as much as he dared.
It was a dangerous drive and there was no time for caution. The weather was both a cover from being observed and a hazard. It was hard to even see around each turn. They slid more than once.
Just under twenty minutes later, he pulled the four-wheeler into the closest driveway with human habitation that he remembered.
“I’m told you’re a good man,” he said to Gang Junseo, glancing between his passenger and the driveway as they bounced over potholes in the gravel. “So I’m going to trust you to do whatever you can to contact your dog and call him off in the next . . .” He checked his watch. “Twenty-seven minutes.
“I will.” Gang Junseo looked confused.
“Good.” Sevastyan paused. Prior claim. Prior claim. Fuck it all. “And tell Collin his dad says good job.”
Anton was going to kill him, even if he had said that. Sevastyan grimaced. “Don’t ask questions, just go.”
Gang Junseo jumped out of the four-wheeler and hobbled toward the house.
Sevastyan put the vehicle in reverse. It was going to take a minor miracle to get off this mountain and back to his safe house.
The Yadro wouldn’t want him to fly back to Russia until they knew Damian Sathers wasn’t going to crash the local economy over a missing lover.
Who said romance was dead?
All his sympathy was with Damian Sathers, whoever he was. If Sevastyan could have crashed a local economy and saved his beloved, he would have—twice.
Sevastyan
Present
“Jun.” Ellisandre said the diminutive of Gang Junseo’s personal name with a level of familiarity that made it clear they’d already met.
Of course they had. The Reevesworth circle in which Ellisandre stood was a close one, according to all accounts.
And Gang Junseo’s lover, the infamous Damian Sathers, was Richard Reevesworth’s protégé. “They want Junseo.”
Sevastyan dipped his chin in a confirmation, saying nothing. Let Ellisandre put together as much or little as they would.
Ellisandre’s lips thinned. “They can’t have him.” They walked forward into a new hall dominated by the bust of a massive black bull, it’s head bent toward the entrance.
And yet you let them have me.
Damn Ellisandre and her respect for free will in a world that had none. Had they learned in the last decade of their new life that there were no free choices?
Did they not remember that bulls were often used as sacrifices to the gods?
Ellisandre’s gaze stayed straight ahead, a little steel entering their gaze. “The Merchari know better than to come for mine. They can be reminded again.”
Sevastyan’s chest ached. Too many prior claims. Or perhaps just a few that had sunk too deep.
The gospel of his father’s lips was ringing hollow.
There was always going to be the underground, the mafia, the criminals.
Perhaps Ellisandre had been right to die when she had, choosing her altar before another could select it for her.
“There are new players on the block. The Merchari of today do not remember you. Not like the old ones.”
“I’m not going back, Vast.” For the first time, Ellisandre sounded almost soft.
“You won’t have to,” Sevastyan said. He swallowed. “They’ll be coming to you.” It wasn’t a threat. It was regret. Failure. His failure. In the end, he was going to be alone. Not good enough for anyone to stay for. Not good enough to make wrongs right.
It was too much. He couldn’t make his mouth form the words he needed to say. He’d thought he would be been able to. But in the end, he was evil.
If he couldn’t have his goddess, at least he would have his caged bird. Just a little longer.