Chapter 25 #2
Young-gi grabs the envelope and my stomach lurches, heaves, flips around inside me.
I can’t decide if I want to see his face when he looks at those pictures.
I don’t know what would be worse: him being disgusted by them, or him being ashamed at his little experiment getting caught on camera.
Will he be afraid of the backlash that rumors of his flexible sexuality might cause him? Will he deny it? Will he deny…me?
But a sudden sound, suspiciously similar to a scream, gets my attention. I lean over to peer around Young-gi’s broad shoulders and freeze, confused.
The other two cars must have been full of bratva underlings, because a squad of six is carrying a long, rectangular crate between them, hustling it out of the back of one of the vans and toward the accounting office.
It’s a strange thing to be carrying, large and unwieldy, unlabeled and made of plywood. What could possibly be inside?
Then I hear the sound of screaming again–muffled, like someone’s mouth is covered or gagged–and some thumping sounds.
My head tilts, my eyes lock onto the box, and I realize–
“Holy shit, Young-gi, is somebody in there?”
But he’s staring at the photos of us, and my words go unanswered. My stomach drops and my heart pounds and I can’t decide between looking at him or the box, so I bounce back and forth, fidgeting anxiously.
“Is there someone in where?” Kira asks, but I quickly spin her around and start bundling her back into her car.
“Nothing, no one, I’m being crazy,” I say quickly. “Don’t worry about it, I’ll take care of it, Young-gi is gonna fix the picture thing and nothing else is wrong, okay? You should go home, okay? Okay, bye!”
“Tommy!” She smacks my hands a bit, little baby slaps that don’t hurt at all, but after she gets a glance at the men disappearing inside with the person-sized crate, she suddenly stops and lets me herd her to the car. “Oh,” she murmurs, going pale. “Um, yeah, maybe I should…go home. Mm-hm.”
“Yep!” I gently guide her into the car and shut the door behind her. “Bye!”
Her driver must get the hint, or maybe he’s uncomfortable with what he’s seeing, too, because the car is quickly shifted into gear and lurches out of the lot. Once it’s out of sight, I whirl on Young-gi, ready to give him a piece of my mind.
Only to freeze a second time.
My mouth drops open in confusion. “What the fuck are you doing?”
“Setting my screensaver,” he murmurs as he uses his phone to snap a picture of one of the blackmail photos.
Setting his…
“I–you! I–fuck!” I snatch them all away from him and storm toward the office. “You’re such a fucking psycho freak!”
“Are you asking for a spanking, Tommy?” he replies, following close behind me. I shiver hard, because maybe I am? I don’t fucking know. I mean, if he’s spanking me, he still wants me around, right?
“No!” I snap, probably lying. I slam through the office doors and kick my way through the fake closet, following the sounds of men grunting as they carry the human-sized box.
In the war room, I watch them set it down on the floor roughly, and they brush themselves off like this is just another day for them. It’s chilling, and psychotic, and unreal.
“What the fuck, Young-gi?!” I demand, waving at the box. “What the actual fuck is going on here?”
“I was working when I got the call to meet you,” he says, deadpan, as if that explains everything and is totally reasonable.
“You–ugh, I, what… What do you mean, working?!”
He looks me over, takes in my tense shoulders and my twitching eyes. His stare is patient, hungry, familiar. It’s annoying how fast I start to relax under it, like that was what I needed all along.
“Everyone but Tommy, get out.”
The room clears in less than a second, his guys sprinting for the exit. The door slams shut behind them, leaving just me, Young-gi, and whoever is still struggling inside the coffin on the floor.
“What the fuck is going on here?” I demand, trying to keep my tone reasonable, trying to control myself…but I’m allowed to be freaked out by this, right?!
“I told you I had business, or else I would’ve gone to dinner with you. Kira summoned me right as I was in the middle of it, so I came straight here.”
I put my hands on my hips and glare. Scowl. Puff myself up and brace myself for an answer I might not really want or be able to handle. “Who’s in the box?”
Rather than take me seriously, rather than react defensively, nervously, or any other way, Young-gi sighs. “You can open it, if you want to. Ideally it would’ve been taken care of without you getting involved, but,” he shrugs. “You needed me.”
“I don’t need anything,” I deny quickly, even though my knees go a little weak at his words. “That’s fucking crazy.”
The words ring between us, echoing in the emptiness. And it’s a lie, I know it is. He knows it is. We both know, at this point, that I need him and whatever the fuck he does to me.
“Is it crazy?” His body language changes, and my heart picks up speed as he takes a slow step toward me, stalking me. I take a step back, but he mirrors me, trying to close the distance.
“Maybe it is, Tommy. It certainly seems crazy for me to drop everything and run to you at the first hint of something wrong. The way I reacted when I got the message that you and Kira were in trouble… I can’t even describe to you what I felt.
I don’t know what it was, but it made me feel completely out of control.
I’ve never felt that way before. The way you affect me is so unexpected, so unprecedented, so unique.
Maybe I’m crazy for you, Tommy. But is that really a surprise? I thought I’d made myself clear.”
“I don’t–” I swallow hard, then flinch when I accidentally back into the crate. I jerk away from it, uncomfortable. “Who’s in there?”
He raises an eyebrow at me. “Are you afraid?”
“Kinda, yeah!”
“Why?”
“You have somebody in a box!” I wave at it frantically.
“It’s no one you like,” he reassures me, looking confused at my wariness. I open my mouth, then snap it shut when his words register.
“Is it…someone I don’t like?”
Without answering my question, he stalks to a nearby drawer and yanks out a crowbar and holds it out to me. “Open it, and find out.”
I stare at the offering, trepidation being replaced by curiosity. Someone I don’t like… There are a few people who come to mind.
“Why did you kidnap them?” I ask, not taking the crowbar yet.
“A few reasons,” Young-gi drawls, waving the bar at me tauntingly. “Logically, it was to tie up loose ends and cover our tracks. But truthfully? I just wanted to hurt him for hurting you. Are you going to open your present or not? Are you too scared, Tommy?”
My…my present? And shit, I must be sick in the head, because as much as that scares me, it thrills me, too.
“Fine!” I snarl, not liking the dare. I snatch the bar and shove the envelope of blackmail photos against his chest, brandishing my new weapon with ease. “But if I don’t like what I see, I get to hit you with this.”
“Now you’re just begging for a spanking, Tommy.”
“Shut the fuck up,” I snap, wedging the crowbar under the ledge of the lid.
With a grunt and a heave of effort, I split the top from that corner of the box, yanking the nails out.
The person inside is being quiet now, waiting to see what happens.
Probably scared shitless, which makes guilt and anxiety swirl inside me.
I repeat the process on each corner until I can lift the lid of the makeshift coffin and peer inside.
I blink down at the man in disbelief and shock. He’s tied up, gagged, and covered in bruises that I put on him only a few days ago. The lid of the box hits the floor with a bang that makes my captive flinch.
“What the fuck?” I chuckle, disbelief making my pitch too high.
The chuckle turns into a laugh, and as Oscar stares at me like I’m his only hope, I completely lose it.
I clutch my stomach and howl with laughter until I’m literally crying from it.
I lean against the side of his crate, hooting and whipping my eyes.
“Holy shit,” I manage between hysterical giggles. “This is too absurd.”
My laugh rings through the room as I lean heavily on the side of the crate. Young-gi is stone-cold silent, and Oscar–the dickwad who tried to assault my friend at the nightclub–is whimpering quietly in the coffin, and it’s all just too much.
“Young-gi, w-w-what the fuck?” I shake out through the uncontrollable laughter. “This is so, holy shit, oh fuck that’s so funny.”
Young-gi props his hip on a nearby table and crosses his arms, looking foreboding and sexy, staring at me with dark flames in his eyes.
I shiver under his regard because I didn’t expect to see heat there, to see something a little dirty, a little possessive.
I didn’t expect him to stare at me like I’m a treasure he wants to eat and fuck and hoard all at once.
It’s a head rush to have him looking at me like that.
“Do you like it?” he asks, his voice gruff and low. “It’s for you.”
“I’d better finish unwrapping it then,” I quip. I toss the crowbar aside with a clang and grab Oscar by the shirt. With a grunt and a heave, I drag him up and over the edge and he hits the floor with a pained thud.
“Oooh.” I wince in sympathy. “That sounded like it hurt. You okay there, Oscar?”
Oscar, the maggot, whines and tries to talk through his cloth gag, his eyes wide and fixed on me pleadingly. When I don’t move to stop him, he reaches up with his bound hands and yanks the cloth from his mouth, spitting and coughing.
“Tommy! Tommy, please!”
“Oscar, Oscar, Oscar,” I interrupt, shushing him, crouching over him. “What happened, buddy? Karma finally caught up to you, hm?”