Chapter 13 Jin #2
“Or… else?” he repeats, then he scoffs again. “You’re a gangster now too, eh? Like father, like son?”
“Yes, apparently. Being a gangster seems to be in my blood,” I answer. The grin that had started twitching its way onto my face spreads. “So if you want to find out what ‘else’ means, it would be my pleasure to show you.”
The threat seems to work. Dok-su scowls as if agitated he’s being bullied by a former associate’s son, but that doesn’t stop him from revealing what I’m asking for.
“Alright,” he says. He pauses long enough to glance around the dingy bar as if paranoid who might overhear. “Your father… if you must know… he was Hyeonmudan.”
My eyes narrow, glaring across the bar counter at him. “Hyeonmudan? The Black Turtle syndicate? They’re not real. Everyone knows that’s a tall tale.”
“The Hyeonmudan are very real,” he replies.
“The rumors were not simply rumors—they were stories passed by word of mouth. But the gang was so secretive, so under the radar, people became convinced it was just fiction. They didn’t do public wars or flashy power struggles.
They were the true underground crime syndicate, existing only in the shadows. ”
I’m struggling to believe what he’s saying.
From the time I was a troublemaking youth, I’ve existed in the underworld of South Korea. I’ve run in criminal circles and met my share of gangsters and had many run-ins with other syndicates.
Not once have I ever known the Hyeonmudan to be real.
It’s always been understood it was nothing more than an urban legend. Some secret society like the Illuminati.
Nothing that existed in reality.
“You’re serious,” I say to the elderly man. “You’re saying the Hyeonmudan are not only real, but that my father was a member?”
“Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying. Your father was important,” Dok-su continues. “I don’t know all the details or what exactly he was doing for them, but it was significant. Then he betrayed them.”
“Betrayed them?” My brows draw closer in more suspicion.
“Something about information he gave up. It got people killed. I only know the Hyeonmudan don’t forgive betrayal. They sent their best to make an example of him. Of your whole family.”
“Where can I find them?” I demand. “The Hyeonmudan. Where do they operate?”
“It’s been years since I’ve seen any of them. They don’t come here to conduct business anymore. They’ve moved even more underground. But their old location—their old compound—is on the outskirts of the city, near the industrial district. It might be worth visiting for more clues.”
I grab one of the small square napkins from a stack on the counter and slide it over toward him. “Write down the address. If it’s incorrect, you’ll be seeing me again.”
Dok-su almost rolls his eyes then decides to simply comply. He jots down the address and returns the square napkin.
“But be warned,” he says. “Some corpses are better left buried. Consider walking away from this while you still can.”
From the bar in Jangnim-dong, I head straight to what Dok-su claimed was the old compound of the Hyeonmudan.
As I’ve anticipated, it’s an industrial building that’s long been forgotten. There’s cracked windows and spiderwebs that are inches thick. It seems no one has been here in years.
Yet as I stand in front of the large, depressing slab of concrete, my instincts urge me to go inside. There’s potential information to uncover.
I step over rubble and discarded sheet metal, my senses on high alert. Every shadow is a potential threat. Every creak of wood a possible ambush.
I go from the open-spaced ground floor that once seemed to be used for storing cargo and other product to the second floor where it seems there’re more rooms.
It’s as I’m pushing open one of the doors that I come across an old office. The room is full of more dust and cobwebs, a desk situated at the back of the room with a filing cabinet and leather chair.
But it’s what’s pinned to the corkboard on the wall that truly captures my attention.
Photographs that have been tacked to the board. Except not just any photographs—they’re a collage of familiar faces. The first being my parents from when they were young, both of them posing in front of our old hanok home.
They were once smiling, but someone’s drawn a large X over their faces.
The second photo is even more unsettling.
Monroe, captured from a distance, walking down a public street. Her morning commute to school, back before she was being driven by Sang-cheol. She looks so innocent, clutching her teacher’s totebag as she walks, completely unaware that someone is watching her.
Someone was documenting her movements.
A cool, sharp shiver runs down my spine. I step deeper into the room, unable to look away from the photos.
“I promised we would see each other again, Seo Jin-tae, did I not?”
I spin toward the voice, my heart immediately racing.
Standing in the doorway is none other than the man who must be the Black Shell.
He’s dressed head to toe in black—a long coat that falls past his knees, fitted trousers, gloves, boots. Not an inch of skin is visible.
His face is hidden behind a sleek, dark mask with a subtle shell-like texture, completely featureless except for the narrow slits where his eyes should be. A hood is pulled up over his head, shadowing the mask even further.
Neither of us speak for a drawn-out second as I drink him in and he stands arrogantly in the doorway.
“You,” I say finally. “You killed my family all those years ago.”
“I did what was necessary.”
“Is that what you call what you’re doing now? Coming for me like you’ve been?”
“Do not take it personally, Seo Jin-tae. I am merely… tying loose ends.”
For the second time in recent weeks, rather than allowing the strategic side of my brain to guide me, I’m giving into impulses. I’m allowing emotion to guide me.
Sudden and sweeping rage consumes me until I’m exploding all at once.
“ARGH!” I roar.
I launch myself at him, drawing my blade from my jacket and viciously slicing through the air.
He’s as reflexive as I normally am, smoothly sidestepping my strike. Then he follows up with a palm thrust. I manage to block it, but only barely.
He’s fast. Much faster than I expected.
I reset my stance and come at him again.
Slash after slash that only connects with air as he out paces me in his blocking.
He finally retaliates with a counter move, striking my sternum and knocking the knife from my grasp all at once.
The combo move catches me by surprise and sends me staggering half a step backward.
I barely get my guard up in time to block the elbow he throws.
We circle each other in the dusty old office room, debris crunching under our feet. His every move is relaxed. Almost graceful in a way, as though we’re in the middle of a dance and not a fierce confrontation.
This is nothing to him. I’m nothing to him.
The fury rises in my chest, hot and blinding and all-encompassing.
I rush at him for another combination of strikes. I’m soaring at him with a flying knee, driving upward with all the power in my legs. He twists at the last second, letting my knee graze past his shoulder, then he uses my force against me—grabbing my arm and redirecting me into the wall.
I hit hard, plaster crumbling around me, managing to duck as his fist punches through the space where my head was a split second before.
Chunks of drywall explode outward.
I drop low and sweep his legs, a move that’s taken down bigger men than him. But he anticipates it, jumping over my leg and landing with a devastating axe kick I have to roll away from to avoid.
His boot cracks the concrete where my head had been.
We’re back on our feet in the same instant, facing each other across the ruined room.
“You’ve grown strong,” he observes, his voice calm despite the exertion. Not even breathing hard. “But not strong enough.”
We both move to strike at the same time, resulting in a flurry of punches and kicks being traded.
The fight spills out of the room and into the corridor beyond. I press the attack, throwing out more combinations that would have ended most opponents.
Maneuvers like crescent kicks and spinning hook kicks and rapid-fire punches targeting his throat and solar plexus.
It’s only the elbow strike that finally connects with the side of his masked head.
For the first time, he staggers.
But it’s enough of an opening.
I use it to my advantage, driving forward with more hits designed to take him down. My knuckles connect with his ribs and shoulder and chest.
The fight has finally turned in my favor as I harness the rage burning through me and use it as fuel to push myself harder.
Black Shell refuses to give in so easily. Where other opponents would’ve surrendered to fatigue, he only seems to be motivated by it.
His forearm shoots up to block the next series of my hits. Then he’s grabbing hold of me and swinging my body toward a rusted support beam.
I crash into it with pain exploding pain through my cheekbone and nose. Blood spills from my nostrils onto my lips as the industrial scenery spins, and I struggle to regain my footing.
“You fight like your father,” he taunts from behind. “The same techniques. The same tells. I know every move you’re going to make before you make it.”
I slam my head backward, cracking my skull against his mask. The impact sends fresh pain ricocheting through my brain, but it loosens his grip just enough for me to wrench free.
I spin and throw a desperate side kick that catches him in the chest, creating distance between us. We’re both breathing harder now, worked up from the heavy fighting we’ve been engaged in.
The corridor opens onto a metal staircase that leads upward. He takes it, quickly and deftly flying up the steps.
I follow him, searching for some advantage.
Some strategic play to use against him.
The staircase leads to the roof—a flat expanse of cracked concrete and debris, part of it covered by a large, glass skylight that’s clouded with decades of grime. The gray sky stretches overhead, heavy with clouds that threaten rain.
He turns to face me as I emerge from the staircase.
We clash again in the center of the roof, trading one blow after another. I catch him with a spinning elbow that snaps his head to the side. He retaliates with a knee to my ribs that drives the air from my lungs.
I stumble but refuse to fall.
Instead, I grab at his coat and wrench my leg up to deliver a knee to his stomach. As he doubles over, I wrap my arms around his midsection to flip him over.
He catches my ankle with his and takes us both down. Our backs collide with the ground, pain reverberates up my spine.
We scramble to our feet, heaving even more ragged breaths. I’m dripping blood and sweat, covered in dust and grime.
I’ve lost any semblance of strategy. Any concept of discipline and patience that usually drives me during these conflicts.
Yet the rage remains. It continues burning through me as my mind fills up with thoughts of what he’s done.
He killed my family. He’s threatened my soon-to-be wife and our child.
There’s no more time to waste trading punches and kicks.
This is life or death.
I charge at him with more fury than ever, leaping into the air with my leg pushed out. I’m about to deliver a devastating side kick when he catches my leg and reverses the momentum.
Suddenly I’m airborne in the opposite direction. I’m soaring backward through until I slam into the skylight portion of the roof.
As soon as I collide with the glass, it shatters, fragile after many years in decay. It gives under me, and I’m falling amid shards of glass.
I’m weightless as the roof disappears from view and I crash under.
Then I hit the second floor landing below, any ounce of air beat out of me.
Glass slices into my arms, across my back, cutting up my face. A large shard punches through my abdomen, white-hot agony searing through my entire body.
I try to scream, but only a strangled grunt comes out of me.
I lie in the wreckage, bleeding and broken, staring up at the jagged hole I fell through.
Black Shell appears at the edge, looking down at me. His posture is relaxed and unhurried. He could finish me right now.
We both know it. One leap downward and a flick of a blade across my throat, and he would tie up the loose thread from thirty years ago.
Yet he simply remains where he is, peering down at me as if in pity. As if I’m not worthy of death by his hand.
He turns and walks away. The thud of his footsteps fades into silence.
Even in the wake of his departure, I can’t move. My body is so damn broken I can only lay among the shattered glass and try to remember how to breathe.
I’m half awake, my mind swimming in and out of consciousness.
Monroe.
She’s the lone thought that pierces through the haze of pain and disorientation.
I have to make it to her. I have to make sure Black Shell is not going after her next.
My hand twitches toward my pocket, where my phone rests, but I’m so out of it that it proves more difficult than it should be.
My vision blurs. I’m being dragged under, consciousness slipping away.
Monroe. The baby. I have to—
But the darkness swallows me whole first.