Chapter 15 Jin
The ringing drags me back from the darkness.
I open my eyes to a world of pain.
The first thing I register is the shattered skylight above me and the cool gray sky it reveals beyond the jagged shards of glass.
Then it’s the solid concrete under me, and how I’m lying broken among more pieces of fractured glass.
I’m still so out of it that I can’t connect the dots and realize I fell through. I’m the reason the glass is scattered across the floor and the skylight window above is no more. I’ve been lying here for who knows how long…
The ringing continues.
A grunt of pain grinds out of me as I fumble around. My arm struggles even reaching for the pocket where my phone is. It’s as if my whole body has shut down and refuses to cooperate.
Pain jolts through me as soon as I try to make it do so. But I’m able to slide fingers around my phone and dig it out.
Min-gyu’s name flashes across it.
Have I been gone so long the syndicate is searching for me?
I answer with another grunt, basic English feeling too complex at the moment.
“Baekho-je Jin-tae!” he says, his voice pitched sharper from his panic. “Where are you? Is everything alright? We’ve been trying to reach you for hours. No one knew where you went, and then your fiancée had an emergency and we couldn’t—”
“Monroe?” I choke out, even my throat burning. I blink through my mental haze, fighting for clarity. “What…?”
“She collapsed at her school this afternoon. She’s been taken to the hospital, but we couldn’t reach you to—”
“Where am I?” I growl more at myself than him.
I move to push myself upright and nearly black out from the pain that shoots through my side.
I glance down, pausing when I see it—a large glass shard protruding from the side of my abdomen, buried deep in the flesh inches below my ribs.
Fresh blood beads around it while older blood has crusted and dried.
“Baekho-je?”
“The old industrial compound,” I manage through gritted teeth. “On the outskirts. Near the port district in Jangnim-dong. Send someone. I’ll drop a pin.”
I hang up before he can respond.
My phone is overloaded with notifications. Missed calls stack on top of each other—Min-gyu, Sang-cheol, Lieutenant Hwang Do-gil.
There’re numbers I don’t recognize.
The text messages are even worse, crowding the screen one after another going back at least two hours.
Then there’re the voicemails—my inbox is full of them, ranging from concerned calls from Baekho members like Min-gyu and Sang-cheol to a panicked message left by Monroe’s mother once she found out Monroe collapsed at the school.
I select Monroe’s first, grinding my teeth to block out the fiery pain in my side.
“Jin, I’m at the hospital. I collapsed in my classroom. Where are you?” she asks, sounding so sad and upset it’s like a dagger in my heart. “Nobody’s been able to get hold of you, and I’m worried. You said you’d be here for emergencies. Please call me back! I love you.”
The beep cuts her off, and I lower the phone from my ear, staring down at the cracked screen and my bloody fingerprints that have smeared across it.
A second voice message sent shortly after updates me that they’re sending her home.
But the fact remains that Monroe was so unwell today she collapsed at school, and I was nowhere to be found. Instead, I was off on a wild goose chase, hunting down an enemy that laid a trap for me. I can’t wait for Min-gyu or any of my men.
I need to see her now. I need to hold her in my arms and know she and the baby are safe and well.
But first, I have to deal with the glass stuck in my abdomen.
It most likely isn’t a good idea to remove it myself.
Every medical professional out there would probably advise against it, especially if you are not medically trained yourself.
It’s common knowledge that dislodging an embedded object risks worse bleeding and potential organ damage. It can even send you into shock.
The smart thing would be to wait for help and let someone with medical training handle it. I have associates like Dr. Baek Young-dae who are on my payroll and could easily patch me up.
Yet I’m so disheveled and frantic, so damn desperate, I don’t have time to be careful.
I need to see Monroe.
My fingers wrap around the large shard, accidentally causing it to sink in a little bit deeper.
Little fiery shocks of pain radiate up my side, and I grunt in response, my breathing turning ragged. I firm up my grip on the shard and bite down on my jaw, preparing myself for what I’m about to do.
Then… I wrench it out all at once—or what I can of it.
The pain is indescribable. It’s blinding and nauseating and enough to make the scenery waver before my eyes.
“ARGHHH!” I scream only for the sound to echo in the abandoned warehouse.
As the large hunk of glass slides out of me, a white-hot supernova of burning pain consumes me. For seconds to come, I’m sputtering for air, chest heaving and lungs aching, face twisted in agony.
I feel like spewing up my insides and passing out all at once.
I’ve been stabbed a dozen times. I’ve been shot three times. It wasn’t so long ago that, when battling Kang Seung-min to the death, I got shards of glass stuck in my eyes and almost went blind.
Yet however much pain I’ve experienced in the past, pales—at least in this moment—to this. Perhaps because I’m doing it to myself; it’s pain I’ve inflicted on myself by wrenching out the glass and allowing the gaping hole to bleed more and become even more damaged.
My hand shakes as I press it against the wound, applying pressure with what little strength I have left.
The world’s still spinning around me. Unconsciousness looms, as if about to drag me back under.
I grind my teeth together and fight my way through it, reminding myself pain might be physical, but it’s also largely mental.
If you can block out the pain—if you can learn to be immune to it—then you can get through anything. In the most desperate situations, you can amputate your own limb and stay sound of mind. You can make it if it means survival.
In this case, it means getting back to the love of my life and our unborn baby.
The two people I would not only walk on glass for but sever myself with it too.
It takes several seconds more of effort to rise to my feet. My whole body is fragile enough that if someone were to push me in the shoulder, I’d tumble to the ground.
One foot after the other is how I start moving. One step at a time as I drag myself through the grungy and desolate warehouse and toward the doors.
The street outside the warehouse is like a deserted wasteland, nothing but litter and abandoned cars for the next block.
I need a taxi. I need to get to Namcheon-dong.
After some hobbling, I’m able to make it a street over, where I stick a bloodied hand into the air and flag down a cab.
The car brakes as it approaches. As it gets closer and the driver gets a better look at me, he seems to decide against picking me up. My bloodied and disheveled appearance clearly alarms him as he shakes his head and says in Hangugeo, “Sorry, not accepting customers.”
Then he speeds off as though he never stopped in the first place.
My glare darkens as I look down the street and wave my arm in the air in hopes I’ll stop another.
It takes five more minutes for me to successfully hail a second one. It rounds the corner and pulls up like the first one had. I can tell even from the glance of this taxi driver that he’s hesitant to give me a ride.
I must look like death walking. Blood-soaked shirt, pale skin sheened with sweat, swaying on my feet like a drunk. The kind of passenger no sane driver wants in their vehicle.
Still, he reluctantly nods his head and signals for me to get in, giving me a chance.
I wrench open the back door and collapse onto the backseat.
“Sir,” the driver says, twisting around to look at me. His eyes go wide as he takes in the blood soaking through my shirt and how I’m clutching my side. “Sir, you need a hospital. You’re bleeding very badly—”
I reach into my wallet with trembling fingers and pull out a wad of won.
Millions of won, which would be thousands in dollars. More money than this man probably makes in a week. I toss it onto the center console up front.
“Namcheon-dong,” I choke out breathlessly. “Drive.”
He eyes the money then glances back at me a second time. He must recognize the determination etched on my face, even as I wince and grit my teeth in pain, because he nods and then shifts gears into drive.
Jangnim-dong’s coastal industrialism blurs past in the car window as I slump even further against the seat and close my eyes.
The bleeding has slowed but not stopped. Its warmth seeps from the wound, slicking my fingers and reminding me I’ve probably fucked up.
I’ve likely worsened my injury. I’ve already lost so much blood.
But when my mind goes back to Monroe, I know I still don’t regret a damn thing. It’s a necessary sacrifice if it means making it to her and ensuring she’s okay.
The pain is temporary; it can be endured.
What I can’t endure is the thought of losing her or the baby.
As we leave Jangnim-dong behind, my thoughts turn to what happened at the warehouse. I faced off against the mysterious Black Shell only to come out defeated.
It’s the first time in years that I was outmatched in combat. That someone not only held their own against me but came out of the situation victorious.
Black Shell was waiting for me at that warehouse. He knew I was coming. Which means either Dok-su intentionally set me up, or he was used as a pawn to lure me there. Either way, I walked right into the trap like a fucking amateur.
Worse yet, I lost my composure.
Such rage had consumed me seeing not only my parents’ photo but the candids he’d taken of Monroe. It took over and I readily gave into it and let my anger guide my fists rather than logic. I became emotional and irrational—two of the worst things a fighter can be.
Black Shell obviously anticipated that I would. He exploited it, baiting me onto that skylight and letting gravity do the rest.
You fight like your father. The same techniques. The same tells.
Has he been studying me, learning my patterns, waiting for the perfect moment to strike? He murdered my family thirty years ago, and now he’s suddenly come back to finish what he started.
It’s another thirty minutes before we’re closing in on the familiar streets of Namcheon-dong. Some of the tension that’s corded through me relents.
Almost there. Almost home.
I glance at my phone to check the time, scrolling through a few more of the chaotic notifications from earlier. It’s as I reach the bottom of the pile that I notice it—a third voicemail from Monroe, timestamped after the second one I had listened to, where she told me she was being sent home.
In my panic to get to her, I must’ve missed it.
I press play, holding the phone to my ear.
“Jin, it’s me again,” she begins, sounding significantly more strained.
As if she’s trying to hold back tears. “I know you’re.
.. I don’t know where you are, but Dr. Gong called.
She found something in my bloodwork she doesn’t recognize.
She needs me to come back to the hospital for more tests.
I’m heading there now with my mom and Sang-cheol.
Please... please call me back. I love you. ”
The message ends even before the beep, trailing off into eerie silence.
I take a second longer to register what she’s said, slowly lowering the phone from my ear.
Something in her bloodwork? More tests? Back to the hospital?
Monroe isn’t at home like I’ve anticipated. She’s at the hospital.
“Change of plans,” I say, leaning forward so sharply that my side throbs with more fiery pain. “Busan St. Mary’s Hospital. Take me now!”
The driver glances at me in the rearview mirror as if to argue, then once again seems to realize I won’t be taking no for an answer. He presses down on the accelerator and whips the car around in the direction of the hospital.
It’s only a few minutes later that we’re braking outside the main entrance, and I’m bolting from the back door.
People in the hospital lobby gasp and stare as I rush past, the pain now totally numbed due to my sense of urgency. A mother pulls her child closer, shielding him from the sight of me while an elderly man in a wheelchair watches with wide, horrified eyes.
Predictably, a nurse attempts to intercept me, face pale and concerned. “Sir, you need medical attention. You’re bleeding—”
I shove past her without a word.
The maternity ward. Third floor. I’ve been here many times before, including the day I showed up late for the gender reveal appointment.
Though it’s only three levels up, the elevator takes too damn long. I count the seconds, experiencing a different kind of agony from the gaping hole in my side.
The instant the doors are parting, I’m breaking into a sprint, dashing down the corridor to find Dr. Gong’s exam room.
I burst through the door, ready to demand answers, but also desperate to take Monroe in my arms and promise her that it’ll be okay.
I’m here now and I’m sorry I wasn’t here before, but we’ll face whatever it is together.
But only a couple steps into the room, I stop short.
The entire room is loud with silence. It’s immediately jarring, making me freeze mid-step.
Dr. Gong stands by the exam table, her expression different than her usual pleasant warmth. In the corner by the window is Monroe’s mother, tissues crumpled in her hands as her shoulders shake with silent sobs.
And then there’s Monroe—my rabbit sits on the edge of the hospital bed in a thin gown, unnaturally still as if in deep shock. Her usual glow, the light she normally has, is nowhere to be found.
When she looks up and her glassy eyes meet mine, I know.
The truth crashes down on me all at once, even without words. The silence and wounded look in her eyes speak for us.
The baby is gone.