Chapter 22 Jin
“Baekho-je Jin-tae, we would like a word.”
Lieutenant Hwang Do-gil gives a bow in the doorway of my office. Then he proceeds to lead in a procession of other lieutenants, captains, and a few soldiers. Their faces are grim and their shoulders tense, bearing the weight of whatever it is they’ve come to say.
Do-gil stops in front of my desk, his potbelly hanging over the belt of his pants. He’s a man in his fifties who has sparse, peppered hair and a heavy jowl. Though he’s been in the syndicate as long as I’ve been alive, he’s largely been useless, even in his youth.
It was only through ass-kissing that he worked his way up to the rank of lieutenant.
The other men flank him as they stand before me like pallbearers who have approached a grave. Some of them are so uneasy they even refuse to meet my gaze.
I glare at all of them, a thread of impatience already unraveling inside me.
“What is it?” I snarl from behind my desk. From my large chair where I sit as if an emperor. “What the fuck do you want?”
Do-gil swallows thickly and glances at one of the lieutenants to his right. He promptly nods, the final encouragement Do-gil needs to proceed.
“Baekho-je,” he begins, fidgeting like a child. His ears are red and beads of sweat shine on his doughy face. “We, uh… we need to discuss what happened at the gathering a few nights ago.”
I lean back in my chair and study him with cold detachment, offering nothing in response—no encouragement or curiosity or any indication at all that I’m remotely interested in whatever concerns he might have.
“Do we?” I ask finally.
“Uh… y-yes,” he stammers. “The men are… unsettled. W-what you did to Lieutenant Nam— the manner of his execution—it wasn’t discipline. It was—”
“I must have missed the part where your opinion on how I conduct our affairs matters,” I interject icily. My glare darkens, focused solely on him and him alone. “Is that what you think, Lieutenant Hwang? That your input matters?”
“N-no… I… I mean…” His ears redden and he sucks in a sharp breath, still fidgeting with a hang nail on one of his fingers.
“Burning a man’s face in hot coals while everyone watched.
Holding him there until he stopped screaming.
U-until he… he died from the agony. That’s not justice, Baekho-je.
That’s not the way we’ve ever done things. ”
“And I’m supposed to give a fuck because…?” I demand loudly and impatiently. “Do I look like Kim Jae-hyun? Do I look like any of the ineffectual leaders you’ve had in the past?”
“No, of course not. B-but—”
“Hurry the fuck up and get to the point. You’re wasting my time.”
“The men… they’re questioning if…” Do-gil looks on the verge of passing out as he forces himself to choke out more words. “They’re questioning if their leader has…”
“Lost his grip?” I supply almost mockingly. The corner of my mouth tilts up in a half-grin. “Gone mad? Been driven to insanity? Is fucking crazy? Is that what you’re asking? Spit it out!”
At my bark, Do-gil and several of the others flinch like they’ve been struck. You’d think they were terrified battered housewives and not ruthless gangsters in a mafia syndicate.
I suppose I inspire that much fear in them; something many would say indicates how cruel and evil I’ve become.
But to me it has quickly become a point of pride.
As Do-gil’s whole face turns a shade of deep red I’ve never seen before, Min-gyu steps forward. He’s one of the few hubaes in attendance, clearly having snuck his way into the small crowd last minute.
“Baekho-je Jin-tae has not lost his mind. He is as ruthless as this brotherhood requires. He’s—”
“Min-gyu, don’t defend me,” I say coolly, my intimidating and unblinking gaze still set on Do-gil. “I don’t need it nor care for it. I can defend myself. But what I want is to hear more from Lieutenant Hwang. Go on, tell me why you disagree with my decisions as Baekho-je.”
The men beside Do-gil stiffen as if recognizing this is a trap.
There is no correct answer, because no matter what he says, this won’t end well for him. He seems to realize it too as he sputters out a breath and more beads of sweat slide down the sides of his face.
“No one disputes th-that he deserved punishment,” he explains, voice wavering. “But the method… it was not—executions are never handled in that manner, Jin-tae. Not even for our most treacherous of members.”
“Let me understand this correctly.” I slowly rise from my chair, regarding Do-gil as I’d done Joo-wan the night I ended him.
I move from behind the desk, coming around to stop directly in front of him.
He shrinks half a step back, barely able to meet my eyes.
“You disagree with what I did to your fellow lieutenant. So now you are questioning my sanity. You are deciding to challenge my authority. You no longer think I’m fit to lead. Is that it?”
“No… Jin-tae, I never said—”
“Because if you’re challenging me,” I continue over him, “then do so directly. Do so in a manner that Baekho Pa tradition calls for. A Gyeol-sa for us to settle this once and for all. I am more than happy to oblige. You can fight me to the death and see which one of us doesn’t get up. Is that what you want?”
The bright red coloring to Do-gil’s face drains all at once. He goes from the color of a pepper to the cast of a ghost, his eyes rounding.
He’s older than me by two decades and carries at least fifty pounds of unnecessary fat. He’s out of shape and never has been a fighter, even in his young days.
Going against me would certainly be an immediate death sentence, and he knows it.
“I… that’s not... I wasn’t suggesting...” he stutters, breathing heavily.
I’m about to count the seconds until he really does pass out when we’re interrupted.
Choi Woo-sik rushes into the room clutching what appears to be an envelope.
“Baekho-je, apologies for the interruption, but you have a delivery. It was marked urgent.”
My glare slides from Do-gil for the first time in minutes to the plain white envelope Woo-sik clutches. It has no return address or markings of any kind. Only my name written in neat, unfamiliar handwriting.
“Open it,” I order.
Woo-sik hesitates for a quick second, then tears his fingers at the flap and pulls out the contents. A photograph and a small card slide out. His face goes pale as he looks at them, then glances up at me with a furrowed brow.
“Give it to me.”
He hands over the items with a slight tremor to his hand. I stare down at the photograph first, my pulse instantly doubling in pace.
Monroe stares back up at me.
She’s walking on a dark street, her profile illuminated by a streetlight, clearly unaware that she’s being watched. The timestamp in the corner indicates it was taken last night. Someone was following her, photographing her, and I had no idea.
The card is worse.
Did your rabbit enjoy her visitors last night? She fights well—her mother too.
But she couldn’t fight what was already inside her. I took your son from the inside out.
She’s next.
I have to read the message twice as the present moment warps around me. The men assembled in front of my desk and the tension thick in the room no longer matter. They might as well cease to exist as my world narrows to a single point.
The card and photo in my grasp.
His latest taunting message; his latest bold threat.
What fucking visitors is he speaking of? What happened last night?
I took your son from the inside out—what the fuck does that even mean?
None of it makes any sense, but I understand enough. Monroe is in danger. Black Shell has been watching her and stalking her and now he’s taunting me. He’s letting me know he can reach her whenever he wants.
…that apparently he already has in ways I’m only beginning to grasp.
My head snaps up, my glare returning to Do-gil and the others. The look on my face must communicate if I were in no mood for games earlier, I’m definitely not now. They take an involuntarily step back, afraid to be on the receiving end of my ire.
“Get the fuck out of my office! NOW!” I bark. “I have real problems to address!”
They file out at once, no one daring to push back or object. Min-gyu lingers at the door, his eyes questioning, but then he joins the others and walks out.
I waste no time leaving only seconds after them. The card and photograph in hand, I stride out of my office and down to my car.
She’s next.
I pound on Monroe’s door with no regard for her neighbors down the hall or what kind of disturbance I’m causing. My fist connects with the wood hard enough to rattle the frame.
It takes her several long seconds to answer, and when she finally pulls the door open, her expression changes from confusion to wariness to irritation in the span of a heartbeat.
She’s wearing lounge clothes, and her hair is pulled up into a curly puff at the top of her head, an exhaustion about her that tells me she likely got little sleep.
“Jin? What are you doing here? You can’t just show up like this. My mom’s resting.”
I don’t wait to be invited in. I push past her into the apartment, my body vibrating with fury, and thrust the photograph and card at her.
“What happened last night?” I demand without preamble.
Her gaze falls to the photograph first. Her round features sharpen as she recognizes herself and the implications of someone capturing this image without her knowledge. Then she reads the card, her lips moving silently over the words until she reaches the end.
“‘I took your son from the inside out. She’s next’,” she reads aloud. Her brows knit and she glances up at me with confusion and fear flickering back into her expression. “Jin, what does this mean? From the inside out? I don’t understand—”
“Neither do I.” I step closer, without care if I’m invading her personal space. “Tell me what happened last night. The visitors he’s referring to. What is he talking about, Monroe?”
She hesitates, biting down on her bottom lip. She’s weighing whether to tell me and what letting me back into the parts of her life would mean.
Finally, she exhales. “Five men broke in last night. They were masked. They attacked me and my mother.”
Like when I received the envelope from Black Shell earlier, it takes me a second to catch up with the development.
My muscles tense as it sinks in what she’s said.
Attacked. Five men. Broke in.
“You were attacked,” I repeat, my voice dangerously flat. “Here. In this apartment. And you didn’t think to tell me the moment it happened?”
“We handled it,” she answers defiantly, lifting her chin. “We fought them off and they ran. The police showed up not too long after, but they were already gone. We’re fine.”
“You’re fine.” I take yet another step closer, now studying her as intently as I had Do-gil in my office.
Except the purpose is different. I’m taking inventory of my rabbit, searching for clues and the slightest tells.
It’s as my gaze settles on her mouth that I spot the cut on the corner of her lip. Evidence of violence she endured.
Before I can stop myself, I’m reaching for her. My hand cups her jaw and tilts her face toward mine so I can examine the damage. The touch is possessive and tender all at once, an echo of a thousand intimate moments we shared before everything fell apart.
“This is fine?” I growl, my thumb brushing dangerously close to the cut on her lip. “This is what ‘handled it’ looks like?!”
Monroe wrenches herself from my grip, her misty eyes not as resilient as the rest of her. “I told you. We fought them off. I’m… okay.”
But she’s not okay. She’s being hunted by the same monster who slaughtered my family thirty years ago. The same fucking faceless specter who’s been circling us for months and somehow claims to have taken our son from us in a way I still don’t understand.
From the inside out.
The words chill me to my core, though I remain as stoic as ever on the outside.
“You’re moving back in with me,” I say matter-of-factly. “You and your mother. Tonight. You will remain with me until this threat is handled.”
Monroe shakes her head. “I’m not doing that. I’m not moving back in with you.”
“I wasn’t asking. This isn’t about us,” I press, though we both know that’s a lie. “This is about keeping you safe. Black Shell is escalating. He’s not going to stop until—”
“We’re leaving,” she cuts me off. “My mom and me. We’re moving back to Philly next week. Our lease is almost up, and there’s nothing keeping us here anymore.”
The news renders me speechless for seconds to come. It feels like a blade jammed between my ribs as I draw a breath and find it exceedingly difficult.
It’s a development I wasn’t anticipating, and I pride myself on such things.
Monroe’s not simply living apart from me, a few neighborhoods away where I can still watch over her. She’s leaving the country.
Going halfway around the world. Putting an ocean between us and calling it closure.
She’s leaving me. For good this time.
What’s left of my cold dead heart demands I fight for her. I speak up now and do what I never do—beg her to stay. Tell her I love her and I’m profoundly sorry for how I’ve pushed her away and made her feel so lost and alone in the wake of our tragedy.
Make her somehow understand I’ll do anything to make things right. Anything so not to lose her.
I need her.
But the words lodge in my throat, refusing to come out the way they should. They die before I can ever speak them as the facade I’ve put up remains, and I fail to tell the woman I love what’s truly on my mind.
My jaw clenches and I finally recover. “While you remain in South Korea, my men will be your security. Twenty-four hours, seven days a week. There are already two stationing themselves outside your door. They’ll remain there until you board your flight.”
If she wants to argue, she decides against it. Her mouth opens and then shuts, and she simply sighs and nods.
“Fine.”
They’re the final words spoken between us. Just another marker of how we’ve deteriorated; how we’ve allowed our relationship to die with our son.
I turn and walk out of her apartment, my spine rigid and my face a mask of ice.
But I’ve never felt more desperate and uncertain.
More… terrified.
It’s not until I reach the downstairs lobby that I allow myself a moment to stop and rue what just happened. The fact that not only am I failing to protect my rabbit, but she’s leaving for good.
Black Shell has not only remained five steps ahead, he’s winning.
He took my family and then he took my son. He destroyed the happiness I had with Monroe, and now she’s slipping through my fingers permanently.
Worst of all, it seems there’s not a damn thing I can do to stop it.