Chapter 24 Jin
It’s Friday night, and I’m the only one in the gym at the Claw Lounge.
Sweat drips down my temples as I launch into another series of strikes. My taped-up fists become blurs as I send the heavy bag swinging back on its chain. Then as it bounces back toward me, I’m meeting it with a powerful hook kick.
The bag is sent spinning all over again, the powerful blow enough to cause strain on the chain.
I’ve been at this for over an hour now, working through combinations and drills until my knuckles ache beneath their wraps and my depleted lungs burn.
But this is the only thing that keeps me sane these days.
Fight training is the one activity that preoccupies my mind enough to keep me from spiraling into darker outlets like alcohol or real violence. The kind of destruction that would only accelerate my descent into the monster I’m becoming in the wake of all that’s happened.
When I’m focused on technique and pushing myself to the next level, there’s no room left to think about Monroe leaving for Philly. I’m no longer obsessively fixating on Black Shell’s identity and his last taunting message.
I took your son from the inside out.
These troubles cease to exist when it’s just me and the sandbags in the gym.
I throw out another combination, even harder than the ones before it, channeling all my rage and helplessness into the strikes. The bag shudders under the assault, the chain creaking overhead from more strain.
Yet it’s still not enough of an outlet. I need to go for more strikes. More hits to expend the pent-up energy inside me.
My phone rings from the bench nearby. At first I ignore it until the call ends and then almost immediately begins again.
Whoever’s calling me refuses to give up.
I pause long enough to snatch my towel and mop sweat from my face, glancing down at the screen. My stomach tightens when I see the name displayed.
Daisha.
It’s Friday evening, and Monroe and I are long broken up. She’s leaving the country in a few days. What could possibly cause her mother to call me?
The towel slips from my fingers as I pick up my phone instead.
“Daisha?”
Her hysterical cry greets my ears as soon as I answer.
“Jin, Monroe’s gone! She left hours ago with your man Sang-cheol, and she’s not back yet.
Her phone goes straight to voicemail, which isn’t like her.
My baby always answers her calls. Sang-cheol isn’t picking up either. Something’s wrong, Jin. I can feel it.”
My mind snaps into focus, shifting gears from thoughts on my fight training to the urgent clarity needed for this emergency.
“Stay calm,” I say, grabbing my T-shirt off the bench and striding toward the door. “I’m going to find her. Did she say where she was going with Sang-cheol?”
“I wasn’t home when she left. But she’s been so secretive lately. All these late nights and early mornings looking into things. I’m so worried about her.”
“Are any of the other guards there? Let me speak to Ye-jin.”
In the seconds it takes me to rush from the gym to my Genesis G80 Sport parked outside, Monroe’s mom has gone into the apartment hallway and gotten Ye-jin on the phone.
“Monroe left with Sang-cheol hours ago,” I say as soon as he’s on the line. “Where did they go? Did Sang-cheol say?”
“Sang-cheol mentioned something about a lab in Suyeong, Baekho-je. He said Miss Monroe needed to pick up some test results.”
A lab? Test results?
What test would Monroe need results for? These questions and more spring to mind, but the answers don’t even matter in the moment.
All that matters is finding her.
There’s only one lab in Suyeong that I know if, which means that’s hopefully where she is.
“Stand guard,” I growl at him. “Ensure her mother stays put and you keep her safe. I’ll locate Monroe and bring her home.”
I hang up before he can respond, sliding behind the wheel and promptly starting the engine. The Genesis G80 gives a predatory rumble as it comes to life.
I’m peeling out of the parking spot within seconds, hitting the streets and driving like a man possessed.
Speed limits are ignored and so is traffic. Any cars in the way are either cut off or bullied out of the way.
My grip is steady all the while. My jaw clenched as I glare at the roads ahead and navigate the streets better than any racecar driver.
Each red light I blow through doesn’t even register.
The only thing that exists right now is the road ahead and the destination I’m racing toward.
In the meantime, I try calling Monroe. Like Daisha stated, it goes straight to voicemail.
The same is the case for Sang-cheol’s number.
A taxicab blares its horn as I swerve around it, missing its bumper by a hair’s breadth, the driver’s shouted curses fading into the distance behind me. If either of our cars had been half a second sooner, we’d have collided.
I hook a sudden left, barreling toward the highway that will get me to Suyeong fastest. My phone buzzes for the second time in minutes.
It’s not Daisha’s name that shows up on the Caller ID this time but Sang-cheol’s.
I answer before the first ring finishes. “Where is she? What the fuck happened?!”
“Baekho-je…” he coughs weakly. He sounds pained as though each word is a struggle.
The insides of my stomach twist into knots. “What? What is it?!”
“I’m… I’m sorry…” he sputters. “I’m at the hospital. Just got out of surgery. He… he stabbed me, Baekho-je. Miss Monroe’s friend and her boyfriend too, the lab tech. We were all stabbed.”
“Damnit, Sang-cheol!” I roar, slamming my hand against the steering wheel. “Where is Monroe? What happened to her? Tell me!”
“The man in black. He was… he was masked. He came out of nowhere. I… I didn’t even have time to draw my weapon before.
..” Another cough interrupts him, lasting for the next couple seconds to come.
“When I woke up, I was in an ambulance. Miss Monroe wasn’t with us. She’s gone, Baekho-je. He took her.”
Black Shell has Monroe.
The revelation makes the blood in my veins run ice cold. The chilling sensation quickly spreads through the rest of me, running down my spine in a sharp shiver.
It’s the worst possible news I could be delivered. My worst fear confirmed.
The man who murdered my family thirty years ago and who somehow took my unborn son’s life away now has the woman I love.
Rage and terror war inside me, two primal forces threatening to tear me apart from the inside out. I’m caught between the urge to scream and put my fist through the windshield.
I’m desperate and frantic all while I should be strategic and smart.
This is exactly what he wants. He wants to make me spin out of control like I’ve done before. Then when I’m emotional and irrational, he’s going to deal the final blow.
He’s going to—
I cut off the terrifying thought and wrench the steering wheel, pulling over to the side of the road with a screech from my tires.
I try to think through the red haze clouding my head. It feels impossible as my pulse races and all I can think about is what he might be doing to her.
Where would he take her? Where would Black Shell go?
I’m racking my brain and still urging myself to think straight when my phone buzzes. Not from a call but a text this time. Several of them that come in one after another from an unknown number.
The first is a photo of Monroe. The ice in my veins drops to an even lower temperature, making it so I can’t even breathe.
She’s bound and gagged, her wrists secured with rough rope, her eyes wide with terror as she stares at the camera. There’s a cloth shoved into her mouth and a bruise already forming on her cheek. She appears to be in some sort of trunk or compartment…
The next text appears right under the photo.
If you wish to finish this, you can find me where it all began.
A split second later, the final text pops up on the screen.
Come alone or I slit her throat.
I stare at the words, my hands shaking from the fury and terror coalesced inside me. I’ve never wanted to destroy an enemy more than I want to rip Black Shell to shreds. Than I want to tear him apart and listen to his screams of agony as I do.
If he hurts my rabbit…
I breathe through the thickening rage and focus on his message.
“Where it all began,” I mutter to myself. My jaw hardens. “The hanok.”
My childhood home, tucked away by the beach miles outside the city. The place where I lived for the first four years of my life with family who loved me—until that was taken away.
Now he wants to do it all over again.
He wants to take Monroe away from me at the same place.
This is the endgame he’s been building toward from the moment he reappeared in my life. He’ll finally be able to finish what he started thirty years ago.
As I shift gears into drive and hit the streets, slamming on the accelerator to reach triple digits on the odometer, I’m aware this is a trap.
It’ll be like the warehouse again, where he ambushed me and nearly killed me. But I don’t give a fuck.
I don’t care if there are a hundred men waiting for me at that hanok or if I have to die, so long as I take out Black Shell with me.
So long as I’m able to save Monroe first.
Hold on, Tokki-ya. I’m coming for you.