Chapter 25 Elise
TWENTY-FIVE
ELISE
Uncle Jerald is fast for a man in his fifties.
He weaves through the crowd, zigging and zagging as necessary.
But I’m faster. I’m furious.
So angry I’ve spent a lifetime trusting Unc when he never deserved it in the first place.
My boots pound against airport tile as I chase him through the terminal, Gun half a step behind me. People scatter, luggage topples, someone screams.
Uncle Jerald glances back over his shoulder, eyes wide with panic and desperation. He knows we’re not letting him get away with this.
Not if we have any say in the matter. Not if we’re still alive and breathing.
“STOP!” I shout.
He doesn’t slow down. He merely presses on, dodging travelers in his path.
A fork in the terminal comes up. Left for the international gates. Right for domestic.
Airport security spills out of a side door, radios crackling, hands reaching for their batons. Their gazes are set on us, like we’re the troublemakers.
Gun barks at them in Korean—private intelligence on intercept—his tone so commanding, so official, they hesitate long enough for us to blow past them.
Uncle Jerald hits a restricted door marked AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY and shoulders through it. The alarm screams to life, shrill and piercing.
“Split up!” Gun shouts, already vaulting over a barrier with feral determination. “I’ll cut him off on the other side!”
I don’t argue with his plan.
I slam past the same door Uncle went through, taking two, even three, stairs at a time. My lungs burn and adrenaline courses in my veins. I’m so focused, so set on our target that no physical pain or discomfort like my lungs coming short on air even registers.
The stairwell is concrete. Every hard footstep of ours ricochets off the walls.
Mine and Uncle’s as we both scramble up as if in a race against the clock.
Above me, a door crashes open. Outdoor light floods in.
I burst through a couple seconds after him onto an isolated rooftop that overlooks the Incheon tarmac.
Uncle Jerald stumbles to a stop at the chain-link fencing that marks the edge, cordoning off this rooftop from the next with a construction sign.
His chest heaves, sweat slicking his face as it dawns on him he’s got nowhere left to run.
He’s trapped between the sky and the drop below as I come up the rear.
“Don’t move!” I yell, drawing my gun. My aim is steady despite the fury rattling me from the inside.
He slowly turns, hands rising in surrender. But the flicker of amusement on his face says differently.
It tells me he’s surrendering no sooner than he’ll apologize for what he’s done.
“So that’s it?” he asks. “You came all this way to hear me say it, huh?”
My finger hovers on the trigger. “Say what? Tell me!”
His smile is sad, resigned, almost rueful. “We both know it now, baby girl. That I killed your father. That I watched him bleed out and never called for help.”
His confessions are the words necessary to unlock the memory I’ve been hiding for over twenty years.
The life-defining moment I’ve buried so deep, I forget about it except for in my nightmares.
The present fractures, breaking apart for the past to reemerge.
The bang is so loud it makes my ears ring. I clap my hands over them, curled tight under Daddy’s big desk, knees pulled to my chest.
Everybody was so angry, screaming and shouting at each other.
I didn’t understand. I didn’t like it, so I hid under the desk with Gun. Then his daddy grabbed him and stormed out of the office.
…then… then there was the loud bang. Now there’s only silence…
“Daddy?” I whisper. “Daddy?”
I crawl out from under the desk, hands and knees on cold hardwood. It takes me a moment before I put two and two together.
Before I realize the body on the floor is really—
“Daddy!” I cry out.
His eyes are open but not like they usually are. It’s like they’re empty, like he’s staring at nothing.
A shadow falls across me. I look up, tears streaming down my face, and see Uncle Jerald standing over us.
He’s holding something dark and heavy in his hand.
A gun.
He kneels beside me, his face eerily calm. “Stop crying, baby girl. We’ve got to go now.”
“But Daddy’s—”
“Daddy’s gone,” he interrupts. He takes my small hand in his large one, pulling me to my feet. “He’s gone and he’s never coming back, baby girl. Come on. We need to leave before anyone else comes.”
I try to look back, but he won’t let me. Just keeps pulling, keeps walking, until the room with Daddy disappears behind us…
The world around me shifts, and I’m sitting down next to a handful of other people in black.
I’m in black too, some fancy dress Uncle Jerald told me I had to wear to pay my ‘last respects’.
There’s a huge casket in front of me where Daddy’s sleeping. That’s what Uncle Jerald said—that Daddy’s sleeping now, and I shouldn’t be scared.
But I am scared. The casket is big and dark and scary, and I don’t want to look at it.
I just want Daddy to hurry and wake up again.
I look around instead. At the empty pews behind me. At Uncle Jerald sitting stiff and formal beside me. At the handful of people who showed up. Faces I don’t recognize, speaking in hushed voices about what a tragedy it all is.
And then, in the distance past a field of headstones, there’s a man standing by himself.
He’s tall. Korean. Dark suit, hands clasped in front of him, watching the service with an expression I can’t read. His face is serious and sad, and when our eyes meet, he gives a nod.
Uncle Jerald notices where I’m looking and follows my gaze. His jaw tightens. The Korean man turns and leaves without a word, disappearing among the headstones.
“Who was that?” I whisper.
“No one,” he answers, voice hard. “No one important...”
The memory fades away, returning me to the present where I’m standing on the rooftop with the gun still trained on Unc.
Hot tears have started streaming down my face.
“You,” I choke out. “It was always you. You shot him!”
He gives no reaction either way. As if he’s waited for this moment for decades.
“I raised you on that grief, Elise. Shaped you into exactly what I needed—an assassin with no loyalty to anyone but me.”
My hand shakes. The gun wavers. The rage and bitterness storming inside me scream to pull the trigger.
For me to end this. Make him pay for what he stole from me.
But I can’t move.
I… I can’t do it. I can’t kill my uncle. Even if he killed Dad.
I’ve spent years training to be a ruthless killing machine. The assassin known as Black Silk. Yet now that it’s the moment I’ve prepared for my entire life, I’m fumbling it.
“Look at you,” he sneers. “So damn weak. No wonder you weren’t able to finish off Tae-hwan and the Cheongryong. No wonder I had to step in and do it myself.”
“So it was you,” I whisper. “You poisoned Tae-hwan.”
“It wasn’t easy. I had to bribe deliverymen and staff to ensure the right bottle of soju made it to his office. You were taking too long, getting distracted by his son. I knew you two were getting close. Once I came to that loft to visit. You had been corrupted by him. So I handled it myself.”
“You knew sooner rather than later Tae-hwan would tell us the truth. He’d explain he was innocent. He didn’t kill Dad. You did.”
“They left me no choice,” he says, lowering his hands slightly. “I was always the outsider, and I was sick of it.”
“You mean you were jealous? That sounds more like it.”
“You know what? Yeah, I was, baby girl. It wasn’t fair,” he spits, his features twisting with bitterness.
“Your father met Tae-hwan in the military. Jamie was stationed at Osan Air Base. During a joint exercise between American and South Korean forces, he met Tae-hwan. They clicked instantly—both middle-aged married men dissatisfied with their lives. Both hungry for something more than what they had.”
I keep the gun on him, eyes narrowing as I take in what he says.
“When Jamie got injured and was medically retired, he found out Tae-hwan had also ended his military service. But Tae-hwan hadn’t gone home to play house.
He’d joined the Cheongryong.” A bitter smile crosses Uncle Jerald’s face.
“It inspired your father. He got into black-market weapons dealing and partnered with Tae-hwan. For years, they flourished together. Made untold amounts of cash. They were unstoppable.”
“And my mom,” I say. “Where was she?”
“She hated it. Felt Jamie was getting in too deep, losing himself to the money and the danger. So one morning, she packed a bag and left. Just walked away from both of you.” He shrugs like it’s nothing.
“Jamie threw himself even deeper into the business after that. That’s when I joined.
I handled the financial side. Kept the books clean.
“But the bond between Jamie and Tae-hwan...” He pauses long enough to shake his head. “They were brothers in every way that mattered. Closer than Jamie and I ever were, despite sharing blood. It ate at me, watching my own brother choose some Korean gangster over his family.”
“So you betrayed them?” I offer weakly.
“I saved myself,” he corrects. “When the authorities came sniffing around with fraud charges, I saw my opportunity. I copped a plea deal—gave them everything they needed on both Jamie and Tae-hwan. But I made sure the evidence pointed more heavily at Tae-hwan. Made him look like the mastermind.”
My stomach churns. “And Dad figured it out.”
“That’s exactly it. He thought it was Tae-hwan who’d ratted them out.
They had a massive confrontation right there in that office.
You and little Gun-woo were hiding under the desk, terrified.
” Jerald’s eyes gleam as if fond of the memory.
“Tae-hwan was furious, denied everything. And then I showed up.
“Tae-hwan took one look at me and knew. He grabbed his son and stormed out. And that’s when your dad understood too. He saw it in my face. He knew I’d betrayed him.”
“So you killed him…”