Chapter 18

Im Gyun-il was drunk beyond reason. No matter how hard he tried to claw his way out of poverty, he always ended up face-down in the same dirt, and years of failure had built a thick callus over whatever shame he once possessed.

‘What the hell? An omega?’

An omega’s scent clung to him, slathered in a familiar alpha stench. That fucking bastard Park Gil-pyeong. Disgusting piece of shit. Frowning in distaste, Im Gyun-il had raked his gaze up and down the scrawny lad.

‘Please… take me down the mountain. I have to… go to my parents.’

Gauging the situation in an instant from the trembling plea, Im Gyun-il let out an appraising grunt. Wants to play the sob story, does he? As if anyone in this damn town doesn’t have a tragic past. Crossing his arms without even bothering to cut the engine, he watched to see what the runner would offer, only for the shivering boy to exhale a sharp breath and straighten his posture.

‘…I’ll pay you. Just let me ride in the back.’

‘Oho.’

Dropping the act in favor of striking a business deal, the kid had piqued his interest. Grinning slyly as if finally willing to hear him out, Im Gyun-il had cut the engine and stepped down from the saddle. In the blue chill of dawn, approaching with eyes glinting with raw greed, Lee Hee-joong spoke.

‘How much do you need?’

It had been a remarkably sweet proposition.

“…Why the hell are you here?” Seoul choked out, backing away.

Rummaging through his drunken memory, Im Gyun-il focused his bleary eyes on Geum Seoul before him. Looking the pathetic wretch up and down, he drained the rest of the bottle.

“Looking for Lee Hee-joong, aren’t you?” Im Gyun-il asked.

“…”

“Or wait,” Im Gyun-il added with a smirk. “Called him Noki, didn’t you?”

Geum Seoul couldn’t make heads or tails of what was unfolding. Besieged by surging dread, he curled his hands into tight fists. Meanwhile, Im Gyun-il pushed against his knees and hauled his bulk upright.

“That brat begged me to drive him down the mountain, so I smuggled him out in the back that morning, you see?” Im Gyun-il went on.

Geum Seoul’s gaze darted between the dirt floor and the empty air before landing upon Im Gyun-il’s advancing chest. The stench of cheap liquor was overpowering. He took another step back.

“And then the little bastard had the gall to tell me he’d pay me later,” he snarled.

He had needed cold, hard cash immediately. Having walked out of the gambling den just as his luck seemed to be turning, all he needed was a fresh stake. Yet the moment they reached the destination, that foxy little runt had narrowed his eyes in open displeasure and pulled that ‘I need a little time to liquidate my assets into cash’ nonsense.

“So I beat the living daylights out of him,” Im Gyun-il boasted with a sickening grin. “What else was I supposed to do? Had to fence his gems, didn’t I?”

Im Gyun-il was notoriously light-fingered and violent by nature, an unmitigated troublemaker since boyhood. When he used to reside in the village full-time, he would attempt to crawl into the concrete building in the dead of night, sparking frequent brawls with Park Gil-pyeong; the only blessing in recent years was that his gambling obsession had kept him away from the neighborhood almost entirely.

As if flaunting proof, Im Gyun-il fished a handful of pale, cloudy green gemstones from his pocket. Loosening his fist, the crystals spilled in a clattering shower through his fingers. Clatter-tap. The sound sent a cold, prickly chill crawling down Geum Seoul’s spine.

“Hey, do you know what, though?” Im Gyun-il asked.

“…”

“The gambling den wouldn’t even touch these damn things,” the brute spat in disgust. “Bastards who take house deeds and car titles without blinking told me gems have to be verified through the auction house first.”

A pathetic drifter who did nothing but bounce between illegal gambling dens and suck down rotgut possessed zero legitimate fencing connections, meaning he would have had to rely on Park Gil-pyeong to offload the crystals. That was when what Lee Hee-joong had initially said came rushing back to him.

‘How much do you need?’

‘Oho. Loaded with cash, are you?’

‘Only, I have to come back here later. Help me then, too.’

‘Later? Back to this dump?’

‘…I left something with the errand boy here. To retrieve it.’

A vicious, calculating malice settled over the brute’s flushed face as his bloodshot eyes narrowed into razor-thin slits.

“Seoul-ah,” Im Gyun-il called.

“…”

“That little bastard gave you something, didn’t he? Cash, or some package,” the brute snarled.

In the shadows, his pupils seemed to burn with a cold, vicious blue fire. Someone desperate to flee this godforsaken town had insisted he must return. Since the runner had arrived only that very night, sentimental attachment was an impossibility; it was undeniably financial. Which meant whatever fare he had failed to squeeze out of Lee Hee-joong, he was going to extract from Geum Seoul.

“There’s no such thing,” Seoul replied defensively.

Step.

Geum Seoul took another backward step. His heel skidded against the brick before the threshold, nearly sending him sprawling, yet a vicious fist clamping into his collar yanked him violently back upright. But that was hardly an improvement in circumstance.

Im Gyun-il was releasing alpha pheromones. The smell rolled over Geum Seoul like rancid grease mixed with clotted blood, and violent nausea seized his throat.

“Im Gyun… il,” Seoul rasped in a choke.

Tightening his brutal fist, Im Gyun-il sneered, “Yeah? What?”

Gasping for air, he tried with every fiber to shut out the stench, but it soaked into his nostrils and penetrated his very pores, driving his consciousness into a daze. Geum Seoul shook his head violently, thrashing against the hold. With tendons bulging across the brutal fist gripping his collar, no amount of frantic shoving could dislodge the vice-like clamp.

“Guh… ngh…!”

“Spit it out right fucking now before I beat the shit out of you and fuck you bloody,” Im Gyun-il snarled. “Where did you stash it?”

The revolting pheromones strangled his breath. Geum Seoul dug his nails into Im Gyun-il’s forearm, unable to force his vocal cords to work, and could only shake his head in frantic denial.

His vision spun wildly. No. Drawing one last ragged gulp of air, Geum Seoul clamped his jaw shut. His locked teeth gritted tight as a ferocious rebellion surged from deep within his suppressed frame. His blurred gaze snapped sharp—and in the very next instant—

Slam!

His knee drove up with all his remaining might, and his descending heel stomped viciously into the bridge of Im Gyun-il’s foot.

“Let go!” Seoul screamed.

“Aaargh!” Im Gyun-il howled in agony.

Crack!

Though the grip on his collar broke, Geum Seoul was flung violently onto the hard ground before the house. Panting with venomous rage as he staggered back two paces, Im Gyun-il gripped the freshly emptied liquor bottle upside down, eyes flashing with murderous malice.

“You crazy little bastard!” Im Gyun-il roared.

Smash!

Smashed against the doorframe, the shattered half of the glass bottle gleamed like a jagged shiv, droplets of cheap alcohol dripping from its serrated teeth.

Seoul pleaded frantically, “Really… it wasn’t me… hurk… it wasn’t!”

Scrambling against the dirt floor, Geum Seoul’s body froze rigid. Pleading that it truly wasn’t him, that he had received nothing from Lee Hee-joong, he shook his head in frantic denial. Yet Im Gyun-il’s eyes were already rolling back in drunken fury. That little punk is hiding my cash. That bastard stole my money. Vile, creeping pheromones slithered relentlessly over Geum Seoul’s skin. His palms scraped frantically across the earth.

Im Gyun-il brandished the weapon with a snarl. “Just you wait—I’ll sell you off just like that little whore.”

With the snarl, the jagged bottle rose overhead. Geum Seoul threw both arms up and twisted his face away. His heart was hammering so violently it felt ready to seize inside his chest.

“Guh—!”

Im Gyun-il’s breath choked in his throat.

Swoosh.

“Wondered what took the bait,” a lazy voice drawled, “and it’s just a minnow?”

“Fuck—what the hell! Who is that?”

The voice that came this time, too, was as smooth as silk.

“Ought to be at least a mullet if I’m going to slice you into sashimi,” Gwichang said with a lazy grin.

Stinks like rotten fish, you piece of shit. Laced with amused mockery, the voice swept the suffocating pheromones away like a cold gust.

Retching violently, Geum Seoul forced open eyes he had squeezed shut until they ached.

“…”

Even in this sweltering furnace, the deputy director looked completely untroubled. Snatching a fistful of Im Gyun-il’s hair—who was thrashing with all his drunken might, rabid with greed for cash—Gwichang yanked his head back so hard the drunk’s chin pointed straight at the ceiling in one effortless motion. For a fleeting second, those pitch-black eyes raked over Geum Seoul retching on the dirt. Clamping onto Im Gyun-il’s thick wrist, Gwichang wrenched the arm backward with casual, horrifying indifference. Aaaargh! With a guttural shriek, the jagged shard of glass clattered to the floor.

“Let go of me!” the drunk screamed.

Im Gyun-il scowled in frantic bewilderment. Yet his drunken thoughts could progress no further, for two hulking brutes surging from behind Gwichang pinned his thrashing limbs to the earth. Dusting off his hands, Gwichang stepped toward the trembling Geum Seoul.

Extending a hand toward him, Gwichang ordered, “Get up. I saw you weren’t hurt.”

At the curt command delivered with an extended hand, Geum Seoul hesitated to take it, merely staring at the man’s long fingertips. Doesn’t look injured. Is he crying? Just as Gwichang’s gaze swept slowly downward from his face to his ankles—

“…Yes. I’m not hurt.”

Instead of shedding tears, Geum Seoul swallowed hard and pushed himself upright on his own without assistance. Come to think of it, the only time the boy had wept was when his lie had been exposed; when threatened with violence or paralyzed by terror, he would rub his palms together in desperate supplication, but never cried. He was surprisingly tougher than he looked. Instead, nausea seemed to churn violently within him as his chest heaved, his hand clamping over his mouth.

Gwichang’s absence throughout the morning had been to trace the escape route of Lee Hee-joong, whom he was convinced had already bolted from the perimeter. From the moment Lee Hee-joong set foot in this neighborhood to the present, he had scoured the surveillance feeds from twenty monitoring points planted across the local network hub, reviewing footage his squad had already combed through twice overnight.

Then, roughly thirty minutes ago, he had spotted Im Gyun-il. In the archived recordings, Im Gyun-il appeared twice along the mountain pass connecting from the neighboring district: once at five-thirty in the morning, and again an hour later at six-thirty. The reason he had slipped past initial screening was that the open cargo bed of his three-wheeler was clearly empty to the naked eye.

There had been no obvious passenger in the vehicle, and nothing about Im Gyun-il’s route from the gambling den back toward the village looked unusual. Still, Gwichang’s instincts refused to let the detail go.

‘Bring this bastard in.’