Chapter 20

Club Cigar was known throughout the underworld as Nyx’s flagship lounge, an establishment that had never once faced a raid from narcotics squads or prosecutors. Its immunity was no proof of innocence; it survived because too many powerful judges, assemblymen, and executives benefited from its discretion. Unlike the elite, invitation-only clubs on the upper floors, Club Cigar granted access to younger patrons and unregistered guests, serving as Nyx’s most permissive public venue.

Inside, illicit pleasures forbidden elsewhere were quietly accommodated, making every patron complicit in keeping silent. Occasional scuffles occurred, but Nyx’s retaliation was so swift and merciless that few ever dared test the perimeter.

“How many?” Yi-jae asked, stepping toward the bedroom door.

—[Five dead in total.]

Five. Yi-jae’s jaw tightened.

Still on the line, he stepped into the corridor, snapped a series of terse directives to the security detail stationed outside, and took the private lift down to the subterranean levels. Arson and mass murder in Nyx’s most public asset. Five casualties. Young-joon could have handled a routine homicide, but this was an act of open war.

In the subterranean holding cell beneath the complex, an odor of burnt fabric, stale vomit, and cheap narcotics hung thick in the damp air. Bound to a steel chair bolted to the concrete floor was Nam Ki-joon—a disgraced former executive from a fallen cartel, his clothes reeking of gasoline.

“I begged you! Got down on my fucking knees, and you shut the door in my face!” Ki-joon shrieked, spitting frothy saliva across the concrete floor. “I told you I was burning alive, and you bastards still wouldn’t give me any!”

Yi-jae stepped into the holding chamber, hands resting casually in his pockets. Without breaking his stride, he swung his leg, driving the steel toe of his oxford into Ki-joon’s collarbone hard enough to send man and chair crashing against the concrete.

“No cash, no product,” Yi-jae drawled with icy boredom. “What did you expect us to hand you? Charity?”

Two subordinates hoisted the bloodied man upright, slamming the chair legs back into position.

Ki-joon coughed up crimson phlegm, bursting into a jagged, manic cackle. Whatever synthetic garbage he had injected had stripped away whatever reason he had left. “Who the fuck are you?! I’ve never seen your face! Who are you?! Who runs this place?! Are you the head of Nyx?!”

“…Haah.” Yi-jae exhaled a slow, dismissive breath through his nose.

“Is it you?! Are you the demon running Nyx?!”

That single question gave Yi-jae pause. His dark gaze settled sharply on the thrashing man. “…And what does Nam Ki-joon want with Nyx’s boss?”

“To butcher him! To tear his throat open! The moment he dies, your entire empire crumbles to dust!”

Yi-jae leaned down, twisting his fist into Ki-joon’s torn collar, hauling him forward until their faces were inches apart. There were a thousand ways to make an addict talk. The question was which bait would work fastest.

“Want a fix?” Yi-jae murmured softly.

“…”

“Your favorite.”

The hook sank deep. Ki-joon’s wild pupils constricted into pinpricks, his jaw going slack as a dazed, euphoric grin spread across his filthy lips, as though merely remembering the drug had sent it coursing through his blood. Heroin. The filthiest alkaloid on the black market, and the one substance Nyx strictly refused to distribute domestically. The man was thoroughly rotted from within.

“I’m fine… I… I already have some…” Ki-joon mumbled, his head lolling.

“…?” Something about that muttered confession did not add up. Before Yi-jae could untangle the slip, Ki-joon’s manic hysteria detonated once more.

“Burn to ashes! Burn in hell, all of you! You’re finished! It’s over for Nyx!” He thrashed against the iron chains until the chair shrieked across the floor, cackling as though he could already see the empire collapsing in flames.

Yi-jae let out a quiet sigh and turned to the enforcers behind him. “Sober him up with saline. At this rate, the idiot would laugh while you amputated his arm.”

* * *

Consciousness returned with pain on every front. Jinseong’s eyelids felt glued together with crusted salt; his limbs were heavier than lead. He rolled gingerly onto his back, pressing trembling palms against his swollen face, rubbing his eyes until thin slits of gray morning light pierced the gloom. “Ah… my head…”

A savage, unrelenting migraine hammered behind his temples like an iron mallet. Through the fog, memories of high-proof whiskey resurfaced: three, perhaps four heavy tumblers, neat, downed on an empty stomach.

Jinseong loathed addictive substances on principle; he had never smoked, never taken narcotics, and avoided alcohol whenever he had the choice. By his standards, last night had been an act of reckless self-destruction.

His mouth felt lined with dry sand. “Ugh…” Even his voice sounded thick and ruined. His stomach burned as though rusted hooks were raking through the lining. Curling onto his side, Jinseong endured the most punishing hangover of his twenty-one years, swearing to whatever gods existed that he would never touch another drop of liquor.

“…”

Then the memories came flooding back. Jinseong’s eyes flew wide open. The fragments of the night snapped together into horrifying, vivid resolution: the parlor, the unbuttoned shirt, the whiskey, his hands cupping Yi-jae’s jaw, the desperate kisses, the sofa, the tearing penetration. He clutched his dark hair in both fists as the sheer magnitude of his drunken recklessness flooded his chest. “…Fuck. Fuck. Fuck…”

The curses slipped past his trembling lips in ragged gasps. Scorching heat surged from his chest, climbing to his throat and setting the tips of his ears on fire. He bit his lip until he tasted copper, but the more he remembered, the harder it became to hold back the tears of humiliation. Baek Yi-jae. That psychotic monster…

“…”

The invasion, the unyielding friction, the terrifying avalanche of sensation—he remembered weeping openly, begging for mercy. He had pleaded with Yi-jae to stop, sobbed that his body was being torn in half. The Alpha might as well have been made of stone. In the end, Jinseong had even whimpered, “It hurts, Master, please spare me,” only to have the plea choked off by a bruising, possessive kiss. Had he cursed at him, too? Almost certainly; agony of that scale would have wrung profanity from a saint.

If he hadn’t mercifully lost consciousness after those first few clashes, Jinseong doubted his body would have survived intact. The sickening possibility that Yi-jae might have continued using him while he was unconscious turned his stomach. Then the texture against his skin registered: soft, breathable cotton loungewear. He had certainly not gone to sleep dressed.

Who had dressed him? The realization that Yi-jae had handled his limp, naked body made him burn with mortification. Jinseong forced his hand beneath the waistband to inspect the damage. The muscles there throbbed with a dull, bruised ache at the slightest contraction, and a cool, medicinal slickness coated the swollen skin. Ointment. Jinseong yanked his hand away, his entire face burning with shame.

“Damn it…”

He had wanted nothing more complicated than to synthesize chemicals, keep his head down, and find an opening to escape. Somehow, through one disastrous mistake after another, he had entangled himself with the most dangerous predator in the country.

Jinseong curled into a tighter ball, burying his face in his knees. Yi-jae was a depraved sadist; that much was simple to classify. His own traitorous body, however, was an incomprehensible betrayal. Why had his core burned so hot when his suppressants were supposed to keep him numb? And why the hell did I kiss him back?

“Argh…” Headache. Nausea. An aching spine. A burning laceration he refused to think about. The humiliation hurt worse than any physical wound.

A sharp, rhythmic knock rattled the door.

“Eat your meal, parasite,” Jeongwoo called from the hallway.

Jinseong’s mouth twisted into a fierce, sulky pout. His eyes pooled with fresh tears, which he scrubbed away aggressively with the sleeve of his shirt, though his flushed cheeks and reddened nose gave him away.

“I don’t want to eat!” he shouted toward the door.

“What?!”

“I said I’m not eating!”

Jinseong had no idea where he had found the nerve. Food was the absolute last thing his churning stomach could tolerate; he could barely sit upright without the room spinning, and every ache dragged his mind back to the sofa. Just days ago, he had been reading quietly in a sunlit corner of Hoya Bookstore. That peace had merely been the quiet eye of a hurricane. He shoved his face into the pillows, praying that sleep would swallow him whole.

The latch clicked anyway. Jinseong dragged himself upright with a resigned sigh; if he had ever possessed the luxury of staging a hunger strike, he wouldn’t be trapped here in the first place. He prepared to choke down whatever lukewarm porridge had been brought.

“Take this,” Jeongwoo grunted, thrusting a smartphone into his face.

Jinseong accepted the device with deep reluctance, his chest tightening as he glared at the screen. Yesterday’s catastrophe had begun with an illicit phone; he despised the object on instinct.

—[Need me to feed you?]

“…” The low, velvet baritone vibrated directly against Jinseong’s eardrum, causing every muscle in his frame to seize in sheer panic. The memory of that voice growling against his lips flashed through him in brutal clarity; if Yi-jae had set out to condition terror into him, he had succeeded completely.

—[Do I need to come up there and feed you myself?]

“…” Jinseong held his breath, staring wide-eyed at the floorboards as if the Alpha were looming right behind him.

—[Should I head back right now?]

Fierce heat rushed into Jinseong’s cheeks. The man was discussing breakfast with the easy familiarity of an everyday routine, as if they hadn’t engaged in something catastrophic hours earlier. “…I’ll eat,” Jinseong whispered, his voice cracking.

—[Don’t hate me too much. Not that it matters if you do.]

“…” The flippant acknowledgment of what had happened kindled fury in Jinseong’s chest. He glanced nervously at Jeongwoo’s turned back, terrified of the volume, and rubbed his burning ear, desperately fighting the urge to end the call.

—[Stay put until I return.]

“…”

—[No more tricks. Next time, it won’t be your legs I break.]

“…”

—[Behave. And take it easy down there. You felt like you were going to snap in half last night.]

“…”

—[Understood?]

“…”

—[Jinseong. Let me hear your voice.] The coaxing tone was surprisingly patient, almost gentle, yet weighted with absolute authority.

A shiver rippled through Jinseong’s chest. He stared blankly into the sunlight pooling on the floorboards before forcing out a halting, reluctant reply. “Take…”

—[…]

“Take care on your way.”

A low, rich chuckle rumbled through the receiver, sending a strange shiver through Jinseong before the line went dead.

[END of VOLUME 1]