Seoul spreads out below me like a jewel.  I am its queen.

Right now, its queen is impatient.  My client was supposed to arrive half an hour ago; the breathtaking view of the Han river, doubling every light and shadow in its pitch-dark surface, becomes unamusing after so long, especially with the chill breezes that, this high up, seem to have already frozen me to the bone.  I wish, for the umpteenth time, that I had opted to wear my signature leather jacket with our gang sign - a dragon and a tiger, locked in battle.  Instead, I am wearing, at Kai's insistence, a slinky silver evening gown that outlines my body in glittering curves, swooping to my waist at the back, leaving my shoulder blades and most of my chest utterly bare.  It is beautiful, but horribly inconvenient.  Kai said I'd look more alluring in it.  I'd rather be the ugliest woman in Seoul, if only I were not cold.

Of course, it is impossible in any case for me to be the ugliest woman in Seoul - or ugly at all.  Not to brag, but I was born beautiful.  My mother was one of the most coveted courtesans in the city in her day, and while I don't know my father, I'm told he was a movie star who bought out all my mother's other suitors and made her his exclusive mistress.  Very handsome, very arrogant.  I inherited my mother's gorgeous features, smoky eyes, and slender figure; I inherited my father's arrogance.  I like to think I got the best of both worlds.

In any case, it's probably a good thing I was born with such stunning good looks.  It's one of the two things that helps intimidate the low-lifers and struggling moguls who come to do business with me: that, and the fact that I'm the leader of Yong Horang, one of the most feared gangs in this city.  I like to think the gang's success is my doing: when I joined, a desperate, starving sixteen-year-old left helpless in the wake of my mother's death, the gang was a half-assed collection mostly made of scrappy teenagers like myself.  That was ten years ago.  Now, other gangs cower at the mention of our name; we've got the biggest, juiciest cuts of the town, and the best deals with every businessman who's not too haughty - or too foolish - to think they can get away without doing business with a gang.  Now, our gang owns an entire floor here in Archipelago 21, one of Seoul's foremost - and most expensive - real estate properties,  Today, the dragon and the tiger rule the streets - thanks to me.  It often surprises my clients when they meet me for the first time: a woman did all this?  But it's true.  She did.  I did.

I am the queen of Seoul.  Everybody knows this.  If I were not, I would not be standing here at the highest level of Archipelago 21, looking down across the expanse of the high-rise apartment building to the glittering river below, where I can count almost every warehouse our gang owns - every one in sight.  Still, even queens are not invulnerable.  I hiss as the wind cuts through the flimsy fabric of my gown, wrapping my arms around myself.  It does nothing to stop the chill.  I feel goosebumps gathering on my flesh, and sigh.  Why couldn't Kai have let me wear a jacket and combat boots, like I usually do?

The door to the balcony opens behind me and I freeze.  My hand goes instantly to the butterfly knife I have hidden along the waist of my dress, inside the thin leather accent belt, whose buckle forms the interlocked shapes of a tiger and a dragon - the only sign of our gang I am wearing today, aside from the tattoo along the inside of my left arm.

I catch the reflection of the building behind me in the guardrail, and see the familiar features of Kai.  My lieutenant.  I let my hand drop to my side, but do not relax.  Ten years of narrowly escaping backstabbing betrayal can do that to you.

"Kai," I say, before he can speak.  "He's here?"

"Yes," says Kai.  But there's something wrong about the way he says it.  "He's waiting for you in the foyer."  He does not move as he speaks.  His hands are utterly still, utterly silent, still on the door behind him.

Then I see it.  The white sleeve of his dress shirt, where it peeks out from beneath his suit, is spattered with darkness.  Blood.

I whirl, my body instantly taut.  "God dammit, Kai," I hiss, and stride toward him.  I grab his wrist before he can protest. Yank it out for me to see.  "What did you do?  Did you already beat him up?"

"No," says Kai vehemently.  He pulls his arm away, and in the dim light from the doorway, I see his face is ashen.  "This happened before he got here.  Came into the lobby like that.  Dripped blood everywhere, all over the ing carpet."

He's babbling now.  I step back and look at him, considering.  If my client came in bloodied, there's only one option.  Another gang got to him before we did.  But why?

There's only one thing I can do.  I step past Kai and say, "Let's see him."

Outwardly, I am the same as ever: calm, cool, collected.  But inside, my heart is racing.  My head is jangling with alarms.

What could possibly be so important that someone would dare cross a client of the Tiger and Dragon?

Who could possibly be crazy enough to do that in the first place?

The man is waiting on a couch on the foyer - just as Kai said.  He looks up at me with small, piggish eyes.  He clutches a towel to the side of his bald head, and fear is written deeply into the lines of his round, fat face, in the wobbling of his many chins.  His skin and his faded business suit glisten with blood; it pools in deep scratches along his face, in rips in his jacket, soaking into the towel he holds at his temple.  Also just as Kai said.

 At my entrance - heels ringing out against the silence of the tile - he jumps.  His free hand clutches feebly at the midnight-black velvet of the couch.  "It wasn't me, I swear," he says feebly.  I brush aside his imploring fingers and grab his other arm, freezing him to the spot.  "It wasn't my fault."

"What wasn't your fault?" I ask coolly.  He's in shock, which is bad: I like my clients focused when things like this go wrong.  I take the towel from his quivering hand - ignoring his whimper of protest - and inspect the wound on the side of his head.  Blood drips over his ear, and his skin is a mass of matted hair and clots.  There's going to be a nasty bruise here the next day.

"It wasn't my fault," he babbles.  "They - they took all the money we brought.  They killed people for it, they killed Jin and Seon, I couldn't stop them, I swear - they killed one of your guys, I tried to tell them not to but I couldn't do anything - "

I freeze.  Something feral rises in my stomach.  "They did what?"

"They killed one of yours," blubbers the man.  He is practically sobbing, tugging at my skirt now.  "One of your enforcers.  I saw it.  They kicked his skull in, then tore out his tongue.  I couldn't - "

"I understand," I snarl at him.  He falls silent immediately.  "Where's the payment?"

His eyes bulge in fear.  "I - " he stammers.  "We - we don't have any.  They took it all.  I tried to get them to stop but they burned it, it's gone - "

"Who's 'they'?"

"I don't know!" he sobs.  "It was dark!  I couldn't see anything!"

I've heard enough.  I put a hand over the man's mouth to make him shut up, and turn to Kai, who has been standing behind me, silent, the entire time.

"Take him to the basement," I say.  "Make him talk.  Then figure out how to make him pay his dues."

At my words, the man cowers.

"I don't have any money left," he whimpers.  "It was all stolen.  All of it."

Kai shrugs.  "There's always a way to pay," he answers.  "Why not come with me to the basement, and we can discuss how?"

He tugs on the man's arm, but still he hesitates.

"Wh-what's in the basement?" he says.

Kai smiled.  It is a predatory smile, all teeth, the smile of a dragon.  "Nothing you won't like when the other gang finds you in the morning," he says, and drags the man upright.  "Get up, buttercup."

The man's screams and protests fade away as I stride back out to the balcony.  My hands fix around the cold metal, but I'm no longer focused on the temperature.  My heartbeat roars in my ears.  My blood is hot.  I am furious.

The man's words ring in my ears.  The beating he describes is savage: both of his guards gone, and one of ours, and they didn't even use a gun.  Not only did we receive major damages through this client today, we lost a man.  And we don't even know who did it.

 My fingers curl into fists and I curse, a harsh, loud bark that's torn away by the night wind as soon as it leaves my lips.  I don't like it when one of my own dies.  It makes me angry - and behind anger, there is always fear.

Tonight - for the first time in many nights - I am afraid of what I have always feared most.

I am Seoul's queen - and someone out there, someone very powerful, wants very much to be queen instead.

 This time, they may succeed in taking my crown.

--

A/N: Hope you liked this first chapter!  Fun fact - I was originally going to make Yuri's gang be the two dragons, so her gang sign would be intertwined dragons, not a dragon and a tiger.  Then I did a little research and found this actually already exists - one of the biggest gangs in Seoul today is the Ssang Yong Pa, the mob of two dragons.  Since they're a real gang, I thought it best to change the name so I wouldn't get in trouble with the actual gang ^^;; Consider Yong Horang - Tiger and Dragon - to be my slightly less impressive-sounding tribute to this gang!

Edit - when I originally wrote this note, I said Ssang Horang, not Ssang Yong, for two dragons.  Mea culpa, friends.