A phone call… in the middle of the night? Kai grumbled a few obscenities under his breath before grabbing his phone off his nightstand. He pressed the call button and put the phone to his ear: “Yeobo-,”

“Kai-ya! Please… get me out of here!!” a female voice screamed on the other line.

Kai quickly sat up in his bed, his heart beating ten times faster than he thought possible. He recognized that voice… but it wasn’t possible – it couldn’t be his real mother. She disappeared soon after his dad’s affair with his now stepmother… it couldn’t be her on the phone right now. He was too stunned to speak as he kept hearing her pleads for his help… and then the phone was taken away from her.

“Kim Jongin…” a male voice now spoke, his soft snickering sent cold shivers down Kai’s spine.

“W-What… what do you want with my mother?” Kai asked nervously. He was sweating and every bit of confidence left him.

“It’s not what I want with her… it’s what I want with you,” the male voice answered. “Come to the old textile warehouse if you want her to continue to live – and come alone.”

Kai heard another piercing scream over the phone as if he had hurt her and he jumped up out of his bed. “I’ll be there.”

---

‘I can’t believe this… she’s been alive this whole time,’ Kai thought as he drove to the old textile warehouse, ‘I won’t let those bastards hurt her anymore! All these years I’ve went without her… needing her… only to find out she has been kept hidden from me… but why? Who would do this?’ He punched the steering wheel, willing the car go even faster than it was now – he was already nearing 100 mph though.

He finally reached the warehouse in a matter of 20 minutes – almost a record-breaking time – and rushed inside.

“Mom! Mom… where are you?!” Kai called out into the darkness but was only greeted by silence. ‘They said they’d be here…’ he thought, as he made his way further into the warehouse.

“She’s right here,” was the last time Kai heard before being knocked unconscious.

---

Kai’s POV:

~His unconscious dream~

I was running. I just kept running. To where? I don’t know. I just heard her voice in the distance.

Calling me…

Pleading for my help…

And I couldn’t do anything about it.

The closer I got, the farther she’d get. I was never going to get to her like this…

I hate this. All my life I’ve spent running in circles only to get absolutely nowhere. But I never gave up – I couldn’t give up. I needed to have her in my life again.

Mother, where did you go? Why did you leave me? Why didn’t you stay and fight back? …Why did you let stepmother have dad? Why did you give up? Don’t you love me? How could you leave me with them?

God all these questions… so many yet none would ever be answered.

I just have to keep running… so maybe someday I’ll catch her.

Then “Kim Jonginnie” I heard. It was so close. Finally it was so close. I can hear her voice as clear as day. I walked to it… and closer and closer until…

~End of unconscious dream~

---

Kai’s eyes fluttered open and he slowly looked up, seeing a woman looking back at him. Her long, untamed black hair, chocolaty brown eyes, her tanned skin, her soft smile… it was his mother – his real mother. He was sure of it now.

“Jongin-ah,” she said and gently touched his face, “They forced me to ask you to come… I’m sorry. You should’ve-,”

“Shut up!” a man yelled and pulled her hair back, tossing her to the ground. She let out a sharp yelp, landing roughly on the hard concrete floor.

Kai tried to jump up but he was strapped down to a chair then growled threateningly. “You bastard! Don’t touch her!”

The man just laughed and ruffled Kai’s hair playfully. “Fierce kid you got here lady. We’ll just see how long that lasts though.”

“P-Please, don’t hurt him! I’m the one you want to hurt! Hurt m-me… kill me! But don’t… don’t hurt my boy, please…” his mother pleaded. She was now on her knees with her hands together as if in prayer. Tears were streaming down her face and Kai watched her in shock. ‘Where is her dignity… her pride?’ he thought.

“Get up,” Kai growled but his mother remained begging the man. “I said, get up!!”

His mother looked over at him wide-eyed, as did the man. “I can not believe you are begging him like… like some peasant! If I die, I want to die with at least a shred of dignity!”

“Shut him up lady,” the man uttered threateningly, “or I’ll have to.”

Kai’s mother let out a nervous laugh and scrambled towards Kai, awkwardly his face. “He doesn’t know what he’s saying, he’s just a kid. You know how confident kids are these days.” She was looking at the man as she spoke.

“I’m not-,” Kai began but she clasped her hand over his mouth. She looked at him with pleading eyes before turning back to the man.

“See? He’s quiet now,” his mother said with another nervous chuckle and removed her hand from over his mouth. The fear in her eyes was the only thing keeping Kai quiet.

“Now,” the man began, “I have a little deal to set up with you, Kim Jongin.”

Kai cringed whenever the man said his name but decided to just let him continue talking… for his sake and his mother’s sake. “It seems as if I’m going to have to hang on to your mother a little longer than I first imagined but-,”

“I’m going to kill you!” Kai shouted, struggling against the ropes even more. They were started to chaff his skin, making his wrists and parts of his arms start slightly bleeding.

The man sighed then continued. “-I’ll let her go but only if you do me a little favor. See, my boss’s companies stocks were going to skyrocket once you and Jessica announced your marriage, but that seems to not be the case anymore.”

Kai’s eyes widened at the mention of Jessica… and the man’s mistake. The only two company’s stocks that would have skyrocketed would have been W&M and Seoul Enterprises.

Jessica's brother's company and his stepmother's company...

It was all starting to make sense now~

Kai decided to play dumb to his mistake, however, until he found out who from either of the companies was behind this… he had a pretty good idea of who it was already though.

“So once you patch things up with Jessica and marry her, I’ll release your mother. How does that sound?” the man asked, now leaning close to Kai’s face.

Kai was doing his best to memorize this guy’s eyes. The man kept his lower face hidden behind a facial mask but his eyes… he knew he’d recognize him later on by his eyes. “I… I’ll do it.”

“That wasn’t so hard, was it?” the man asked and snapped his fingers, making two more men enter the room. “Take her back.”

The two men grabbed his mother and Kai struggled against the ropes again. “No! P-Please, don’t take her!”

“Sorry kid,” the man said as the two men dragged his mother out of the room, “You can’t always get what you want.”

“I swear if I get out of these ropes I’ll-,” Kai began angrily. He was practically snarling now.

“You’ll what? Kill me?” the man laughed and bent down in front of Kai, “If I die, your mother dies. Is that what to want?”

Kai spit in the man’s face and he wiped his face clean with an amused laugh before falling quiet in a moment of deadly silence. “You little punk!” the man yelled and slapped Kai across the face. “Get him out of my sight too!”

Two more men entered the room and threw a bag over his head and then… Kai lost consciousness again.

When the two men got Kai out of the room, the man pulled out his cellphone and dialed a number. “It’s done,” he said.

“And you made sure he’s going to marry Jessica?” Mrs. Kim asked.

“Yes, he’ll marry her in no time,” the man responded with a devious laugh.

---

Kai woke up in his car in the school’s parking lot. His head was throbbing, his face was sore, and his body ached in the places were the ropes held him down to the chair. He groaned and sat up, pulling out a mirror from a bag in the backseat. He looked at the hand-shaped bruise on his cheek and the dried blood on his arms and wrists… he was a mess.

“Ahh…” he groaned as he gently touched his face and in a fit of fury, he tossed the mirror on the floor. “Aish!” He stomped on the mirror over and over, unleashing all his anger on the inanimate object. His breaths ripped out in rags as he stomped the mirror mercilessly, shouting curses with each stomp. His stomping slowed eventually, however, and he leaned back in the chair trying to slow his erratic breathing. All that anger then turned into sadness.

He put his hands over face and cried into his hands, not caring how loud he was. He hadn’t truly cried in a long time… in fact, the last time he experienced this pain was when he found out his mother went missing all those years ago. The pain was almost excruciating – it almost broke his spirit. But he was so close… so close to finally getting his mother back. He didn’t care what it took to get her back.

But he also knew something else…

He narrowed down his enemies to either being his stepmother or Jessica – and… he was almost certain it was his stepmother’s doing. Now he only had to find some way to locate his real mother and stop his stepmother from winning…

Now it was becoming a race against time.

I hope this update answers some of your questions! ^w^ As to how and why Kai's stepmother imprisoned his real mother well... that'll be revealed in the next chapters sometime. :) Anymore questions, please feel free to ask! <3 I'll try to answer without spoilers!