“From hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee.” -Henry Melville.

It hadn’t taken long for trouble to arrive then.

Kiko Mizuhara entered Peace Minus One with a dramatic flair, her bright red PVC jumpsuit capturing the attention of the Peace Minus One’s employees immediately as she paused at the doorway of the office. Instantly, the office came alive as hushed buzzing filled the air.

Kiko smirked as she took her oversized shades off, her ruby painted lips gleaming scarlet under the white office lights. That’s right, she thought, they all knew what she came here for. And with one last arrogant smirk to the clearly gobsmacked receptionist staring at her (who as far as Kiko’s concerned, knows that Somin was supposed to stop her from entering the office under Jiyong’s order), Kiko strode to the campaign manager’s office, her heels clicking sharply against the tiles.

Kiko took her time making her way over, having every intention to drag this out into a circus show to humiliate the girl; Bella Choi, that was the name she was given. After all, what’s there to fear when Jiyong’s absent from the office? Somin had texted the moment Jiyong and Youngbae left for their scheduled meeting on the other side of town. The smirk on Kiko’s face stretched further. Oh, she was going to have fun teaching the other woman for messing with what’s hers.

Daesung stared in alarm at the approaching woman. “Oh , oh , oh .” and tried his best to stop Kiko from entering the office, “Miss Kiko, you can’t enter without an appointment scheduled!”

“Out of my way!”

And the next thing Daesung knew, he was faced with the frosted glass door slamming into his face. Daesung paced anxiously, wanting to help but not knowing how. He pressed a ear to the door, hoping to catch parts of the ongoing battle to no avail. Daesung glared at the curious employees who had left their working cubicles in favor of sneaking a peek to the drama unfolding, “What are you looking at?! Don’t you have work to do? Shoo!”

Desperate, Daesung sent a text message to Youngbae, hoping that his boss would arrive in time to save his superior.

Across town, Youngbae choked on his tea the moment he read Daesung’s SOS message, startling his other two companions in the conference room.

“Erm Jiyong, you might want to head back to the office right now…”

Yoona snapped her head up immediately at the loud bang of her office door, her eyes blinking in surprise when she saw a flash of red standing before her. Kiko Mizuhara? And she saw the exact moment the arrogance on Kiko’s face morphed into something akin to fear; paralyzing, blood chilling fear. Yoona smirked, feeling a sense of power and bloodthirst rise at the sight of the Kiko Mizuhara looking terrified of her.

“You.” said Kiko in half fear and half disbelief. SHE was Bella Choi?!

Yoona merely smiled as she pointed to herself, “Me?”

“What are you doing here!” hissed Kiko. She was going crazy, a breath away from hyperventilating, as she tried to find a logical explanation for the sight of Im Yoona sitting well and alive before her. How was it possible when the girl had died all those years ago?

“I work here.” said Yoona, smiling up to the other woman as she folded her palms under her chin, enjoying every second of Kiko Mizuhara crumbling under her. This, Yoona thought, this is what she came back for and vengeance never tasted so exhilaratingly good.

Kiko stomped her feet in frustration, “You know that wasn’t what I meant!”

Yoona cocked her brow, a picture of boredom and mock innocence, “It wasn’t?”

And Kiko gave an exasperated scream in response. The shrill sound travelled out of Yoona’s office, attracting panicked glances from staff alike who were dying of curiosity. Daesung’s anxiety escalated, clutching his phone tightly in prayers that Mr Kwon and Youngbae would arrive soon.

Kiko fought to regain control of her breathing, glaring at the woman who was smiling at her serenely from where she sat, despite the terror that was slowly but steadily rising in her.

Yoona smirked, noting the pasty shade that Kiko had turned to. “You’re looking awfully pale, have you seen a ghost?”

And Kiko nearly buckled onto the floor at her choice of words, her knees weak. Kiko swallowed hard, the sound of her gulping loud and clear in the silence of the room, and this time when she spoke, Kiko was unable to mask the tremor of her voice, “What do you want? I’ll give you anything if you would just leave!”

Yooa tilted her head to the side, her smile mocking, looking deceptively innocent, “But where would I go?”

Kiko pointed an accusing finger at the girl, “You have no place here! Don’t you know, Jiyong is engaged to me, ME! We’re set to marry at the end of the year.”

And at the mention of Jiyong, Yoona’s mood darken considerably, her humor fading as she remembered how she lost Jiyong to begin with. No, she hadn’t forget that Kiko was engaged to Jiyong and, no, that wasn’t going to happen if she had anything to say about that.

Yoona smirked as she faced the fuming Kiko. She wasn’t about to lose her cool and poise in front of the one person she despised the most. And when Yoona spoke, her voice was deceptively soft even as she wanted nothing more than to claw the other woman’s eyes out, “Let me share with you a story I heard while I was in Texas.”

“Back in 1883, there lived a lad called Henry Ziegland who broke his engagement with his devoted fiance, Isabella Lintz. You see, in those days, when a man ended an engagement, it brought shame on the woman. Heartbroken, Isabella committed suicide and out of grief, her brother shot Ziegland before taking his own life.”

Yoona rested her folded palms over her lap, knowing that she had Kiko paying attention to her every word.

“Amazingly, Ziegland wasn’t killed. The bullet merely grazed his head before lodging into a nearby tree. Years later, Ziegland told his friends that the tree was a distasteful reminder of his past and he wanted it gone. Seeing that the tree had grown pretty big, Ziegland decided to blow it up with dynamite. But alas, even though Ziegland took care to stand well and afar, the explosion sent the bullet into Ziegland’s head, killing him instantly.” And Yoona smiled, her pearly white teeth gleaming, at the terrified expression on Kiko’s face.

“So you see, what goes around comes around, the universe will always take care to return what’s owed. And… I don’t know, Kiko, deception and stealing seems to warrant karma, don’t you think?”

Horrified from the morbid tale and speechless at the poorly concealed veiled threat, Kiko screamed in both fear and aggravation; long, shrill and piercing.

Just then, the door burst open to reveal Jiyong and an equally anxious looking Youngbae and Daesung by his side, darting quick glances between the two women. Yoona merely cocked her brow in disinterest at the sight; seems like the man of the hour had finally arrived.

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