An encounter with the rival

Min ho left his town house immediately after depositing his new wife inside and headed towards The Fallen Angel.

He couldn’t deny that he didn’t feel like leaving her at all, on their weding night, in a house full of staff that she wasn’t familiar with but he had a single, immovable goal, and the faster he reached it, the better they all would be.

He planned to send the word to reporters later in the week and with that in his mind he worked his way to have his revenge. He just did not have time for his new wife.

He certainly did not have time for her quiet smiles and her quick tongue and the way she reminded him of everything that he had lost. Of everything on which he’d turned his back.

There was no room in his life for them to talk. No room to be interested in what she had to say. No room to find her entertaining or to care even a bit about how she felt about her family or how she had coped with her broken engagement, now years behind her.

And there was definitely no room for him to wish to murder the man who had broken that engagement and made her doubt herself and her worth.

It did not matter that she remembered everything about him in their childhood. The wish he promised her.

Maintaining a distance from her was essential—it was distance that would establish the parameters of their marriage, that he would retain his life, and she would build her own, and while they would see her sister matched together, it was for their individual reasons.

So, he left her sleepy-eyed and headed to The Angel, doing his best to ignore the fact that she was alone on her wedding night, and that he’d likely suffer extra torture in hell for leaving her there. Few hours in the limo, and he was already too soft with her.

He breathed deep, enjoying the frigid dampness in the evening air, yellow with thick January fog as he navigated through Seoul to Gangnam.

The club was not open yet, and when he slipped through the owners’ entrance and onto the pit floor, he was grateful for the lack of company in the cavernous room. There were dark lanterns lit around the floor, and a handful of staff were completing the day’s work— polishing sconces, and dusting the framed art on the walls.

Min Hi crossed to the centre of the pit floor, stopping there for a long moment to take in this place—the place that had been home for the last few years.

Most afternoons, he was the first of the owners to arrive at The Fallen Angel and he liked it that way. He enjoyed the quiet of the pit at that hour, the silent moments before the dealers arrived to check the weight of the dice, the oil on the wheels, the slickness of the cards, preparing for the mass of humanity that would descend like locusts and fill the room with shouts and laughter and chatter.

He liked the club empty of all but possibility. All but temptation.

He reached into the pocket of his waistcoat, feeling for the object that was always there, the coin that reminded him that it was temptation and nothing else that kept these tables full.

That it was temptation that ruined him.

That you do not risk what you could not afford to lose.

He moved to the roulette table, brushing his fingers across the heavy silver handle of the wheel, spinning it, running the colours together, all speed and luxury, as he reached for the ivory ball on which so many hopes had been pinned—and lost. With a practiced flick of his wrist, he sent the ball spinning into the well, loving the sound of bone on metal, the way it shivered over him, all smoothness and sin.

Red.

The whisper echoed through him, unbidden, unstoppable.

He turned away before the wheel slowed, before gravity and providence pulled the ball into its seat.

“Raaaa, look who’s back.”

On the other side of the room, silhouetted by the open door to the bookkeeper’s suite, stood Kim Woo Bin, the fourth partner in The Fallen Angel. Woo Bin handled the club’s finances, ensuring every penny that came through the door to the hell was well accounted for. He was a genius with numbers, but he neither looked nor lived like the unparalleled man of finance he was. He was tall, a half a foot taller than him, even taller than In Sung hyung. He was long and slim, all angles and sinew. Min Ho rarely saw him eat, and if the dark hollows beneath his eyes were any indication, it had been a day or two since the Woo Bin probably had slept.

Woo Bin rubbed one hand over his unshaven jaw and moved aside, allowing a beautiful woman to exit the room behind him. She flashed Min Ho a sly smile before slanting past him.

Min Ho watched as the woman hurried to the entrance of the club, letting herself out with barely a sound, before he met Woo Bin’s gaze. “I see you been working very hard.”

One side of Woo Bin’s mouth rose at the words. “She’s good with the books.”

“Like hell she is.”

“We weren’t expecting you back so quickly.”

He hadn’t expected to be back so quickly. “Things took a bit of a turn.”

“For better or worse?”

The echo of the marriage vows he’d spoken with Shin Hye set Min Ho on edge. “It depends on your view of the situation.”

“Ah kure?” Woo Bin drawled, “Gyeonggi mansion?”

“Mine.”

“Did you marry the girl?”

“I did.”

Woo Bin let out a long, low whistle.

“Where is she?”

Too near. “At home.”

“Your home?”

“Where else? here?.”

Woo Bin was silent for a long while. “I really do want to meet this woman. She married you without running away. Wahhh that’s really something”

She hadn’t had a choice.

There was no way that she would have gone through with a wedding to him if he hadn’t forced her, blackmailing her. He was everything that she was not, coarse and angry, with no hope of ever returning to the world into which he’d been born. Into which she’d been born.

Shin Hye . . . she was proper and perfectly bred for a life in that world. This world—filled with gaming and drink and and worse—it would scare her to death. He would scare her to death.

But she’d asked to see it. And so he would show it to her.

Because he could not resist the temptation of her corruption. It was too compelling. Too sweet.

She didn’t know what she asked. She thought adventure was a late-night walk in the woods surrounding her childhood home. The main floor of The Angel on any given night would send her into hysterics.

“The turn?” Woo Bin said, leaning against the wall, arms crossed over his chest. “You said it did not go as planned.”

“I agreed to find a suitable husband for her sister as well.”

Woo Bin’s brows rose. “Chincha?”

“Easy enough, I think.” He met Woo Bin’s serious gaze. “You should know it was a love match. We married this morning. I couldn’t bear being apart from her a moment longer. Any reporters comes around, that’s the answer.”

A beat passed as Woo Bin heard the lie. Understood its meaning. “Arrasso, you both are very much in love.”

“De”

“Chakama....this morning?,” Woo Bin tested the words. Min Ho turned away and placed his hands flat on the roulette table, pressing them firmly into the plush green baize. Knowing what was to come even before the words were spoken. “Waaa, you left her alone on your wedding night?”

“I did.”

“Is she ugly?”

No.

When she was in the throes of passion, she was stunning. He wanted to lay her down on his bed and make her his. The memory of her writhing against him in had him hard in few seconds.

Min Ho scrubbed one hand across his face at the lie. “I need some time in the ring with Jong Kook Hyung.”

“Ah. So she is ugly.”

“She’s not.”

“Yah, are you cr