A/N: I've updated a lot in the past few days so make sure you read a lot!

Lina, Preet, Anna, and I make our way to the 15th floor to a vast, windowless conference room. The Seven Stars HQ looks similar to the Yohan HQ in Los Angeles. It is another executive building, except with more stories.

As we make our way down the halls, I become acutely aware of stares from people passing by. They’re quick glances; the moment I look at them, they look away. At first I am confused- until I realize they are giving Lina the same looks, too.

    I’m the boss’ daughter, I realize.

    My insides shrivel up with resentment.

    “About time,” my mother says when we enter the room. She is sitting at the front end of a rectangular conference table. Mrs. Nguyen, Marge, Baekhyun, and Kris are seated around her. My eyebrows shoot up. Baekhyun’s face is the color of milk. Dark crescents sit under his eyes. Every few moments, his eyes dart up at Kris- and then just as quickly look away.

    Kris looks equally as dazed. Marge and I exchange a look across the room.

    “Take a seat, you four,” Mrs. Nguyen says. “So, just to start off. Annabelle, Preet, Ami: there’s no need for your fake identities anymore. Your second lives are now over.”

    My jaw slumps as Annabelle immediately jumps up and starts shouting, while Preet angrily protests.

    “We can’t just leave,” he says, deep frown lines etched into his forehead. “We have people there and-,”

    “Really? You want to go back there?” My mother scoffs. “The 4 Flames knows the three of you are alive now. If you go back, they’ll target the loved ones you had back there. They will kidnap your little girlfriend, torture her for information, and then use her as bait.”

    Preet, Annabelle, and I are shocked into silence. Lina and Marge gape at my mother, absolutely appalled. Even Kris looks taken aback.

    Mrs. Nguyen uncomfortably clears . “Now, our gangs are going to keep up the pretenses of our partnership with Yohan. I’ve already talked to their head on the phone. We’ll act like we’re helping them on the hunt for you three.”

    The 4 Flames’ head. Namjoon’s father.

    “So,” Marge says, coughing. “The plan Mrs. Nguyen and Ms. Kim have drawn up is really... well, it’s risky. And- no offense-,” she adds, quickly glancing at her two superiors- “it’s banking on a lot of luck-,”

    “It’s a 3-part plan,” my mother cuts in. “First. Yohan is hosting another corporate event in a week. This is a company-exclusive event. It’ll be filled with top executives, 4 Flames agents, senior officials. We’re sending Ami in.”

    My eyes widen. “Wait, what?”

    “That’s crazy!” Annabelle shrieks. “That’s- Ami’s going to be found immediately-,”

    My mother smirks. “Exactly.”

    Anna, Lina, Preet, and I goggle at her.

    “In the meanwhile,” Marge says, fidgeting with the papers in front of her. “while everyone is occupied with dealing with Ami, Baekhyun and I will be carrying out a complex DDoS attack on the Yohan network. That’s Part 2.”

    “They’re going to ing kill me,” I utter, my throat burning. “They’re going to shoot me the moment they see me.”

    My mother lets out a harsh laugh. “Oh, please, Ami. They’re not going to kill you.”

    “Really. Why wouldn’t they? The last time I remembered, the 4 Flames tried to murder me.”

    She leans back in her chair, a cool expression on her face. “Jungkook Jeon is not going to let them kill you.”

    The temperature in the room seems to drop 20 degrees. I blankly stare at her.

    “How... how dare you,” I whisper, my voice shaking.

For a few moments, there is no movement in the room- nothing but my mother and I locked in an intense glaredown with each other.     

And then Preet inhales. “Why are we launching another DDoS attack, Marge? Haven’t you and Baek been trying to break into their system for 4 years? What’s the point of doing it again?”

The tension in the room breaks.

My mother looks away.  

    “Because it’ll be another distraction,” Baekhyun says, straightening up. “Someone else is going to be accessing Yohan’s databases through Sentrix. That’s what we’ll use... Kris for. He has... passwords and upper level access. He can hack through and... collect everything.”

    Kris looks at Baekhyun- and then quickly looks away. “Here’s the problem,” he says in a hoarse voice. “I don’t have any computer skills whatsoever. I work with the business side. My passwords only get into our company stats and finances.”

    Baekhyun quietly scoffs. “Of course. I should’ve known. You’re completely incompetent with computers.”

    “Okay, okay,” Marge says loudly as Kris begins to glower at Baekhyun. “Ami. Is there any chance that you have access to anything? Cracking through Sentrix’s security is out of the question, but it’ll be easier if we have something to go off of.”

    “I only have access to a database with verification codes,” I tell her apologetically, throwing a resentful look at Kris. A small smile curves up his lips.

    Mrs. Nguyen sighs. “Great. The two people we have with Sentrix are totally useless.”

    “Mom!” Lina exclaims, and her mother winces.

    “Okay, okay, sorry. Ami and Kris are very useful people.” Mrs. Nguyen playfully rolls her eyes at her daughter, and Lina bursts into giggles.

    The exchange causes my chest to tighten. Funny how my own mother’s sitting right in front of me, yet I could never have a lighthearted exchange like that with her.

    “Wait.” My mother snaps her fingers. “There was that girl who was always around Aemin. Tall, long brown hair. What was her name?”

    “Fei Wang,” Baekhyun pipes up.

    Kris blanches.

    “No,” he says in a low voice, rising. “No. No. No. We are not bringing her into this.”

    “Who is she, Baekhyun?” My mother asks, ignoring Kris.

    Baekhyun throws Kris an uneasy look. He withdraws his phone and types in a few things.

“Fei Wang,” he finally says. “Director of Sentrix IT Operations. Went to Cornell, and then graduated from Princeton grad school 5 years ago.”

“Wait a minute. Wasn’t that when you graduated from Princeton, Kris?” my mother muses, a sly smile on her lips. “Interesting. Do you know her?”

“Don’t do this, Haera,” Kris growls. He is absolutely livid. “Do not bring Fei into this.”

“Baekhyun, take Fei in,” my mother says coolly. “We’ll offer her an ultimatum: she hacks in for us or she dies. Simple.”

“Over my dead body!” Kris roars, storming over to her. Baekhyun rushes up to push him back.

“We’re not going to offer her an ultimatum,” I hiss, standing up. “We’ll give her a choice. If she alerts Yohan, we can take... appropriate measures to stop them from finding out. But we’re not going to blackmail her into doing this.”

“Keep Fei out of this,” Kris snarls, shoving Baekhyun away from him. “She doesn’t deserve to get involved with us. She’s a good person. And what if this plan goes wrong and they find out?”

“Then we’ll protect her, of course,” Mrs. Nguyen tells him. “You trust her, right?”

Kris gives her a dirty look in response.

“Then she’s our best bet. Marge, Baekhyun. Call her in.”

I am making my way back to my room when someone picks me up from behind and squeezes me so hard I nearly pass out.

“Mimi, you’re okay!” Joshua exclaims, twirling me around. “I was so scared you were-,”

“Oh my god, Joshua, put me down!” I yelp, writhing around. “I’m going to die!”

“Hey! I was going to die from loneliness! I was even starting to miss Kyungsoo, that old bastard.”

“We literally haven’t seen each other for 15 hours. Don’t overreact.”

“So.” Joshua sets me down on the ground. “What happened? I’ve been hearing all these crazy rumors- everything from you getting plastic surgery to the head of X.E. being your mother. For a secret gang, we sure are bad at getting intelligence around.” He frowns when he sees my expression. “Whoa. Mimi. Did they really do plastic surgery on you? I mean, I can’t really see any difference, but maybe they-,”

    “The head of X.E. is my mother.”

    Joshua blinks. I watch him in tense anticipation.

    And then he says, “Hey, that means -kicking is in your blood. No wonder your punches always hurt so much.”

    I look at him in surprise as he slings an arm around my shoulders. “I think Kyungsoo is downstairs in the training rooms. Wanna go join him? We can do some 2 on 1. You beat both of us up. Sound good, Mimi?”

    I swallow, pulling Joshua in another hug.

    “Sounds great, Josh.”

Thank god. Mrs. Nguyen may have told us that we need to leave our other lives behind.

But I still have Joshua. And I still have Kyungsoo.

A/N: Hey! So I'm thinking about the next story I'm going to write. I have 3 options (all of them will have teenage main characters and a love-hate relationship because... im a er for them): 

1) A magic/fantasy type story with a lot of plot twists and cool things

2) A story that takes place in a dystopian world that involves teenagers trying to go up against their society (sounds cliche, but I have an interesting plot, I promise :D)

3) A more lighthearted high school romance that takes place at a prep school and and is all scholarship student and rich boy LOL