“Hey, where are you?” Heechul asked not bothering to hide the irritation in his voice. “You asked for 15 more minutes and I, being the benevolent person I am, obliged but I check back and you ask for another 15 minutes.” He paused to listen to the person on the other end. “I don’t give a pink elephant’s ! Bring me my ... You know what, don’t. Don’t come back. I’ve been feeling that something is missing in my life so I’m going to pay your sister a visit instead. Then I’ll stop by your baby momma’s house to see how she’s doing. Would you like that?” There was another pause. “THEN HURRY THE UP!” his voice echoed in the warehouse.

Yesung, who had been watching Heechul out of the corner of his eye, debated whether or not it would be a good idea to speak at that moment. His boss might actually throw his phone across the room at him if he so much as heard another peep from anyone. But Heechul’s mood didn’t seem so bad considering all the stress he was under. Yesung had seen worse. He had been witness to the transformation of the delicate framed man into a raging bull.

Yesung pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose in preparation. “Everything set, boss?” he asked, setting aside concerns for his own safety. He could use his laptop as a shield if anything came flying his way. 

“Yeah, this ’s to be expected of these ing mules every once in a while,” Heechul replied. Yesung thought he could actually hear the anger dissipating out of him, like the air from a balloon.

“Let me deal with him next time,” Yesung offered.

“I got it. Thanks, though. I know how these es’ brains work. I know what he’s thinking. He’s thinking ‘I’m getting $10,000 for this run but I’m carrying $400,000 in merchandise.’ The motherer is tempted to make off with my . But that’s why you know their families. Never hire someone you can’t get leverage on.”

“Note taken, boss.” Yesung looked down at his secondary monitor where he had visual of the area outside the building. He saw a black SUV pulling into the parking lot. “Looks like they’re back.”

Heechul stopped by in front of the mirror on his way to the mini fridge. He tucked his hair behind his ear and flattened the other side to make sure it was behaving. Content with what he saw, he continued on his course to get a cold bottle of water.

“We’re back!” Kangin announced jovially.

The new arrivals, Sungmin, Kangin, and Leeteuk took turns fist bumping Yesung, who didn’t bother to get up from his swivel chair at the desk. Heechul bro-hugged each one before directing his attention to the backpack slung over Kangin’s shoulder. “Well, let’s see it,” he said between sips of water.

“You’re gonna love this,” Leeteuk said as Kangin set the backpack on the coffee table and began to unpack.

“Oh, yeah,” Sungmin said remembering something. “Check this out.” He produced a small plastic bottle from his pocket and handed it to Heechul.

Heechul held the bottle up to his eyes. There was a small amount of purplish black liquid at the bottom. “Very nice!” He looked back at Sungmin with a wide smile that exposed his gums.

Kangin finished unpacking the backpack. He handed Heechul one of the large bags of capsules filled with pure white powder.

“Yeahhhh! HA HA!” Heechul was very pleased with the heavy bag of MDMA capsules he held in his hand. His eyes shone even brighter than just moments earlier when he saw the liquid showing the level of purity of the drug.

Yesung cleared his throat. “I think your driver’s here.”

“Huh?” Heechul shoved the bag of capsules into Leeteuk’s hands and walked over to the security monitor. He identified the semi-truck. “Yeah, that’s him. Get the door.”

The trucker backed the semi-truck into the shipping/receiving port. Kangin opened the steel rolling door.

The truck driver climbed out of the front seat. “Hello! Sorry I’m late,” he said over the loud hum of the semi’s engine.

“Just get to it,” Heechul snapped.

“Of course.” The trucker walked around to open the truck’s back doors. He maneuvered past the remaining cargo towards the back of the truck box to the built-in tool bench. He opened the lid and removed several cases of tools. He removed the tool bench’s false floor and proceeded to produce one package wrapped in black plastic and duct tape after another.

When the last package was handed over, Heechul made eye contact with each member of his crew. He snapped his fingers, giving a rehearsed cue. With swift movements, Sungmin submitted the trucker in a headlock and Leeteuk and Kangin ripped open each of the duct taped packages. They began to check each one to make sure they contained what they were supposed to.

Heechul walked up to the trucker slowly and calmly with his hands behind his back. His expressionless face made the uncertainty of his next move all the more frightening.

The trucker tapped Sungmin’s arm three times in an effort to show surrender. Sungmin ignored the man’s desperate attempt, instead tightening his arm on his neck.

Heechul looked deep into the man’s eyes. “Know where you stand or you won’t be standing at all. I’ll lay you out. It’s no big deal; nothing at all,” he said in a low voice.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

Kyuhyun sat in the basement at the coffee table. A field stripped rifle lay in front of him. He had a cleaning rod in one hand and the barrel in the other. He stared at nothing in particular, just sat on the area rug, frozen.

‘I wonder how Ara is doing. I wonder what she’s doing… I bet she’s not cleaning a rifle.’ A melancholic smile spread on his face. He had lost track of the time since he last spoke to his sister.

Donghae came in sporting a large smile. He flopped on the two-seater and cocked his head when he noticed that Kyuhyun hadn’t even noticed his arrival, too preoccupied with his thoughts. Donghae continued to stare at Kyuhyun, not wanting to interrupt his contemplations.

Eventually, Kyuhyun felt the pair of probing eyes on him. “What?” he asked, sounding harsher than he had intended. Donghae averted his eyes. A look of hurt replaced his amusement. Kyuhyun shook his head as if he were resetting the situation. “Hey, Donghae. Did you do your homework?” he said in his normal, calming tone.

Donghae smiled again. “Yeah. I got some info that you’ll wanna hear.”

“Oh?” Kyuhyun tried to hide his curiosity. He inserted the cleaning rod into the barrel and started scrubbing its walls.

Donghae slid off of the couch and sat on the area rug across the table from Kyuhyun. “I was tailing Zico like you told me to. Anyway, he had a meeting with his plug. I followed him to an alley. Some fat dude in a black SUV shows up. They get out of their cars, exchange a few words and then the fat dude leads Zico to the back of the SUV. He’s got a few backpacks in the trunk and he hands one to Zico. This dude’s got backpacks full of stuff. I thought ‘forget Zico, I’m following this fat dude. That’s the big-time right there.’ So I followed him and pretty much confirmed my suspicions. This plug’s working for a big distributer because he had a bunch of meetings with street dealers; one after another. You interested? I mean, it might be a little late to ask. Sorry. I’ve been following him for the last day and a half.

Kyuhyun had stopped cleaning the rifle halfway through Donghae’s rant and as soon as Donghae stopped talking altogether, Kyuhyun bowed his head and his arms hung limply on his sides. Donghae thought it strange. Kyuhyun’s shoulders started bouncing up and down as though he was laughing but he produced no sound.

Kyuhyun would have been annoyed at Donghae for not asking permission to abandon his original mission but the prospect of a bigger haul eased those negative feelings.

“Donghae…” Kyuhyun said in a low voice. The entire situation was making Donghae uncomfortable for the very fact that he couldn’t figure out where Kyuhyun stood on the matter. “Get me a list of the fat guy’s regular haunts. Eunhyuk, Siwon, and I’ll bank Zico in the meantime. Donghae…” he finally looked up and smiled, “good work. This is exactly the kind of stuff we need to hit.”

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

Heechul paced the living room in his condo. He could hear a helicopter not too far away. He estimated that it was approximately ¼ of a mile away.

He stopped pacing and walked to the sliding patio door and parted a tiny section of the curtain, just enough to peek through but he didn’t have a visual on the helicopter. He moved to the master bedroom and peeked through the window and confirmed the presence of a police helicopter but it was closer than he had guessed. It was just two blocks away.

‘. . . .’

He ran back to the living room and picked his gun up from the table. He checked the surveillance monitor, looking for any signs of police activity around his condo. There were no marked or unmarked cars. There were no armed men waiting to bust his door down but the helicopter was now flying over his condo complex.

The helicopter spotlight briefly shone into his living room. He jumped out of the light’s way.

‘That ’s for me. I gotta bounce.’

He picked Heebum up and made it halfway down the stairs to the garage on the floor level.

‘No wait—’ He stopped in his tracks. ‘I didn’t see anything on the cameras. If I bust out of here I’ll just draw attention to myself.’

He walked back up the stairs and sat at the top. He let go of Heebum, who was more than happy to get away from the person that was not holding him properly; his bottom hanging as a hand dug into his ribs.

Heechul sat there in silence not daring to move. He waited a few tense minutes before the helicopter moved on, taking its accusatory spotlight with it. He knew that if he got up at that moment his body would disagree and he would stagger from lightheadedness.

‘That was stupid,’ he cursed his own anxiety.

Heechul sighed and held his head in his hands out of relief.

There was a healthy amount of cussing in this chapter. I don't like rating stuff but I can if you think this needs to be 'M'.

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