Her heart had left its place to find another home in her lungs. She was running with every little bit of strength in her legs, her gaze not even focused on the road anymore as everything was too blurry from the tears and the exhaustion. Run, run, run… nothing else counted if not the little cassette tape full of the information that could frame Exo’s members once and for all: human trade, extreme gambling and even rooster fights, the latest trend between the bored rich heirs, were enormous amounts of money were bid on the poor starved animals. She had done the impossible to get those information and it ended up with her spy getting killed with three gunshots in the head. And now they were coming for her, but she had been preparing an insurance: if they got her, all the files would be sent to her partner who would continue her work even when she would be gone, and it seemed like that would be happening soon.

Because it was not a squad of men that was chasing her, she could hear the growling and the sound of the claws rasping on the ground. She was being chased by two grey wolves, twice as fast as she could run, even if she had shoes to protect her feet from the ground full of thorns and pieces of old broken glass. She knew she couldn’t last long, she could already see the ground getting dangerously more vertical. She tried a last dash for her life, but the exit was nowhere to be found, there was only the suffocating darkness of the night. she had been running for hours, trying to hide and to find somewhere safe, but there was no such a place in the world were Kai wouldn't find her. At the end, she felt all her strength flowing out of her body and she collapsed on the floor, unconscious, while the two wolves were circling around her, victoriously growling. They could finally bring home their prey.

Kai was sitting in his office, admiring his very new purchase: a beautiful painting by an Italian artist depicting a storm about to let his fury free on the dark ocean near Genova. Art was something that he could only savor alone, as he was the only one to have the keen eye to recover those pieces worth millions of won and turning them to their original splendor.

That day at the auction they were going to sell whatever Baekhyun had selected from their warehouse, he usually didn’t care what, but that time he absolutely had to go. One of his best assassins had been killed by the secret services while he was trying to gain some information about a rivaling family of theirs and he was in desperate need of another. Baekhyun had assured him that he had been able to get the best man he could have found, describing him as a soulless demon, beyond braking point.

In the files was written that his family had been killed by the local mafia and he had been blamed for that by some corrupted police officers. Seeing his mother and father collapsing on the ground just below his eyes must have had a devastating effect on him because he had proceeded to kill those cops with only a spoon, carving out their eyes, then escaping never to be seen again, until Baek retrieved him while he was living in an abandoned barn. A good catch, he might have said, but something about the file was off: there were no pictures. He had handed himself to his men and the only thing he asked for was to not be framed by a camera.

Kai smiled: that kid was surely insane, but that was just what he needed.

On the other side of the door, in the changing room, the gambling king Chen and his partner Xiumin were getting ready to entertain their costumers: tailored suites, expensive clothes, heavy make-up… everything to make you believe they were easy prey, until you found yourself on your last chip without any house to return to.

Stay here, said their eyes, this is not the outside world anymore, it’s the Exo Planet club, come inside and try your fortune while you can.

When you are short on money, anything can become currency: houses, jewelry, wives and husbands, your own life… everything is accepted by the ruling partners.

Chen was the one who did all the parade show and took the cards in his hands, Xiumin was the observer in the shadow that told him what to do in order to win. Nothing was more thrilling to them than when the stake is high, except when it came to getting the players life on the line. Xiumin had his heart turned into ice long ago, but if there was something that angered him to the point of boiling his thoughts in the black abyss of hatred was when someone threw their life on the game table. If you'd lost, then you where headed only to the meat grinder for the hungered roosters. 

“Has the boss said anything?” asked Chen, finally meeting the gaze of his partner as he finished to put on his satin shirt.

Xiumin was still fighting with the hair's gel, as always, but the problem was that every time he tried to pay attention to the mirror, Chen was by his side, distracting from whatever he was doing and making him mess up.

“He said he was going to buy someone else, someone special. Baek told him he caught a real psychopath this time” he replied, biting his bottom lips as he lost himself thinking: last time their boss had bought someone, they had almost lost their lives when they had accidentally pulled a bad joke in his face, would the new guy be worse? Well, at least days wouldn't be boring anymore.

“Are you ready? The show will start soon” asked Chen, sliding an arm around his partner’s waist. They had always been close, ever since he had won Xiumin’s dad’s fortune five year ago at a private poker game.

The man was addicted to the game, which was usually a good thing for Chen since he had indebted himself to the throat with the wrong people, but when the player had pulled off of his pocket his last chip, realizing he was going to lose it all, he had proposed him an offer:

“I’ll give you my son, he is the best bluffer you will ever find and with him you’ll make double the money you do now, but please, I can’t give you everything I have. I have to play again tomorrow”

Chen had repulsed the proposal: money was what counted, other mouth to feed was the opposite of convenient, but he was curious. The best bluffer? He was not an easily amused person, but if there was someone who could challenge him for real, that would have been a beautiful distraction from the dullness of the world he was living in.

The boy was stunning, with the most bewitching and dark eyes he had ever seen, yet no emotions seemed to be stored in them, like a soulless mannequin. His hands were so fast handing the cards he almost missed his own when they were passed to him. It was the hardest game of his life; he had learnt how to play the hard way, to survive one more day, but the kid in front of him had probably learnt one harder way, or he wouldn’t have been able to put him in such a tight situation.

Halfway across the match he knew he liked him. At the end, in which he had won, but not by a lot, he knew he wanted him. They had been partners ever since, even if they both knew Xiumin was never going to fully trust Chen, being the one who had almost ruined his father, even if he had sold him. Love is a different thing from mad interest, they knew that and so they kept a thin line to separate them, but it kept getting thinner and thinner with the years.

“I’m ready. The show’s on”

If you had the luck to be on Exo’s membership list, you’d know that to enter you have to wear the most expensive white dress you own and a mask, or else two very sturdy guardsmen would gently ask you to leave. Privacy is the number one most important thing, especially when you find out what actually you can do inside: everything you had ever imagined to do but rules had always prevented you from doing is possible there, because everything has a price that someone is eager to pay. Even lives.

If you opened the door, you’d find yourself in the most beautiful underground mansion you would have ever seen: baroque chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, more magnificent than crowns, lighting up the place like a waterfall of shining diamonds. At your left, the gambling table, where the King is ready to take away all of your money, gifting you with the most thrilling game experience of your life, while you’ll never eve notice his partner, lurking in the shadow behind your back. At you right, cages upon cages of roosters are ready for you to make your bet and see the blood run on the floor. If you want to play however, you’ll have to wait until the next boss’ right arm is decided, up in the auditorium on the next floor: the most grandiose theatre plaza, everything lined with bloodshot red velvet, but be careful: the throne in the first row is for the boss only.

Kai was already seated, his chin rested on his left hand, while the right was elegantly spinning a glass of red wine. His mind was, as always, going through his memories, frozen in the instant he had left childhood for a more dangerous world. His father had always had a sweet spot for trying out everything thing new he gained, especially those breathing, but it turned out that one of his most beloved women was a spy sent by the secret forces and was trying to gain information about him to frame his group. Luckily, a nine-year-old Kai was planning on playing with his old man car models collection in his office, right when the woman was searching through his files.

Firing a gun simple, firing a gun at a child is simpler, firing a gun at the heir of the Exo empire who knows the art of killing likehis ABC it’s a mistake. Kai had disarmed her in an instant and slit with a paper knife, leaving her bleeding on the floor while life was pouring out from her eyes. Taking a life was so easy, it was only a matter of the right hand movement, but what came after that was complicated: the color of her blood was mesmerizing, like a kaleidoscope of corrupted water, hypnotizing enough to make that the memory to haunt his dreams and fantasies from then onward. Maybe that was the reason he was able to show mercy only for the member of his family or if money was something he could gain, or maybe his mind had shattered in that moment and he was now the cold psychopath everybody thought he was.

“He is ready” whispered one of his men, gesturing at the stage where Baekhyun was standing on.

The man was in his impeccable black outfit, looking like the most charming art dealer on the market, while his crooked smile was actually hiding his bloody fangs. He was the only human he trusted outside of the family, not only because he was the best at his job, but because the information in his hands never had escaped from there. Those who had tried were now laying in the mud, painting a beautiful scarlet path behind him.

“Show me  what you got” said Kai with a vicious smile.

He was hoping for grandness, muscles and cleverness combined to form the perfect right arm for him to move, but when Baekhyun theatrically lifted the curtain on the iron cage, he couldn’t quite believe what he saw: a thin young man, so tiny he was navigating in his ripped clothes, sat cross-legged on the floor, his eyes closed. He could only see his face and the tip of his finger, but he could observe how his skin was a geographic map of cuts, bruises and cigarette burns. That was the body of a slave from the black market, not the body of the killer he needed.

“Baekhyun, I hope this is a joke. This cannot be what I asked for” he said, quite irritated.

The young dealer’s smile only deepened, erupting in a soundless laugh. He surely knew how to run his business and he wasn’t quite ready to bite the dust, not in front of Kai anyway. With his black nails he gently hit the bars of the cage, making the dull sound echo in the hall.

“Rise and shine my friend. This is our moment” he murmured to the prisoner to then face his boss “His name’s D.O., or, at least, that is the name he responds to. He could probably kill me even from inside the cage, but he chose not to because the only thing he wants it’s the only thing I can offer: freedom. I can assure you this is the killing machine everybody wants, but I am offering it to you”

Kai, however, only half listened to what Baekhyun was saying, stuck in the moment the prisoner had opened his eyes and pointed them at him: they were intoxicating to look at, overflowing with raw power and a sadness so deep it was hard to see where it ended, but more than anything, he was observing him like nobody had ever done before, without fear nor anger. He was just a young man behind his bars, a no one like all the others, stripped of his money and status with just a look. He was not a human anymore, he was a demon incarnated in a body so that he could walk on earth to bring destruction, and he was exactly what Kai wanted.

“I’ll get him. I don’t care about the price, get yourself an extra zero, I don’t care. Give him a suite and take him to the shower room” he said, looking at his new prize like a hungry wolf, exiting the hall with a wicked smile like never in his life.

The prisoner tilted his head to the dealer.

“This means I’m his now. You promised freedom”

Baekhyun tossed him a pair of new shiny pants and a big white shirt, along with a rusty key.

“Oh, trust me, this is better than freedom”

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God, that harder to write than I expected, but darker plots and action scene are always hard to describe. I hope you'll like it anyway ^__^