Chapter 15 

 

The gun slips from the listless fingers of the second goon and fell to the marble floor below a full five seconds before the goon did, as lifeless as the cold steel of the gun. 

 

Yoona couldn't understand. If the goon had shot Changwook, who was still on his feet, staring down at the goon with cold eyes then why was there blood pooling beneath the body of the very obviously dead goon? 

 

There was frantic movement all around her but Yoona couldn't understand. She couldn't hear anything either. There was a ringing in her ear and something else but she couldn't seem to make sense of it. It felt like her mind was underwater, she couldn't comprehend what her senses were trying to tell her. 

 

All Yoona could see was that gun aim right at Changwook's chest. 

 

Yoona raises her eyes and saw agent Choi lowering her weapon. Her weapon that had been pointed at where the dead goon's head had been the moment before. 

 

A shot had been fire but the goon hadn't fired it. Someone had been shot. Someone had died but it hadn't been Changwook. 

 

Agent Choi had shot the goon. Changwook was fine. He was alive. 

 

Yoona scrambles wildly onto her hands and knees, realizing that she couldn't see Changwook. She had to see him. She had to know that he was ok. She crawls along the side of the staircase, moving as fast as she could but for some reason, she kept slipping on the cold hard floor. 

 

Finally, Yoona made it far enough along the staircase that when she stood up on her knees, she could see over the staircase and into the foyer and all of a sudden the noise that she was hearing made sense. She was hearing scuffling, the kind that was the result of men fighting and struggling with each other. 

 

The gunshot. It had saved Changwook's life but it had brought her dad's own personal army down on them. Changwook was in the middle of the foyer but he wasn't alone and Yoona didn't just mean agent Choi. There were four more of her dad's goons in the foyer, one of which she recognized from her protection detail and Changwook and agent Choi were busy fighting with them. 

 

Changwook against three and agent Choi against one, although he was twice agent Choi's size. 

 

Every one of them was armed but not one of the fighting six had a weapon in their hands. 

 

Yoona shook her head, trying to clear the daze she seems to be trapped in. She needed to think. She was done being the helpless victim. Changwook was in trouble and she would be damn if she let anything happen to him. 

 

Changwook was so hell-bent on protecting her. It was the time that he learns that she was just as hell-bent on keeping his self-sacrificing alive. 

 

There was a gun on the floor. The dead goon's gun, the very weapon that had come so close to taking Changwook away from her forever. 

 

Yoona whips her head around, stubbornly ignoring the dead body and blood and instead focus solely on locating the gun. 

 

It wasn't hard. It was right beside his lifeless already pale right hand where it had fallen. 

 

Yoona peek once more over the top of the lower part of the staircase to make sure that no one was paying her any attention, Changwook had just punch one of the three goons he was fighting hard enough that the guy was sent sprawling backwards across the floor and agent Choi had just duck a clumsy punch that had been aimed at her and then Yoona drove for the gun. 

 

It was easily eight or nine meters away, that felt more like a mile, so Yoona was forced to crawl along the hard cool marble floor, cautiously keeping her head low as she scrambles to close the distance between her and the gun. 

 

It was the metallic smell of blood and repulsive reek human fluids that hit her first. It made the logical part of her brain sit up and point out to her that this was a dead body she was crawling towards. That this man really was dead and it wasn't like in the movies. Seeing someone gets shot in real life wasn't like the movies and the aftermath wasn't as clean either. 

 

In the movies when someone was shot, there was a pop and sometimes a small almost invisible spray of blood and then they fell down and remain still, maybe with a small red patch on their conveniently light-color shirt. A small amount of blood might pool beneath them but in real life, there was so much blood, too much blood and it went everywhere. The walls and floor. Smear, spray, pooling and dripping and not just blood. There were bits in the blood that Yoona's stomach refuses to let her look too closely at and there was the smell, the reek of death. It hung in the air and seem to stick to everything, as eternal as a traumatic memory and the putrid reek of metallic blood and bodily fluids made her eyes water and her stomach turn violently but she had to get to that gun. 

 

Pushing all the chaos around her away, Yoona instead focuses on everything, her eyes and all of her focus and determination on the gun. She didn't know how to use it and she wasn't even sure if she could shoot someone, even one of Sejoon's goons but she had to try. 

 

Yoona was halfway there, the gun was only seconds from being within arm's reach and a crossway glance assure her that she still hadn't caught anyone's attention. 

 

One of the three goons Changwook was fighting look to be down for the count, not the one she had seen him punch a moment before, as he was face down on the floor and not moving and agent Choi was backing away from her opponent, her eyes watching him warily but alertly, it was obvious that she was waiting for an opening so that she could take him down but at the same time she was being cautious to keep out of the big goon's reach and then Yoona was there. She had taken a less than direct path as she had to arc around the dead goon and the still-expanding pool of blood but at last, the gun was in her hands. 

 

The first thing Yoona notice about it was that it was heavy. The second was that it was cold. 

 

With the weapon in her hand, Yoona whirl on the chaotic group but at the same time, she scrambles backward until her back hit the wall. 

 

Then she raises the gun in both hands and desperately searches for a target. She didn't know how to shoot and she had no idea what she was doing so she would have to wait for a target to present itself that left no chance of her shooting Changwook or agent Choi by accident. 

 

Meanwhile, Changwook was still busy with two of the attacking goons. Punching, kicking and elbowing at each and every opportunity that presented itself while at the same time ducking and jumping away to avoid blows directed at him. 

 

With two against one, Changwook only manage to avoid about half of what came his way but he wasn't going down, Yoona could see the steely one-set-minded determination to keep going like it was a real thing. His eyes burn with fierce warrior's fire and deadly focus and because Yoona was watching Changwook so closely, she saw the exact moment that one of the two remaining goons that Changwook was facing, the one she recognizes from her protection detail, made his fatal mistake. 

 

He tripped on the coat of the goon who had fallen before him. The goon manages to catch his balance, just as Changwook deliver a brutal kick to the gut of the second goon who was still standing but the goon then made the grave mistake of automatically half turning to see what he had trodden on and Changwook pounce. 

 

Changwook was behind him in an instant. His arms whip up and curl their way around the goon's thick neck then his hands grasp a brutal hold of his chin and the back of his head and before the goon could utter more than a startled cry, Changwook's entire body flex and he twisted the goon's head around so sharply that it was over just like that. 

 

The sickening sound of a neck breaking fills the room. Yoona couldn't compare the sound to anything else because she had never heard a sound like that before. It was so sickening that it took everything Yoona had to keep from being violently sick right then and there. 

 

The goon drops like a stone, slipping lifeless out of Changwook's open hands. He landed right beside the other either dead or unconscious goon in the middle of the foyer floor. 

 

Changwook didn't look at her and Yoona wanted him, too. She wanted to look straight into his eyes and see what was there after he had killed someone just like that. He didn't look at her because across the room agent Choi let out a loud cry, a battle cry almost and then she launches herself onto her goon's back like she wanted a piggyback ride. She curls her arms around the goon's neck and her legs around the goon's waist, locking herself in place even as the goon tried to violently buck her off. 

 

Agent Choi lock both of her arms around the goon's neck, her intention obviously to try to choke him out just as Changwook had done to Changmin, only agent Choi was half the goon's size, she might not be so successful. The goon had one thick neck and agent Choi didn't seem to be strong enough. 

 

Changwook must have known because he abandon the last of the three, who was at this moment rising to his feet after he had fallen to the floor from the force of Changwook's kick and dash across the foyer to where the goon was digging his thick fingers into the flesh of agent Choi's arms, trying to claw her arms from his neck. Changwook didn't even stop. He raises his arm, drew back a fist and the moment he was close, he let his fist fly, using his entire body's momentum to add more fore to the blow. 

 

The large goon's head snaps back, narrowly avoid hitting agent Choi in the back with the back of his skull. He stumbles back an awkward step and further set of balance by agent Choi's weight, the goon inevitably fell backward to the floor, landing awkwardly with agent Choi beneath him. 

 

The woman landed with an 'oomph' as she lost her grip on the goon, force flat on the floor by the goon's dead weight. 

 

A moment later the goon was gone, knock carelessly aside by Changwook who then offer the female agent his hand, offering to help her to her feet. 

 

Agent Choi glare at Changwook for one long moment before she grudgingly accepts Changwook's hand and allows him to pull her up to her feet. 

 

The both of them, panting heavily from their exertions, turn on the last remaining goon who was standing hesitantly in the middle of the large room. 

 

The goon clearly didn't know what to do now that he was the one outnumbered. 

 

Heavy pounding footsteps fill the short-lived silence, alerting them once again that even more goons were closing in on them, judging by the sound of it, there were many. 

 

Agent Choi whirl, her eyes meeting Changwook's in search of instruction and Changwook whirl, his wide eyes searching. 

 

For her. 

 

The moment Changwook's eyes came to rest on her, they zero in on the gun still held high in her hands with both surprise and horror. 

 

Yoona lowers the gun a fraction, lowering the nozzle so that it was pointed at the floor and no longer at Changwook. 

 

Changwook's head whip around towards the doorway at the other side of the foyer, the doorway that leads to the other side of the mansion where the approaching pounding footsteps were coming from and then he was moving. How one man could move so fast, Yoona didn't know, especially after all they had been through but one-minute Changwook was meters away from her and the next he was right there bending down over her. He snatches the gun from her hands with his left hand while his right was curling itself beneath her forearm and pull her unceremoniously to her feet. 

 

Staying against the wall, Changwook hurriedly ushers her along ahead of him until they were once again back inside the space between the descending half wall of the side of the staircase and wall. 

 

That was where Changwook releases her but instead of pulling her down into a defensive position against the side of the staircase, he pushes her forward, towards where agent Choi was standing in the middle of the space. Then Changwook took his defensive position against the half wall, pulling his gun from his belt at his lower back. 

 

"Go!" Changwook bark at the two women, "Take her and get the hell out of here Choi!" 

 

"What?!" Yoona gasp in disbelief. He couldn't be serious. After all this he wanted them to just leave him and go? Had he learned nothing? 

 

The pounding footsteps enter the room. 

 

Changwook warily but quickly raises his head and peek over the lower half of the staircase but he just as quickly ducks his head back down. 

 

Just as a spray of bullets struck the staircase and the railing above him that he was taking cover behind, sending white powder and chips of marble in all directions, showering down over Changwook and turning his brownish black hair to a dirty white. 

 

"Go!" Changwook roar at them, right before he raises his gun, position it between the two baluster's at his neck height and fire three times return fire. 

 

A strong hand not much bigger than her own close around her wrist and before Yoona knew what was happening, agent Choi was half pulling half dragging her towards the doorway that leads to the kitchen. 

 

The same doorway that Changmin lay crumble on the floor by. 

 

The last thing Yoona saw before she was forcibly dragged from the room was Changwook taking cover as another spray of bullets ate into the once grand marble staircase. 

 

"We can't leave him!" Yoona desperately beseeched agent Choi, still trying in vain to pull her wrist free of the surprisingly strong older woman/agent. 

 

Behind them and all around them, Yoona could hear the only slightly mute thunderous booms of the gun battle and men shouting coming from the foyer they had just left. 

 

"We aren't!" Agent Choi snap back, her tone urgent and impatient all at the same time as she drags Yoona into the mansion's enormous gleaming kitchen, "If I can get to a phone, I can call agents in!" 

 

Agent Choi scans the kitchen as if she was looking for something that she knew was there. 

 

In the back of her mind Yoona knew that there was a phone in the kitchen, the kind that was both an internal and external one, able to connect with all other phones in the estate and around the grounds but unfortunately a code was needed in order to open an external line to place an outgoing call. A code that Yoona had never known because the reason one needed a code to dial out was her. It had been part of keeping her prisoner here, all phones require a code to open an outgoing line so she couldn't call out for help. 

 

Her dad had well and truly thought of everything. It was one of the things that had made him so good at what he did. 

 

Right along with being one ruthless heartless bastard. 

 

Agent Choi whirl on her, her eyes wide but there was that same look in her eyes that Changwook had when he was mission focus. 

 

"Listen to me, we aren't getting off the estate like this. We won't make it but this is our only chance, do you understand?" She spoke in a hush but urgent voice, the words coming out so fast that it was all Yoona could do to keep up, "The only way we can help Changwook-ssi now is to call in backup. Until they get here Changwook-ssi is going to fight like hell to keep the goons, as you call them, busy and I'm going to make damn sure you stay out of their hands. That's what I can do for Changwook-ssi. The question is, what are you going to do? Are you going to distract him by going back in there or are you going to cooperate with me and let me keep you safe?" 

 

"Changwook Oppa is..." 

 

"A highly skilled agent with one bloody hell of a reputation." Agent Choi stated, cutting her off, "The kind everyone believes is an urban legend until you meet the man and realize that if anything the legend has been downplayed. That's who Changwook-ssi is." 

 

Agent Choi was clearly distracted, even as she continued on, "And the woman he's in love with is in danger." She then turns away from her and headed for the wall phone on the far side of the kitchen, near the large window in the outer wall. She kept talking even as she kept moving, "Do you really think there's even a possibility of anyone getting the best of him? There's no way that that man is going to go down easy, not with your life on the line." 

 

The older woman picks up the cordless phone out of its cradle and briskly punch in a number that Yoona guess was the code to unlock the external line. 

 

"You scare the bloody hell out of him when he saw that gun in your hands." Agent Choi told her, with a shake of her head as she enters the second number, a telephone number, into the cordless phone, "If you go back, you will just get him kill." She stated bluntly, as she put the phone to her ear and turn her full attention to the call. 

 

Everything in Yoona screams at her to leave the agent to her call and run back to Changwook because with Changwook it was usually the safest place for her and so she could be there to help him if he got into trouble, the kind that meant his life or death. 

 

It was hard with so much happening around her and with so much adrenaline in her system that was making her heart pound, her veins burn and her body unable to remain still. Everything in her scream at her to move, to do something but agent Choi was right. What could she do that wouldn't risk distracting Changwook when he needed more than anything to remain focus? 

 

Yoona felt so useless just standing there in the middle of the high-class kitchen, every high polish surface of which actually gleam. Normally there was a full kitchen staff present in the kitchen, cooks, kitchen hands and of course the dishwashers, who prepare all the fancy meals for Sejoon and his highly paid staff. 

 

Where were they? The kitchen was deserted. Had they fled when the bullets had started flying? There was no sign of them, everything in the kitchen was in its place. There wasn't a single dirty dish in the sink. 

 

Agent Choi impatiently waited for someone to pick up on the other end of the line. She was pacing back and forth between the kitchen island and the bench that ran the entire length of the wall when suddenly she turns to her, opening to speak but instead her eyes grew wide in horror. 

 

"Yoona! Behind you!" Agent Choi cried, the phone falling free from her hand, falling like a stone. She was already reaching for her weapon before the cordless phone hit the polish hardwood floor with a plastic clutter sound. 

 

She wasn't fast enough. 

 

Thick arm curls around Yoona's throat from behind with the speed of a striking snake and she was roughly pull back against the hard chest of someone who was easily a head taller than her and a hell lot stronger. 

 

Out of the corner of her eye, Yoona saw a second arm raise towards agent Choi. A black handgun held securely in his grip. 

 

Agent Choi brought her weapon up, held securely and expertly with both hands. She settled her aim on a point just above Yoona's head. 

 

Yoona knew who it was, who was half choking her without needing him to say a word or seeing his face. 

 

Kai. 

 

As much as she hated that she did, Yoona knew the smell of him and she knew his brutal touch. 

 

They had been here before and the last time they had, Changwook had immediately surrendered so she wouldn't get hurt. 

 

Terror struck Yoona like a physical blow and there was nothing she could do to keep the tears from filling her eyes. 

 

Her tears almost immediately escape from her eyes, trailing their way down the side of her face but Yoona didn't care about her tears, her eyes and all her focus were on agent Choi, who was her only hope. Who was Changwook's only hope? 

 

If agent Choi could stop Kai now, Changwook would keep fighting. He wouldn't surrender to keep Kai from hurting her. 

 

"Drop it," Kai order icily, but beneath the order was a dark anticipation that made Yoona's skin prickle and her stomach turn. 

 

Yoona knew without a single doubt that Kai intended to kill agent Choi. He was looking forward to it, the sick sadistic bastard. 

 

Agent Choi's eyes grew wide in fear which she didn't let spread to her hard-set face but after a moment's hesitation, she slowly removes her left hand from the grip of her weapon, holding her hand up in an 'ok' gesture while she lowers the nozzle of the weapon downwards, away from Yoona and Kai. 

 

Yoona wanted to beg agent Choi not too, she pleaded with her tear-fill eyes that Yoona knew were working against her wish but she remains silent, fearing that she will provoke Kai into killing the woman who was helpless to return fire without the risk of shooting Yoona. 

 

Moving with exaggerated careful slowness, agent Choi lowers into a crouching position, keeping her unblinking eyes glue to Kai. She put her weapon on the floor and with the same exaggerated slowness, she moves her hand away from the weapon and raises both of her hands high, rising back up to her feet. 

 

Gunshot and men shouting continue to resonate in from the foyer but even over all the chaotic ruckus, Yoona heard the unmistakable sound of Kai snickering above and behind her and Yoona knew. She knew that Kai was going to shoot and kill agent Choi in cold blood. 

 

Before Yoona knew what she was doing, a loud anguish cry had escaped her lips and her arms had closed around Kai's at his elbow. Using all her strength and lifting her feet to use all her weight, Yoona pulls downward on Kai's arm as hard as she could, ignoring the arm around that was damn close to choking her. 

 

Clearly, Kai hadn't expected anything from her because Yoona caught him by surprise and was, therefore, able to force Kai's aim downward when normally she wouldn't have had a prayer of doing so against Kai's greater strength. 

 

The moment Kai's aim left agent Choi, she was in motion, exploding into action, rushing towards them while Yoona tightens her hold on Kai, holding on for all she was worth to assure that Kai wouldn't raise his aim and shoot the charging agent. 

 

Suddenly, Kai's hold on her neck tightens, strangling her and shocking her into loosening her grip on him enough that he was able to wrench his arm free of her hold. 

 

She couldn't breathe. Kai was choking her. Yoona claw desperately at the thick arm that was pressing into and blocking off her airway and Kai's arm was raising, bringing the nozzle of the gun back up towards agent Choi but agent Choi was already too close. Her hands close around Kai's wrist, no doubt with the intention of disarming him with some move she had been taught. 

 

Unfortunately, Kai seems to know what she was planning because right before her hands could close around his thick wrist, Kai lifted his hand up high and before agent Choi had a chance to see it coming, Kai brought the of his weapon down on the top of agent Choi's head. 

 

Agent Choi crumbles, unconscious before she even hit the floor, blood oozing across her forehead and into her brown hair. 

 

The edges of Yoona's vision were starting to darken and between Kai choking her, her lungs gasping for air and agent Choi unconscious on the floor, the panic in Yoona surge to new heights and right before Yoona fear that she really was going to pass out, Kai's hold on her neck loosen and she was able to draw in a deep desperate breath into her deprived lungs but her insides didn't feel any better. Kai had her. Again. Oh no. 

 

Changwook. 

 

Kai didn't waste any time. Without as much as a second glance in agent Choi's direction, Kai drags her from the kitchen and all the way back to the foyer. 

 

Yoona was both relieved and terrified to find that Changwook was no longer crouch behind the staircase. She had been gone from the room for a couple of minutes, three at the most, but years could have passed for how different it looks. 

 

Instead of a grand foyer that had at all times been kept faultlessly clean and polish, for first impression's sake, with flawless gleaming marble and pure white walls, there was only debris and one hell of a mess. The room had been destroyed, at least this end. 

 

There were countless bullets holes in the wall from behind the staircase all the way to the halfway point along the wall between the staircase and the front outer wall of the foyer. Chunks of marble had come free of both the floor and staircase that now had enter balusters missing. White powder and little pieces of white and grey marble littered the floor and coated nearly every surface in that corner of the room. 

 

Honestly, it looks like a bomb with ball bearings for shrapnel had been detonated here, except there was no black residue and the rest of the foyer wasn't any better. Bodies littered the floor, more than there had been when she had last left three minutes before. There was blood everywhere from the floor to the walls to the staircase and there were more bullet holes, although far less, in the opposite wall and right in the middle of it all was Changwook, struggling with what seem to be the last standing goon, the largest yet, easily three times Changwook's size. Yoona recognizes him as a goon from her dad's protection detail and the goon had a gun. He was trying his damnedest to point it in Changwook's direction, his intent clearly to put a bullet in the man she loves and Changwook was trying his damnedest to make sure that the enormous goon didn't get the chance to put a bullet in him. 

 

The two were wrestling on the floor, rolling over and over, all four hands clutch to the same gun. 

 

Yoona awkwardly glances upwards and back, Kai's hold on her had loosened enough for her to move her head a little and saw that he was very much enjoying the show. His chestnut brown eyes were hungrily following the brawling pair as they fought. 

 

There was gleeful bloodlust in his chestnut brown eyes, the kind that told Yoona that he didn't really care who won. If the goon won then Kai had the pleasure of watching Changwook die and if Changwook won, Kai clearly intended to kill him himself. 

 

A single shot reverberated through the room, nearly stopping Yoona's heart. 

 

The two on the floor remain still, the enormous goon on top. 

 

Yoona could hear her heartbeat in her ear, could feel her blood rushing through her body and it was an effort just to draw breath into her already sore lungs. 

 

One moment. Two. Three. Each moment was an eternity for which she waited and pray for one of them, for Changwook, to move or say something or give her some indication that he was alive. 

 

With a half-grunt, half groan of effort Changwook push upwards and roll the lifeless goon off of him, a blood red flower blooming and spreading wide across the front of the goon's dress shirt. 

 

"Bloody hell." Changwook gasp, under his panting breath, slowly rising to his feet with a pained groan, his back to the two of them. 

 

Yoona felt an icy hand wrap inside around her heart and her tears came anew to her eyes. 

 

Poor Changwook. He was exhausted. He had just fought an epic battle, ending with a scuffle with the largest goon of them all over a gun and even after he had won that he was about to discover that it had all been for nothing. Yoona was terrified, scare and angry but she felt strangely sad too, like watching a movie she had really gotten into only to reach the end and learn that it was a tragedy, not a love story, one time a thousand. 

 

Kai once again raises his gun, pointing it at Changwook's back. 

 

Yoona couldn't let him do it, she couldn't let Kai shoot Changwook in the back. She was helpless to do anything else but she could at the very least make sure that Changwook saw it coming. 

 

Maybe looking into her eyes when the shot came could somehow make it better. 

 

"Changwook Oppa!" 

 

Her tone said it all. Her distraught terrified shaking tone. 

 

Changwook whirl so fast that he nearly lost his balance but then he went as still as a statue, staring into her eyes, a horrified and bewilder expression coming to rest on his blood-smear and swelling face. He couldn't understand what she was doing there and he was horrified that she was and then his expression harden as it flicks to Kai. Staring into Changwook's eyes, Yoona knew that he was scrambling to find a way, to think of a strategy, to free her from Kai's brutal hold and no doubt kill him so he wouldn't ever be a threat to her ever again. 

 

There was fear, no terror, in his eyes, worse than what had been there the last time Kai had held her like this with a gun pointed at her head. 

 

Of all the men in the mansion, Kai was the only one that would hurt her, that would kill her and Changwook knew it. Kai was sadistic and impulsive and he hated Changwook more than anyone or anything else. 

 

Kai hated her too, no doubt about it but that was nothing compared to how Kai hated Changwook. 

 

A flash of metallic silver light immediately caught Yoona's attention and she froze, not daring to move at all at the sight of the scary looking knife that Kai was in the act of putting to in place of his arm. 

 

She had been so absorbed by Changwook and her horror and grief that she hadn't been aware of Kai taking something from his belt. 

 

Yoona raise her eyes back to Changwook to see sheer terror filling his eyes that were zero in on the knife, an army kind of knife that was serrated on one side and straight on the other, in Kai's hand. 

 

Kai held the blade up for Changwook to see, turning so it caught the light and then he put the smooth blade to . 

 

Yoona instinctively sank back into Kai, trying in vain to put some distance between the scary knife and the delicate skin of the throat but of course, she had nowhere to go. 

 

She was at Kai's non-existent mercy. 

 

Yoona could sense the triumphant and dark delighted smirk on Kai's face. She couldn't see Kai's face but she knew it was there. 

 

Kai didn't care about her. This was all about Changwook and making him suffer for all the slights Kai believes Changwook had committed against him since becoming Sejoon's favorite. 

 

With the knife to and a gun aim at her head, there was no way that Changwook would risk doing anything. 

 

True terror struck Yoona's already anguished heart. Tears flow freely from her trembling eyes as she realizes. 

 

It was the motel room all over again. Changwook was caught because she had been. Changwook wouldn't fight if it meant her life. He never had and never would do anything that would cost harm to her. 

 

He will die first. 

 

Yoona wanted to tell Changwook that she was sorry. She wanted to tell him to pull his gun and take the shot, to risk her life to stop Kai but it would only be a waste of breath. She could see it in his eyes. Changwook would fight the hounds of hell for her, as long as she was safe. 

 

Movements to her left alerted Yoona that someone else had joined them and Kai reacted defensively, quickly moving the both of them to the right and back, turning so that he kept both Changwook and the fourth person in his line of sight. 

 

It was agent Choi. There was drying congealing blood in her hair and coating one side of her face, making her look like the lone survivor of a horror movie but her eyes were clear, steady and held no fear and they were focused with cold steely intention on Kai and so was her gun, held at eye height in both hands. 

 

The woman/agent was pissed off and she was armed. Apparently, she hadn't appreciated Kai's blow to her head that had knocked her out. 

 

They stood in a triangle, Changwook and agent Choi making up two points and Kai and her making up the third. Agent Choi said nothing but she kept her aim steadily on Kai. She didn't fire either though. She was obviously waiting. For Changwook. She was waiting for him to either act first, to give her a cue or maybe to give her an order. For whatever reason, agent Choi seems to be telling Changwook that this was his show. 

 

With agent Choi covering Kai, Changwook reaches behind his back and pull out a gun but he didn't point it at Kai, he didn't even raise it. He kept it at his side, aim at the floor. 

 

His eyes were glued to the two of them. Changwook too seem to be waiting but for what? 

 

"Drop them!" Kai snarl at Changwook, almost completely ignoring agent Choi. He presses the blade of the knife against , the blade digging into her flesh enough that if Yoona so much as flinch, it would slice into her. Kai really didn't think much of women if one aiming a gun at his head didn't even get much of his attention. Changwook didn't hesitate. He carelessly threw his weapon to the side. 

 

It landed on the floor with a clutter and skidded a few feet before coming to a stop in the middle of the floor between where Changwook stood and the front door. 

 

All hope was drained out of her like water from a sink after the plug had been pull. There was nothing that could or would save Changwook this time. There were no deals to be made and there was nothing left to bargain with. There was no bargaining with someone like Kai. 

 

"Do it. Drop it." Changwook hadn't taken his eyes from hers but Yoona knew that he wasn't addressing her. Changwook's tone warns agent Choi that she didn't have a choice. That she drop her weapon or he would make her. 

 

With a yielding but displease huff, agent Choi reluctantly discarded her weapon, dropping it to the floor and then kicking it away hard enough that it hit the wall a good fifteen feet from where she stood. 

 

The older woman wasn't happy, in fact, she was downright pissed off. 

 

Yoona couldn't blame her. Agent Choi had risked a great deal to get them out. It couldn't be easy giving up her weapon when she personally didn't have much at all to lose by Yoona's death. 

 

All the while Yoona was fighting to keep herself from panicking. In her chest her heart was pounding, her entire body was trembling with fear and her breath was coming out in short rapid pants. She had never been more terrified in her life. 

 

For Changwook. Not herself. There was still the smallest chance that Kai wouldn't kill her, not that she cares. If Changwook dies, what did it matter what happens to her? But Changwook was going to die. 

 

Agent Choi too, most likely. 

 

Kai wouldn't do things any other way. He will make Changwook's death a long gruesome one if he could but one way or another he absolutely plans to kill Changwook and then, just like that, Changwook's entire demeanor change before her eyes without apparent cause, at least not any Yoona could determine. His body was relaxed, his shoulders slump and his arms dangle loosely at his sides. He looks defeated, dejected and beaten. 

 

Everywhere except his eyes. 

 

Changwook gave her one last glance, a sad one that communicated one thing and one thing only, 'I'm sorry' and then he raises his eyes to meet Kai's head on with a look of pure hatred in his own. There was no anger or fear or anything else in his eyes but hate. 

 

"You win. You got me. I'm unarmed." Changwook spread his arms and his hands in a visual testament to his words, "Let her go." 

 

A wretched sob escapes her trembling lips but no one paid her any attention. Kai didn't care, agent Choi was waiting to see what would happen with impotent fury and Changwook was doggedly focused on Kai. 

 

"Why?" Kai asks derisively, as though it was the stupidest question he had ever been ask, "As long as I have her you are my little , aren't you?" 

 

Changwook's expression hardens but other than that he gave no other reaction to Kai's vulgar taunt. 

 

"Maybe I should her right here and make you watch." Kai smirk, enjoying each moment of this, "What do you think about that? How much blood do you think I can get from her lovely little body before her heart stops beating?" 

 

Changwook moves forward without lifting his feet from the floor, shifting his upper body towards them without actually moving from the spot but it caught Kai's attention. 

 

A sharp hot pain exploded from the center of her left collarbone, making Yoona cry out sharply in pain. Kai laughs cruelly as he lifted the now bloodstain tip of the blade from her skin where he had intentionally sliced into her to give all four of them a clear view of the bloody blade. 

 

Yoona flickers her gaze downward at where Kai had cut her, surprise to see only an inch long shallow cut that blood was seeping from but only about half a teaspoon of blood or so but it stung badly, feeling hot and cold at the same time. 

 

It was a minor cut. It was a warning. To Changwook. 

 

Yoona hastily raises her gaze back to Changwook. He wore a pain and torture expression and there was pain and self-loathing in his eyes as well as a murderous hate. It was a strange combination and it made his eyes look more feral than she had ever seen them. 

 

The cut had hurt Changwook far more than it had her which was no doubt Kai's goal. 

 

Kai laughs with dark delight, sounding like a villain in a movie when he had thought he had won. He was enjoying his victory over the hero, reveling in his victory for all that he was worth. 

 

"You are pathetic!" Kai spat at Changwook, spraying her with spittle, "From the beginning, this has been your weakness! You never had a chance against me! I knew Sejoon was just using you to knock this up but he should have just given her to me from the start! She had known her place and he had had a horde of little bastards by now but no, he couldn't do that! Not to his little girl who reminds him so much of the wife who left him! I don't know why he let her go! Honestly, I would have killed the traitorous just for thinking it!" 

 

Yoona saw red, her hands curling into fists. How dare he talk about her mom like that? She didn't care that he had a knife to . From the moment he had talked about her mom like that her fear had dissipated before her fury and her love and pride demanded that she defend her beloved mother. 

 

Changwook's eyes narrow in on her, noticing her less-than-subtle change in demeanor. He stares her dead in the eye and very subtly shook his head no once. 

 

He was warning her not to do anything stupid but Yoona had to do something. First off, there was no way in hell that she was just going to stand there while Kai badmouths about her mom and secondly, Changwook was helpless to act to change status quo. He was handcuff by his own compulsive need to keep her safe. 

 

If Changwook thought that she was just going to stand there while Kai kills him or continue to badmouth her mom then Changwook had a lot to learn about her. 

 

Yoona narrow her eyes at him in defiance. As much as she loves Changwook, no one told her what to do, especially not Kai. No one hurt her Changwook either. 

 

Yoona was about to do something stupid. Changwook could read it in her eyes as plain as day and he both love and curse her for it. 

 

When would she learn to trust him with her well-being? To do what she was told? 

 

'In the one that you realize that I love you just as much as you love me and that I will do anything to protect you.' Yoona's earlier declaration rang in his ear just as it had when she had said it only a number of minutes before, although it seems so much longer than that. 

 

She had said it with such straightforward sincerity that he had been left powerless to do anything but kiss her for all that he was worth. Since the day his parents had died there hadn't been anyone in his life who had so adamantly declare that they will do anything to protect him. He was the protector, he protected. That was who he was to his core. It was what he had dedicated his entire life to do. 

 

For someone to want to protect him felt alien to him but also strangely endearing. It made him love her more and it drove him onward harder to do whatever else he had to do to protect her. 

 

He wanted nothing else in the world as he wanted to make Yoona safe. The kind of safe that lasted a lifetime but how could he do that now? Kai had a gun pointed at Yoona's head and a knife held to that he had already used on her. Kai had only nicked her but it had been enough to make her cry out in pain and nearly stop Changwook's heart. 

 

Kai would torture Yoona just to torture him and as long as Kai had that knife to Yoona's throat and that gun pointed at her head there wasn't anything Changwook could do that wouldn't result in getting the love of his life kill. 

 

Where was Sejoon? Kai had a knife against Yoona's throat, a gleefully sadistic bloodthirsty look in his chestnut brown eyes and Sejoon was the only one who could call Kai off and Kai would do it. Changwook knew it as surely as he knew the sun would rise tomorrow. Kai would kill Yoona. He had denied it later to Sejoon that he had but Kai would kill Yoona without hesitation because Kai hated him with a passion that had consumed the sadistic bastard. Kai had hated him ever since Changwook had first bested him, that time when he had been harassing Yoona and Changwook had put a stop to it with a warning not to touch her ever again. 

 

To hurt him, to destroy him, Kai could kill Yoona right here and then, right in front of him and then turn his bloodlust on him. 

 

With Yoona dead, Changwook would probably let Kai kill him. It seems so much more preferable than the alternative that was to live without her. 

 

"Kai," Changwook said carefully, as non-threateningly as he could manage, not wanting to goad the psychopath into hasty action against Yoona by making him angry. He held his hands out in what he hoped was a cross between an 'easy now' and an 'I give up' gesture. 

 

"Think about this." Changwook implored him mildly, "You need her to get what you want. Hurt her and Sejoon will kill you and you know it." 

 

Kai sneer at him, baring his teeth like a wild animal and then looking Changwook straight in the eye, Kai press the tip of his blade into Yoona's chest for the second time, just to the right of where he had before. 

 

Yoona flinch in pain but this time she kept firmly and tightly closed, clearly not wanting to cry out in pain for a second time, either to deny Kai the satisfaction of hearing her painful cry or more likely, protecting Changwook from the sound that had cut through him as sharply and as painfully as Kai's blade had Yoona's flesh the first time. 

 

Blood seeped from the second cut trailing down her skin to the helm of her shirt was it soak into the fabric. 

 

Changwook was going to tear Kai apart with his bare hands when he finally got his hands on him but until then he had to keep Kai's focus off of hurting Yoona. 

 

"Hey!" Changwook cried out frantically, not daring to take even a single step towards them as every single cell inside his body was compelling at him to do so, "You don't have to hurt her! You got me! You have made yourself a hero to Sejoon now! I have killed every goon here but you stop me! You stop his daughter from escaping for the third time! You hand her to Sejoon and he will give you everything!" 

 

Kai flashes an arrogant snarl of a grin and Changwook grounded his teeth together as he desperately scrambles to come up with something that would get that knife away from Yoona's delicate throat. He was terrified and he was helpless but he will be damn if he was going to just give up. He had surrendered the last time and it had brought them nothing but time and now they were out of even that. 

 

There was only one thing that he could think of that was left to him. He was still standing. He was still alive and Kai clearly didn't like that. 

 

Changwook had no choice. He had to goad Kai into facing him. It was the only thing left to him. Seeing Kai threatening Yoona's life was his worst nightmare come to life. His second worst nightmare was the fate her own dad intended for her but at least the second worst evil meant that Yoona would live. 

 

Even if Changwook himself wouldn't. He had sworn to himself before that he would give his life for Yoona's in an instant. 

 

Now was the time to fulfill that vow. 

 

"Come get me. Come hurt me." Changwook intentionally added, a persuasive tone to his voice, keeping his hands high and spread wide so Kai could see them at all times and so he could see that there were no tricks up Changwook's sleeve, metaphorically speaking, "I'm unarmed. Let her go and you can have a piece of me. I know it's what you want. I'm the competition. I'm Sejoon's favorite. Why do you think he can't bring himself to kill me? It's my son he wants to inherit his empire, not yours." He indicated at Yoona with his hand, "She's the key to getting everything you want." And then he indicated at himself with both hands, "And I'm the only obstacle in your way. So what are you going to do about it?" 

 

Kai growl low in his throat, the sound menacing and malevolent but Changwook wasn't done yet. He needed Kai's rage and hate to overthrow his limit intelligence. 

 

"You could kill me." Changwook pointed out casually, "Just point the gun at me and shoot me but think about it. Is that how you want this story to go? Will it really impress Sejoon? You sneak up on an unarmed woman, his daughter no less and use her as a human shield so you could shoot me? I might as well just shoot myself for all the good it will be to you. Or even get Yoona to do it. Don't you think it would be a much more impressive story if you finish me off yourself? Without a woman between us?" 

 

Changwook narrows his eyes at him curiously, clearly making fun of him, "You aren't that scared of me, are you? Come on big boy, show me what you got. Don't hide behind a woman's skirt. Or better yet, show Sejoon what you got. Show him that he should have picked you from the beginning instead of me." 

 

"You think I'm stupid?!" Kai spat venomously at him, sounding murderously furious at being insulted. 

 

"Surprisingly yeah, I do." Changwook stated flippantly, and shrugged nonchalantly, "I think you are a coward too, but hey that's the most I think of you. Shall we talk about the least? We could keep talking all day if you want, although personally, I think you are just too scared to face me. Don't worry about it, Sejoon should be here soon enough and he will probably finish me off himself." 

 

Kai's eyes narrow with murderous dark fury and Changwook realize that he had gone too far, had push Kai too far, a split second before Kai his gun out, pointing it towards him. 

 

The thunderous boom of a handgun firing indoor hit Changwook's ear a full beat before the burning agony did. The force of the bullet hitting him and sinking into his flesh through his entire right side backward, spinning him around an almost one hundred and eighty degree. 

 

Changwook staggered backward half a step before his legs gave out on him and he found himself on his hands and knees on the floor, staring down at the white marble floor but unable to see it. 

 

The pain eclipse all his other senses. The white-hot burning pain radiating from his side was all there was. 

 

As best as Changwook could tell it was a full minute before he gritted his teeth and use all his will to beat back against the tidal wave of burning agony that tried to overwhelm as his body desperately fought to deal with both injury and pain. 

 

"Oppa! No! Let me go! No! Oppa!" 

 

"Ah, ah, ah. You stay put." Kai warns icily, no doubt threatening agent Choi with his weapon when she moves either to his aid or towards Kai in response to shooting him. 

 

Panting heavily through the pain, Changwook lifted his hand to his side, feeling the wet warmth of his blood that immediately began to seep through his fingers, even as he pressed down, sending a fresh wave of burning agony through his body. He raises his head enough to peek through his dangling brownish black bangs to see Yoona struggling wildly against Kai's hold on her and Kai momentarily had his hands full controlling her wild struggles. With Kai focus on his efforts to keep the two women under his control, Changwook was reassured that Yoona was in no more immediate danger of harm that she had been a moment before; Kai wouldn't do anything more to Yoona unless Changwook was able to watch it. 

 

With that feeble reassurance, Changwook lowers his head and lifted his hand from against his side, taking both the wound and blood in that one glance. 

 

The bullet had entered halfway between his hip bone and the bottom of his ribcage and he had been shot enough times to know that this one wasn't life-threatening bad. He's been shot enough times before to know when it was. The blood wasn't dark enough or light enough to indicate that anything important had been pierced. 

 

Just as Kai had intended. Kai wanted to hurt him but he wasn't quite ready to kill him just yet. The sadistic bastard would make his death as slow and as painful as he possibly could. 

 

Gritting his jaw as tightly as he could without doing himself harm, Changwook press his hand as hard as he could against his side, making his breath leave his body in a pain rush as he forces his legs into place beneath him. 

 

With a cry of pain effort, Changwook surge to his feet, fighting the wave of nausea and vertigo from the pain and loss of blood that threatens to put his back on the floor. 

 

Yoona was sobbing uncontrollably, her eyes wide, wild and terrified. She was staring straight at him but Changwook wasn't all that sure that she was actually seeing him. 

 

Poor Yoona. She had been through so much and try as hard as he had, he still hadn't been able to protect her from any of it. 

 

Yoona had come to the FBI for help, in the most unorthodox way but still, what help had Changwook been to her really? If she hadn't gone to the FBI, they never would have met but at the same time, her situation wouldn't have been so perilous. She would have still been her dad's prisoner but without pushing Sejoon as they had, the status quo between them might have remained the same for years. It might have been years or more before Yoona had pregnancy force on her. 

 

Hell, if it hadn't been for him things might have happened naturally. She might have, in the end, willingly given into her dad. Maybe she would have fallen in love with one of her dad's pre-approve suitors and willingly given her dad what he wanted. 

 

Almost anything would have been better than this. Not for him but for her. Better for her. 

 

"You will have to do better than that, Kai." Changwook look the sadistic bastard hard in the eyes, man to man, enemy to enemy, "You just don't have the balls to kill me, do you? That's fine because I have more than enough to kill you." 

 

With an enrage feral roar, Kai threw Yoona to the side, sending her sprawling across the marble stairs with a startled and pain cry. He then drops his head low and charges at Changwook like a raging bull. 

 

Changwook made no move to get out of his way. There wasn't any point. He was exhausted. He was wounded. His only chance to survive this was to end it quickly. 

 

Tensing his entire body in preparation for the body blow, Changwook squares his feet, keeping his eyes on his foe. Out of the corner of his eye, Changwook saw that agent Choi was already on the move, her gun in hand as she hurried towards Yoona who was struggling to get up from her awkward position on the stair. 

 

The bastard had hurtled and threatened Yoona for the very last time. Now, this was personal. 

 

Kai hit him with all the force of a freight train, tackling him with the strength that came with sheer maddened rage. 

 

Both of them fell to the floor, Kai landing on top of him with the full force of his weight, forcing Changwook's breath from his lungs and sending a fresh wave of white agony through his body from his injured side. Somewhere near his head, Changwook heard what he guess was Kai's knife hitting the floor. Kai had most likely lost his grip on it when they had fallen. 

 

Changwook steel himself against the pain from his beaten and exhausted body the best he could and turn all his focus to Kai's weapon. He had to get the gun away from him. It was still clasped tightly in Kai's right fist and he wasn't going to give it up easily. 

 

Changwook grasps hold of Kai's right wrist with both hands even as Kai deliver a clumsy awkward punch to his head that for a moment left Changwook blinded as pain exploded through his skull but still Changwook held on. Beneath Changwook's hands, he felt Kai's hand twitch and two gunshots fill Changwook's awareness, deafening him, from the close proximity of the weapon to his ear, barely eight inches but still Changwook fought on. 

 

His vision clear, his ear still ringing painfully but he needed to know. He needed to know that neither of the women had been hit by either of the bullets Kai had just let fly. 

 

Holding onto Kai's wrist for all that he was worth, Changwook threw a glance sideways and immediately found the two women on the stair, their hands held high in an instinctive need to protect their heads. 

 

"Go!" Changwook shouted frantically at the two women. 

 

Kai was trying to gather enough purchase with his left hand to push himself up into a sitting position over him. If he manages it Kai would have him pin beneath him and gain yet another advantage over him. 

 

He couldn't let that happen, he couldn't let Kai win. 

 

Changwook let go of Kai's wrist with his right hand and grasp hold of the barrel of the weapon, knowing the risk to his fingers if Kai fire again. 

 

Neither Yoona nor agent Choi had moved from the stairs yet. What the hell was it going to take to get those two women out of there? 

 

"Just go!" Changwook roar at the other agent. Wasn't there a woman left on the planet who was able to do what she was told even once? "Get her the hell out of here!" 

 

Changwook savagely jerks the barrel of the weapon upward and back, both simultaneously removing Kai's finger off of the trigger while twisting the same finger that was wedged against the side of the weapon and the trigger guard. 

 

Kai snarl in pain and then rammed his left fist into the side of Changwook's stomach on his uninjured side. Changwook winces in pain but held on. 

 

Above them, Changwook heard two sets of running footsteps across the marble floor. 

 

The sound disappears out the front door, the best that Changwook could tell given that he was in a life and death struggle with Kai. 

 

Finally. Kai couldn't hurt Yoona anymore. He was going to make sure of it. 

 

Digging his fingers into the inside of Kai's wrist Changwook felt Kai's hold on his weapon loosen and with all his strength Changwook wrench the gun from Kai's hand. The moment it was free, Changwook sent it flying through the air and across the room, not caring where it landed amongst the bodies that littered the foyer floor. Unfortunately disarming Kai only seem to enrage him further. He threw another clumsy punch at Changwook's head but Changwook saw this one coming. He threw his arm up just in time to block Kai's blow, taking the blow in his shoulder rather than his head. 

 

Changwook then snakes his entire arm around Kai and grasp hold of Kai's elbow, locking his arm in place and securing Kai's right arm with his left. 

 

Changwook then expected Kai to strike him with his left arm but instead, Kai launches his body upward, reaching for something that Changwook couldn't see. 

 

The knife. 

 

Changwook had disarmed Kai of his gun and now he was trying to get to his knife that had fallen free of Kai's gasp when Kai had tackled him. 

 

There was nothing Changwook could do in time to prevent Kai from picking up his knife from the floor, the metal scraping against the hard marble floor. 

 

Kai threw himself backward, into a sitting position so that he was now straddling Changwook's waist, pinning him to the floor with his body weight. 

 

The blood stain knife held tightly in his left hand. 

 

Changwook desperately clung to Kai's right arm, knowing that if he lost his hold Kai would kill him. 

 

Changwook had been in a similar situation before. In his third year of undercover work, a really big bad man had managed to get the drop on him and had managed to pin him with a knife to his throat. 

 

He had walk away from that one but he had spent the next five months training in case it ever happens again he will know exactly what to do. 

 

All he had to do was wait for that moment. All he had to do was let Kai believe he had the upper hand, believe that he had won. 

 

Kai lifted the knife high, adjusting his body weight backward ever-so-slightly, preparing to plunge the knife downward into Changwook's chest. 

 

Changwook was pin to the floor but his dominant arm was free. That was all he needed. 

 

With a fierce roar, Kai brought the blade down. 

 

The blade flash, catching the light as it was hurled downward towards his chest. 

 

The tip of the blade abruptly came to a stop mere millimeters from its target, hovering over Changwook's ribcage. Just below the tip of the blade was Changwook's hand, holding Kai's wrist, his arm folded beneath him, his arm squash between Kai's and his own chest. 

 

Kai glowered into his eyes murderously, the silence made tense by the hatred and rage and crackled between the two of them and then all at once, Changwook was in motion, releasing his hold on Kai's right arm, he attacks Kai's left hand. Digging his fingers into Kai's wrist to loosen his hold, Changwook wrench the blade from him. 

 

Changwook flips the blade expertly in his hand, using his skill fingers and then close his hand around the hilt. Kai cried out in panic and threw himself backward, desperately trying to escape Changwook's reach but it was already too late. 

 

The tip of the blade had already pierced the side of Kai's neck, sinking deep into his throat, hitting everything that was important. Blood spray outward and even more, blood pours from the wound, flowing down his neck to drench his chest, back, and arm. 

 

Kai's eyes flare wide. His mouth drop open. 

 

Changwook pushes the blade in deeper until it was embedded to the hilt. 

 

A fatal blow. 

 

A gargling sound escapes Kai's mouth but that was all he was capable of now that blood was flooding his mouth. In moments it overflow, flowing in a steady stream out through his open lips, turning Kai's jaw dark red. As any liquid did, it follows gravity, streaming down his neck to join even more of his blood that was gushing from the hole in his neck. 

 

Within moments the blood had turned the entire front of Kai's blue Tommy Hilfiger long-sleeve twain check classic fit shirt dark red. In fact, most of Kai's body was now drenched with his blood. 

 

Before Changwook himself was drench in any more of Kai's blood than he already was, mainly from the arterial stray when Changwook had stabbed him, Changwook uncaringly shoves Kai's body off of him and crawl back out from under him. 

 

Kai's body fell to the floor, as lifeless as though he was already dead which he was. His mind just hadn't caught up with the fact yet. 

 

A moment later Changwook watches the light fade from Kai's chestnut brown eyes as he dies. Blood still poured from the wound in his neck but it was more of a trickle now. A small pool of blood began to grow beneath him, spreading out like a deep red-black hole was opening beneath him on the solid white floor. 

 

Changwook gingerly rose to his feet. His body was bruised and beaten all over. He was aching in every muscle and in pain in various parts of his body, the worst of which was the bullet wound in his side that he return his blood-soak hand too, pressing down as hard as his exhausted arm could manage despite the sharp spear of pain doing so sent through him. 

 

It was finally over. He was standing in the middle of a room in which there were several bloody bodies scattered across the once grand marble floor and blood splattered and pool across most surfaces. He was cover in blood, both his own and not his own, with one arm cross across his midsection, his hand press down hard on his gunshot wound on his side. Blood was still seeping through his fingers but it was slowing as his body's natural defenses kick into action, his blood clotting in the wound to stop or at least slow the bleeding. 

 

His other arm hung numbly at his side as he numbly stares around the foyer, his exhausted and adrenaline-stress mind trying to take in the bloody aftermath. His eyes eventually came to rest on Kai, the most recent of his kills. Changwook was utterly exhausted. His breathing was erratic and hurried and his head was spinning. Every inch of his bruised and battered body ache or actually hurt and all Changwook seem to be able to do was stand there staring down at Kai's lifeless blood-soak body, feeling nothing for or about the man he had just kill. 

 

Maybe he would later when the adrenaline and the exhaustion wore off but then again maybe not. 

 

It there was any luck left for him, hopefully, the inner numbness would last for a while. 

 

God knew he wasn't numb on the outside. Changwook knew from personal experience that the adrenaline would very soon start to burn off and the burning in his side would only get worse as he crashed. 

 

Gunshot wounds were a , they weren't as bad as being stabbed, again something he had personal experience with but they still took some healing. 

 

"Changwook." 

 

At the sound of the hard but low voice, Changwook slowly turns around to face the front door just in time to see Sejoon step through them and into the foyer. 

 

A black Glock held in the older man's hand, aim straight at him. 

 

Changwook fully turns his body to face the man but other than that he didn't move from his spot in the middle of the foyer right by Kai's body. He shows the armed man no fear because he didn't feel any. Because he was still emotionally numb or because he just didn't fear the man anymore now that Yoona was out of his reach, Changwook truly didn't know. 

 

Sejoon said nothing more nor did he fire. He seems to be waiting for something. 

 

Changwook stares back at Sejoon for a long time, just barely resisting the urge to shake his head in exasperation. Great. Just great. It seems that death was determined to claim him today but at least Yoona was safe. He had succeeded in that and in that he had won. The FBI would keep her safe. At least he hopes so. He never put anything past his boss and her employer but he had nothing else left so he would trust in the FBI in his dying moment. 

 

Yoona. It was all about her. The extraordinary young woman who had managed to capture his heart, who had taught him that as he had believed himself incapable of doing so, that he could in fact love. It had taken an earthbound angel to open his eyes and capture his heart. 

 

Of all the things he had been willing to die for over the years, his revenge, country, the job, the innocent people he had met along the way, Yoona was the one thing he had gladly die for. She was his heart, angel, and soulmate. There was nothing else in the world he had more gladly die for. 

 

Yoona was safe and that meant that Sejoon couldn't hurt him. He had nothing left to lose. 

 

All he could hope for now was that he could take Sejoon with him and finally free Yoona from her dad's sick twisted obsession. 

 

There was no one left to stand between Sejoon and him now. It was just the two of them. 

 

"You could have had it all, Changwook," Sejoon told him, as he moves further into the room, uncaringly stepping over the body of one of his goons. His tone was a strange blend of accusation and regret, "I was willing to give you everything. My daughter, empire, everything." 

 

Changwook stares down at the barrel of Sejoon's gun but he felt strangely calm inside, not afraid at all. Yoona was safe, she had gotten away and he was now faced to face with the man who had murdered his parents with nothing left standing between them. All cards had been put on the table days ago. 

 

"You mean the empire built with my parent's blood?" Changwook replied icily. 

 

"Your dad brought it on himself." Sejoon told him, obviously finding no fault with his excuse for what he had done, "I offer him a very generous amount of money to come work for me or to just disappear but he refuses. He said it wasn't right. Can you believe that?" He asks, as though even after all this time he just couldn't understand it, "So he die and took his wife with him because it wasn't right to take my money." 

 

Sejoon considers Changwook for a moment before going on. When he spoke, his voice was different, he sounded more sincere, "Besides, I'm not the evil monster you want to believe I am. I remember the night your parents die, how could I not? It was because of that night that my wife took our daughter and left me. I knew you were in the house that night. You think I didn't? I let you live. I could have killed you that night but I didn't. I don't see the point in killing children, never did." 

 

"But you have," Changwook stated, rather than accuse. He knew Sejoon had the blood of innocent children on his hands. 

 

"Oh, no doubt you do," Sejoon admitted casually, not even bothering to play innocent or dumb. What was the point anyway for either of them now? "But never without a reason. I had a son. I have a daughter. Maybe Yoojin made me softer in that way, I don't know but either way, I had no reason to kill you then." 

 

Changwook wonder whether Sejoon was telling the truth or not but in the end Changwook figure that he was. Why would Sejoon lie now? What would be the point of lying to the man he was about to murder in cold blood? "And now?" Changwook asks, genially curious about his fate but again he felt almost no fear at his approaching death. He felt somehow detached as if it didn't matter anymore if he dies. He had done everything he had needed to do. 

 

It was strange. He had never really felt like that before. He had nothing left to do, he had no regrets. His life's mission was done. He had found the reason why his parents had been murder and he had played a big part in bringing down Sejoon's empire, Yoona was free and thanks to agent Choi, there was enough evidence to bring Sejoon down the right way, just as his dad had wished so it seems and lastly and most importantly Yoona was safe so what was left for him to do now? 

 

"Now you have proven yourself to be your father's son and you are no longer a child so." Sejoon shrug, intentionally leaving his sentence unfinished, "You haven't left me a lot of choices, have you? I gave you every opportunity. I like you Changwook. I have from the beginning. I don't know why exactly but I do." 

 

"I hated you once," Changwook admitted boldly, truly feeling no fear even after such a bold admission. 

 

Sejoon raise an eyebrow at him in curious astonishment, "But not now?" 

 

It was Changwook's turn to shrug, "I can't hate you and love your daughter." 

 

"How amusing." And Sejoon honestly look amused, mix in with some solemnity but still amused, "You do realize that being with Yoona means being with my daughter? That any children she gives you will be my grandchildren?" "I love her." Changwook stated as-a-matter-of-factly, "I don't care whose daughter she is. You kill my parents in cold blood. Yoona didn't. Whatever our parents did, Yoona and I aren't our parents. Yoona isn't you. That's why I can't hate you. I realize a while ago that I had to let go of my hate so I can be with her." 

 

"It's amazing, isn't it? Loving a woman? They make you see the whole world differently, even make you re-order your priorities." Sejoon shook his head in wonder, "I love my wife, I love her still but I don't see the world that way anymore, I have my priorities set as they should be." 

 

"So you love your wife but still you torture her daughter?" The skepticism in Changwook's voice was unmissable, even for someone as self-obsessed as Sejoon. 

 

"Hey!" Sejoon snap sharply in warning, his temper flaring as though he had been unforgivably affronted, "That girl push me more than anyone else ever has and didn't even get a beating for it! Do you know how much easier my life would have been this last year had I given her to Kai as he had wanted?!" 

 

Despite the zealous outburst, Changwook wasn't buying it anymore, "But you couldn't because the wife you love never would have forgiven the ual and physical abuse you would have caused her daughter." His eyes narrow on Sejoon, daring him to deny it, "You would never have given her to Kai. You let Kai harass her to try to push her into giving you what you want but in the end, you never would have let him have her. That's why you brought me into your home, that's why you took the risk with me without even thoroughly checking me out. You saw how gentle I was with her. You saw that I had never hurt her. You would never have given Yoojin's daughter to an abusive bastard like Kai." 

 

A reflective look appears on Sejoon's face for a long moment before it changes into something else, something sad and regretful. 

 

"No, I wouldn't have." Sejoon admitted solemnly, after a long moment, "But I also knew that Yoona was Yoojin's daughter. Just like her mom, Yoona can't keep from loving someone for too long. I knew all I had to do was wait, that eventually she will find someone to cling too, and I was right. Although I was hoping it would be one of the family but in the end, I was still right." 

 

Changwook clenches his jaw at the 'cling too' part. He didn't like the implications that all he and Yoona had was some kind of attachment due to the desperate situations they had endured. 

 

They had already work through that. 

 

Changwook raises his hand in an open-handed gesture towards Sejoon's gun that was still aimed right at him, "And now you are about to kill the man your daughter loves." 

 

"Hey!" Sejoon snap once again, "That's not my choice! I gave you both every chance but in the end, you were just too much of your father's son! Too good, too suicidally incorruptible!" 

 

"Thank you," Changwook replied promptly. In his eyes, it was the greatest compliment someone could give him. What could be more of a compliment than to be likened to such a good man as that which his dad had been? Sejoon chuckle half-heartedly, more in disbelief than humor. It seems Sejoon couldn't wrap his head around good men and their inability to become corrupt or be brought. 

 

Movements behind Sejoon caught Changwook's attention and then just like that, Changwook once again knew fear. Sejoon was facing him with his back to the door which meant that he couldn't see Yoona as she steps purposefully through the main door and back into the foyer and she was holding a black Glock firmly in her hand, held raise and aim at the back of her dad's head. 

 

To his eyes, Yoona seems both relieved to see him, most likely to see him alive but then horror consumed her face as she looks him up and down, Changwook didn't blame her. He was cover in blood and he had to be bruised black and blue. He could feel it but then both relief and horror were gone from her and Yoona turn her full focus back to her dad who was holding a weapon on him. 

 

No. What the hell was she doing back there? Where the hell was agent Choi? Why hadn't the DEA agent gotten Yoona out of there as he had told her too? 

 

Without even realizing what he was doing, Changwook took a step forward, moving towards her before he even knew what he was doing. Stopping himself only when Sejoon's grip tighten on his weapon and Changwook realizes that if Sejoon shot him then Yoona would be left with no one to protect her from her dad. 

 

There was no telling what Sejoon would do to Yoona in punishment for aiming a weapon at him. 

 

What was wrong with this woman? Did she have no sense of self-preservation at all? Never in all his life had Changwook known such a disobedient difficult willful maddening woman. 

 

Whom he loves and whom he was going to throttle if he ever got his hands on her again. 

 

Realizing that they were no longer alone, Sejoon took two broad steps backward and to the side, turning his body so he could see them both but he solidly kept his eyes and gun focus on Changwook, watching Yoona out of the corner of his eye. 

 

"Yoona, what are you doing?" Her dad asks her irritably. 

 

In the space of eight seconds, Changwook's entire body went from strangely calm and unafraid to downright terrified and on the verge of panic. His heartbeat had kicked into overdrive, pounding so heavily in his chest that it was borderline painful. 

 

If Sejoon's weapon moves off of him towards Yoona, Changwook was going to take Sejoon down just as he had taken down Kai. He didn't care if Sejoon fed him a bullet, all he needed was to last a couple of seconds, just long enough to close the distance between him and Sejoon. 

 

Yoona was obviously trying very hard to keep her face steady and remain calm but she was failing. Miserably. She was emotional and stress and uncertain with the weapon in her hand and all of that was painfully obvious. 

 

"The FBI and DEA are on their way." Yoona threw at him, her voice not half as steady as Changwook wish it was, "It's over. Put the gun down." 

 

For the first time since leaving the breeding cell, Changwook seriously worried for Yoona's mental state. She had been put through a lot lately and today had to be amongst the worst. It seems that she had finally had all she could mentally take and there was nothing Changwook could do. He had to stay where he was or else he risks setting Sejoon off. 

 

Yoona could get hurt. Or worse. 

 

Sejoon had a weapon. Yoona had a weapon. He didn't. 

 

Damn her stubborn hide. 

 

Sejoon's eyes move from Yoona to the gun she held aimed at him and then back to her. The bastard actually look tolerantly amused, "Or you will what, sweetheart?" 

 

Yoona didn't take her eyes off of her dad but something in her eyes and in her stance change slightly, harden "I love him. He's willing to die for me and he has killed for me. Do you think I love him any less than he loves me?" "Don't try to bluff me, Yoona." Sejoon warns acidly, his voice insultingly dismissive, "We both know you are not going to pull that trigger." 

 

Yoona's hand had started to shake just a little bit and with Sejoon focused mainly on him, Changwook wasn't sure if Sejoon had notice. If he did then Sejoon would only dismiss her ability to pull the trigger completely. 

 

Changwook needed to get to her, Sejoon wouldn't dismiss his resolve to pull the trigger but he couldn't risk spooking either of them into action. 

 

Changwook needed to either get Yoona to calm down or he needed her to give him the gun, "Yoona..." 

 

"Not now, Oppa." Yoona unexpectedly interrupted him, both irritating and impressing him all at once, she was focus completely on Sejoon, "Changwook Oppa and I are going to walk out of here." 

 

"Or you will what?" Sejoon challenge skeptically, unknowingly irritating Yoona all the more with his dismissive attitude towards her, Changwook knew his love had a strong feminine pride. Sadly it was one of the many great things about Yoona that Sejoon fails to see in his daughter. 

 

"Or I will shoot you," Yoona warn, her tone completely deadpan. 

 

Sejoon sighs impatiently, "Yoona." 

 

"No!" Yoona snap with emotional defiance, the emotional distress in that one word was almost palpable. Her expressionless mask falling away. She was glaring at her dad with such furious defiance that it was a wonder the man wasn't on fire from the sheer heat of it, "I have had enough, do you hear me?! I can't take it anymore! You either let us go or I will turn this gun on myself! I can't live like this anymore! Don't you understand?! Can't you see that?! You aren't going to get a child from me! Never! Do you understand?!" 

 

Surprise, Sejoon turn his head a fraction more towards her so he could see her a little better and for the first time, he was really looking at her, seeing her. 

 

Yoona closes her eyes for a moment, drawing in a deep breath in an obvious attempt to regain control of herself and her frazzled emotions and sparking temper. 

 

"I know you miss Sangho." Yoona said to her dad in a much calmer voice, a soft sad voice that surprises both men, neither of whom had expected such sincerity for him right now, "I'm sorry he died but how can any child I give you replace him? This isn't about your empire or having an heir, it's all about replacing the son you lost." 

 

Changwook intentionally didn't think about exactly what her words implied. It was just too sick and twisted, a father using his daughter to replace his son? 

 

"I can't give you Sangho back." Yoona told her dad, stressing each desperately imploring word, "Please, daddy? Please? Let me go, let us go? Let me go? Let Sangho go?" 

 

Yoona had tears in her eyes and with the desolate sadness there, it made her eyes look far-off. It was like her body was there but her mind was so many miles away. 

 

It was like a hand of ice had wrapped itself around his heart and was squeezing it mercifully. For the first time, Yoona was able to face her dad on an even playing field. She wasn't his prisoner and he couldn't intimidate her because she had a gun in her hand, too. 

 

Finally, Yoona could truly face her dad just as he had done only moments ago. That's what this was. 

 

It was her turn and she had called him daddy. 

 

Had that been a ploy to talk him down or had she actually meant the word? Had she called him that to play him or to reiterate the blood relationship between them that years ago had been so very different? 

 

Healthy even? 

 

'Yoona.' She was baring her heart and soul, her pain to a man she was holding a gun aim at who was, in turn, aiming a gun at the man she loves. 

 

"I remember you." Yoona whispers thickly, tears in her voice as well as her eyes, "I remember you once bouncing me on your knee in that small kitchen next to the table with the crack top. We were playing lift-off. I was laughing, you were laughing. You say you love my mom but what about that little girl you once play lift-off with? Do you remember her? Do you remember me, daddy?" 

 

The second's tick by, the silence grew longer and longer until something in Sejoon soften, it was subtle, Changwook couldn't name one specific thing that made Sejoon seem so but it was there. 

 

"I remember," Sejoon told her gently, turning just a fraction more towards her. 

 

"When you were playing lift-off with that little girl with your little girl." Yoona went on, just as emotionally as before, "Did you ever once think that one day you would lock her up in a dungeon and threaten to have her by a sadistic psychopath? Back then, wouldn't you have done anything to protect that little girl from those who wanted to harm her? Please daddy, please? It's over. You know it is." 

 

That was the third time Yoona had addressed her dad as such in as many minutes, most likely just as she had done when she had been the little girl she was talking about. 

 

Yoona was in emotional anguish and there was nothing Changwook could do about it, he was still helplessly pinned in place by the weapon Sejoon was aiming at him and equally as much by the weapon Yoona was aiming at her dad and his daughter's emotional pain was finally having a visible effect on Sejoon as well. He looks guilty and sad. In fact, he looks like a man who had been strip bare and realizes that he was about to lose the last of what little he had left and all by his own doing. 

 

"Your mom." Sejoon spoke gently, his tone fills with regret, "Before she dies, did she talk about me at all?" 

 

"When I was young." Yoona began, drawing in a deep but shaky breath, "She used to tell me stories about you, about how the two of you met and how she fell in love. She told me about the good times and then when I was older she told me about the bad times." She looks deeply and sincerely into her dad's eyes, "That was when I realize that she loves you and that she thought about you and Sangho every day until she died but except for a few vague memories from when I was really young, I never knew that man. I can't see the man my mom talk about, the man she loves in you at all." 

 

Changwook found himself looking back and forth between the two, between father and daughter, with absolutely no clue as to where this was going or how it was going to end and it seems that they had forgotten that he was there for the moment. 

 

"You said you still love her." Yoona's trembling voice whisper, "If you truly do then prove it now. Let me go, let her daughter go. Her son dies in your world, are you really going to let your daughter die in it, too? Are you going to let your wife's only remaining child die like her son? Then what will there be left of her?" 

 

"That's what this is, isn't it? I can finally see it." Yoona seems to realize, her expression and tone softening noticeably, "You can't forgive yourself for Sangho's death. You don't love me because you can't, you can't love again after losing him like that but you love your son. You want a second chance but it doesn't work like that." Yoona slowly lower the gun, aiming it down at the floor just in front of her toes, "Your world took your son from you, will you let it take your daughter, too?" 

 

All at once, the three of them became aware of sirens sounding in the distance, growing louder as they came closer. 

 

Very slowly, hesitantly, Sejoon follows Yoona's suit, he lowers his gun, letting his arms drop listlessly to his side. He turns to fully face Yoona, a weak shadow of something tender in his eyes that Changwook had never seen there before. 

 

A fondness, maybe from a memory of love from long ago. 

 

"You are so much like your mom." With a deep breath, Sejoon bows his head and close his eyes. His shoulders slump in defeat. He was a man who had no fight left in him but he really wasn't happy about it, "Go." 

 

Changwook couldn't believe his ear but he didn't need to be told twice. Yoona had finally gotten through to her dad after everything he had put them through, in the end, he was letting them go. 

 

Resisting the urge to shake his head in disbelief, mostly because it would only cause him pain, Changwook quickly but gingerly pick up his weapon from the floor next to Kai's body and went to Yoona, grasping hold of her elbow in his wet bloody hand that a moment ago had been pressing down on his wound and half-pulling half-dragging her back towards the door. 

 

Yoona went willingly, stopping just inside the doorway, looking back at her dad with an unreadable expression on her gorgeous face. 

 

"You know I'm going to testify against you," Yoona told Sejoon, straight up. 

 

Changwook wanted to clamp his hand down over , her dad was letting them go and she said something like that? Even if he lived to be one hundred, Changwook was never going to understand what went on inside Yoona's head. 

 

Sejoon laugh humourlessly, "You wouldn't be your mom's daughter if you didn't." He gave her a long solemn regretful look, "The other head of the family will come after you, I can't stop them now." He raises his gaze to meet Changwook's own, "Keep her safe. They will stop at nothing to protect their interests." 

 

Changwook said nothing, giving no reply. Sejoon had long ago forfeited any right to expect any oath from him. He stares at him for a long moment, letting his silence speak for him and then he wordlessly urged Yoona onward out the door and then they were gone from Sejoon's sight. 

 

Sejoon stares after them for a long moment before bowing his head once again as judging by the sound of it, the sirens had reached his front gate. 

 

Here he was, in his big estate surrounded by the bodies of the men he had hired over the years to see to his protection. Bloodstain the white walls, marble floors, even the grand staircase. His once lovely home was stain with the blood of many. 

 

The perfect metaphor for what his life had become. 

 

His heart felt strangely heavy because he knew that he will never see his daughter again, never see Yoojin's daughter again. He had finally lost the last piece of his wife he had left in the world. 

 

He looks down at the gun in his hand. Considering it silently for a long time. 

 

'Yoojin.' Sejoon whispers silently, upwards to the heavens. It was day, so there were no stars in the bright blue sky, only a golden sun in the endless blue sky, 'I'm sorry.'