Chapter 7 

 

Every night for the past week, Yoona had dreamed of nothing else but Changwook. 

 

Ever since that afternoon they had spent making out in the pool and to Yoona's great disappointment, it hadn't progressed any further than making out, Changwook hadn't kissed her again. He spent every night in her room, in her bed, wearing only his boxer shorts, holding her and nothing else. 

 

If it hadn't been for the ever-present ual frustration, Yoona would have laid claim to the fact that she had never slept better in her life. When he held her, Yoona felt safe, protected, happy and . She wanted him, a wanting that never went away and Yoona was positive that he wanted her, too. 

 

The proof of his desire prodded her continuously during the night and well into the mornings. 

 

Some small part of her was grateful for Changwook's control. It was always him who prevented their making out from progressing any further as neither of them could risk her falling pregnant but why did he have to stop kissing her? 

 

Changwook's kisses were so...so...all that. When Changwook kisses her, Yoona truly knew heaven. She had never felt more alive or more impassion than when they were kissing. Not kissing felt like a crime. Girls and women dream of being kiss the way Changwook kiss her, of being wanted like that and yet, Changwook was intentionally depriving them both. 

 

Ok, so she couldn't blame Changwook. There were reasons that they couldn't take the risk. They both couldn't test the limits of Changwook's self-control because God knew she didn't have any but it just wasn't fair. She wanted him so much; she wanted to feel his hands and lips everywhere, over every inch of her body. 

 

She was going to drive herself mad if she didn't stop thinking like a shameless hussy. 

 

Yoona wanted to bang her head against something hard until she was either beyond the ability to think or she knocks herself out. She couldn't take much more of her own body's raging libidinous desire. 

 

That afternoon, they must have spent at least an hour in the corner of the pool, making out like a couple of ravenously teenagers. 

 

It had been so hot that Yoona was actually surprised that the pool water hadn't started boiling. 

 

At least until Yoona had pulled back a little, needing a moment to give her deprived lungs the air they needed and had found herself staring into Changwook's eyes. His pupil had been dilated so much so that his eyes had look black instead of brown. He had been panting like he had just completed a triathlon and beneath her hands, beneath his hot skin, Yoona had felt his pounding heartbeat. 

 

It had startled her to realize that his heart had been beating in time with her own heart. 

 

The moments had pass unnoticed in which Yoona had been mentally and emotionally overcome by him and it hadn't been until afterward that Yoona had realized that while she had been trapped by her wonder, Changwook's ardor had been cooling but not his affection. 

 

A soft tenderness had filled his eyes, replacing the blazing stark lust and he had smiled at her like he had been truly happy holding her, kissing her but now, he was a little sad that it had come to an end. 

 

Changwook had removed his hands from her body and push himself back from her a few inches, allowing a flow of water to fill the space between them. After having Changwook's heat pressing against the front of her body for so long, the water that filled the space between them had felt icy cold. 

 

Changwook had then reach up, cup the back of her head and pull her forward slightly. He had then planted a tender kiss on her forehead. 

 

With that one simple tender act, Changwook had saved her a week of stressing as she wouldn't have stopped trying to figure out what she had done wrong that had made him pull away from her in all ways physical. 

 

So yes, Yoona was grateful to Changwook for his control but she really misses the intimacy, the brief glimpse of heaven he gave her whenever he kisses her. 

 

It had been that tender kiss on the forehead though that had made Yoona realize and accept that she had really fallen deeply in love with him. She wasn't falling in love with him anymore and maybe she hadn't been for a while, she was in love with him. Bringing down her dad didn't seem to matter so much anymore. What matters the most to her now was keeping Changwook alive and that terrified her. Not the loving Changwook part but the dangerous thoughts that were beginning to worm their way into her mind, poisonous thoughts that threaten every ounce of resolve she had. 

 

Yoona was beginning to have thoughts that maybe giving her dad one child would be worth it if she could get Changwook out of the danger she, herself, had brought him into and Yoona hated herself for even thinking such things. First of all, how could she sacrifice her own child, an innocent child, to her dad for anyone's sake? And second of all, the only child she would bear would be Changwook's. Of that, she was now certain and any blood of Changwook's Yoona would protect with her life. 

 

So, how could she even think such things? Let alone allow such thoughts to even hold an ounce of temptation that they did? 

 

What was she going to do? If Changwook found out that she was having these thoughts, Yoona knew without a doubt that he would go berserk. He had never let her submit to her dad in such a way, let alone let her hand his child over to the monster who had murder his parents in cold blood right in front of his eyes. 

 

It was this and to a much lesser degree, her own inexperience that prevented her from jumping Changwook's bones in the middle of the night, if only to relieve this incessant itch she couldn't scratch. 

 

In desperate effort to keep her burning desire for Changwook at bay, the distance of their morning runs had double and at her requests, her dad now let her out late in the day for a second daily run but it still wasn't enough. She considers doing laps in the pool between the run but she couldn't even look at the pool without blushing, without heat pooling into her lower belly, making her all the more aware of her itch that she couldn't scratch. 

 

To make matters even worse, the memory, the ghost of Changwook's touches haunted her. Sometimes, especially at night when she lay in his arms, she could feel the memory of his touch all over her body. On her waist, back, stomach and thighs, on her s. 

 

Oh, sweet heaven. She had to do something, anything to relieve her ual frustration. She was getting desperate and Yoona had no doubt that Changwook hadn't failed to notice how suspiciously long her showers and baths were getting but not even that offer anything more than momentary relief. 

 

So, she lay in Changwook's arms, feeling happy and safe but frustrated and restless all at the same time until she finally fell into an exhausted sleep and didn't wake up until the next morning. 

 

Which brought her back to her original thought. Her dreams. Of Changwook. Her body's frustrations were starting to affect her dreams. It was like her mind was trying to soothe her body by giving it what it wanted, at least in her dreams. 

 

She dreams of Changwook's kisses, she dreams of his touch and she dreams of where her body really wanted to be touched. It seems that her body hadn't minded so much at being denied for so long before she had met Changwook because it hadn't known what it had been missing but now that it knew Changwook's touch, her body wanted more. 

 

It wanted to be filled. Her body wanted Changwook. Her heart wanted Changwook. If the only circumstance would allow her mind to want him too, and because Yoona couldn't have Changwook the way she wanted too, she ran. If not in the park in the morning and late afternoon then on the treadmill or around the garden and all the while Changwook ran beside her. Always there and so, Yoona ran even more. 

 

Honestly, if she kept this up she had be able to try out for long distance running in the Olympics. In her school years up until her second last year of high school when she had finally started rising with the first sounding of her alarm clock she had been the queen of the mad dash to school which had usually resulted in after-school detention as she hadn't made it to school on time despite the mad dash but in the end, running didn't help. Nothing did. Yes, the running until she couldn't run anymore help her fall asleep in Changwook's arms eventually but then her mind took over, filling her dreams with carnal images and arousing her body to the point of madness that would eventually wake her. She had wake up in a frustrated aroused state and the cycle would begin all over again. 

 

Get up, shower, breakfast, run, coffee at Victoria's, shower, run, lunch, run, shower, dinner, and bed. 

 

She was going to go completely nuts if something didn't change. There was only so much a girl could take and on top of that, Yoona had the feeling that Changwook was just as frustrated as she was. He was becoming increasingly grouchy in a silent control kind of way that only Yoona could see through. There was a storm building in him and eventually, he was going to blow and at night, when he held her it was like being held by an incredibly warm statue that molded itself around her and held her like she was the most precious thing on earth. It was a wonder that she had even been able to attempt to try to keep herself from falling for him. 

 

"What can I get for you?" 

 

Huh? 

 

Yoona blink, snap out of her thoughts and reflections by a somewhat familiar voice. Yoona looks up and realizes that both Changwook and the new cute guy at the coffee shop was staring at her expectantly. 

 

Mentally, Yoona shook her head, trying to dislodge her thoughts and return to the present. It was mid-morning and Changwook and her had just finished their morning run and as usual, had gone to Victoria's cafe for a treat and that was what they were waiting for, Yoona realize. They wanted her order. 

 

There was only one thing Yoona wanted but since she couldn't have that she was going to have the one thing that could provide any semblance of relief, the go-to for women worldwide. 

 

"Chocolate." Yoona stated like there was no other option, "I want chocolate. I want a cinnamon dolce latte. With extra whip cream on top and extra cinnamon. Also, I will have a chocolate chunk muffin and a chocolate hazelnut croissant with extra chopped hazelnuts." 

 

She was running several miles a day; she could eat like this three times a day and still keep losing what little extra weight she had. Not that she would because it wasn't healthy but still. 

 

Yoona needed chocolate, the ultimate comfort food in its various forms. 

 

Wisely, behind the counter, Jaejoong didn't comment about her order but that didn't keep a small but strangely knowing grin off of his face. 

 

Changwook was looking down at her with narrow eyes from beneath lower thick eyebrows. He looks like he was going to say something but there must have been something on her face that warns him not to say anything because eventually he just shook his head as if he couldn't figure something out but had given up on it for the moment. Instead, he handed some money over to Jaejoong, more than usual due to her unusually large order, who proficiently return his change and sales receipt. 

 

Changwook drops the change into the tip jar as he usually did. 

 

With their order balance on a tray, they had almost needed two trays, Changwook follows her to their usual table and sat down across from her, still looking at her oddly. 

 

"Are you alright, Yoona?" Changwook asked in a careful tone, "Won't all that sugar make you sick?" 

 

Yoona nearly laughs in his face. He hadn't known her during her teenage years so he had no way of knowing just how much chocolate she was capable of consuming during that time of the month that most women needed chocolate or something sweet, depending on their personal tastes. Most of the time, even back in the teenage years, her time of the month had been manageable but once in a while, there was a bad one and chocolate was the only thing that kept her from maiming every male in sight. 

 

So, her morning snack was nothing in comparison to some of her chocolate binges in the past. 

 

"It won't." Yoona assures him, reaching for her chocolatey goodies, "I need this. Trust me." And she gave him a glare that warns him not to say another word on the matter. 

 

Changwook was a smart man. He heeded her unspoken warning and instead, gulp down a big mouthful of coffee which he needed. 

 

No one notices him slip the sales receipt deep into the pocket of his brown AEO twill jogger pants. 

 

The relief from her chocolate-heavy snack had been delightful but sadly short-lived. 

 

Maybe she should start taking cold showers instead of hot soapy ones. Wasn't that what people did in desperate effort to find some relief from ual frustration? She didn't know because before she had met Changwook it had never really come up. 

 

Besides, her overwork muscles could use the relief. 

 

Or maybe a long hot soak in her bathtub would be better than a cold shower. Maybe more than her muscles might get some relief. 

 

That was what Yoona was thinking about when she stepped across the threshold of her dad's mansion, Changwook was always close on her heels when Mrs. Choi steps into her path, bringing her out of her thoughts. 

 

"Miss Yoona, your dad would like to see you." The older woman informs her sternly. 

 

"After I shower," Yoona told her, as she moves to step around the woman who always seems to be standing too straight. Did the woman even have an arch in her spine or what? Sometimes, Yoona wonders if the stick up the woman's went right up to the base of her skull. She was always standing or sitting with her back so straight that it was a wonder the woman wasn't in real painful discomfort from it but before Yoona could step around her, Mrs. Choi again, move into her path, "I'm afraid he wants to see you now. Alone." She added, with a pointed look over Yoona's shoulder at Changwook. 

 

The older woman's tone told Yoona that this wasn't up for discussion. 

 

Icy cold fear spear through her and unable to stop herself, Yoona whirl around, her wide alarm eyes quickly finding Changwook's. 

 

It wasn't normal for her dad to want to see her so it stood to reason that what her dad wanted to talk to her about held at least some importance. 

 

Had they been found out? Had her dad found a hole in Changwook's cover? Had she slip up somewhere and gave them both away? 

 

Changwook gently set his hand on her shoulder, using both his touch and eyes to communicate to her that she should calm down. 

 

Yoona breathes out a long deep breath, working to gain control over herself and her emotions. Changwook was right. It could be nothing and whether it was or not, they would deal with it. 

 

"Fine," Yoona told Mrs. Choi, even though she was still staring into Changwook's eyes, "Changwook Oppa, why don't you go on upstairs and shower? I won't be long." Her tone held a suggestive purr that to anyone other than Changwook would make them assume that she would be joining him in the shower and not waiting to see if Changwook heeded her suggestion, Yoona move out of Changwook's touch and headed for her dad's study. Whatever awaited her in her dad's study, Yoona wanted it over with as soon as possible. She could only hope and pray that for once, she left her dad feeling better after coming face to face with him. 

 

Changwook didn't like leaving Yoona alone with her dad but unless his cover identity had been blown, there was nothing they had to worry about from the man right now, Sejoon was still way too delightedly smug that his daughter was being intimate with him. 

 

Or so, Sejoon believe anyway. 

 

What Changwook did want to do was look at the little piece of paper in his pocket without prying eyes watching him and there was only one place on the ground that he could do that without attracting attention. 

 

As far as Changwook had been able to tell, the shower in his room was the only place in the entire room that provided a blind spot. At least during showers. 

 

Changwook quickly strips, taking only a moment to reach into his pocket and palm the small piece of paper. Then , naturally, he steps into the shower and turns on the water, arranging the spray so that it was as hot as he could stand it. 

 

Steam quickly fill the glass cubicle and clouded the clear shower glass. 

 

Bingo. 

 

Changwook opens his left still dry hand and zeroes in on the grey printed script on the very bottom of the receipt, silently memorizing the sequence. To anyone else, the seemingly random sequence of numbers and letters were meaningless, nothing but a computer code number or something of the like but to Changwook, the sequence was something else entirely. 

 

Once Changwook had the numbers well mesmerized, he moved his left hand into the hot spray and watch as the black letters and numbers disappear before his eyes, wash away until nothing but a small slip of white semi-transparent paper remain and even though it was a cliché, Changwook furled the paper into a tiny ball and pop it in his mouth, swallowing it with a gulp of hot water. 

 

Sometimes, the best spy methods were the oldest and most used ones. 

 

He would decode the message tonight after everyone had gone to sleep. Jaejoong, his FBI contact and the one man on earth he trusted above all others, had once again, come through. There were very few people on the planet whom he trusts but Jaejoong was one of them. 

 

With any luck, it was good news but Changwook had the dreading feeling that it wasn't. 

 

The first thing Yoona notice about her dad upon entering her dad's always gloomy study was that the man sitting behind the desk didn't seem angry or in any form of dark or dangerous mood. 

 

Over the period of her captivity, Yoona had learned to read her dad and to a lesser extent, his goons and staff, well. It was a matter of survival. 

 

"You wanted to see me?" Yoona asks when she reaches his desk, her words missing their usual irritated bite but as usual, she remains standing. 

 

Sejoon raise his attention from the papers spread out in front of him and for the first time in a long time, he really looks at his daughter and he found himself wondering if she even realizes that to him, she seemed happier than he had ever seen her. 

 

Yoona looks so much like her mom in the face but in personality, Yoona couldn't be more different from her mom. Yoojin had been gentle, nurturing, supportive and on the quiet side while Yoona was none of those things, at least not in his experience with her. 

 

No, in personality Yoona was far more like him than she was like her mom. He wonders if Yoona even realizes just how alike the two of them were. If he told her, she had no doubt hotly deny that they were anything alike but it would be an objection that would only serve to make a liar out of her. 

 

Sejoon indicated towards one of the two dark leather-bound chairs positions in front of his desk, each position at an angle so both chairs were facing him, "Yes. Sit down." 

 

Yoona obeys, too nervous to do as she usually did which was to tell her dad that she had stand instead. It was a testament to how complacent she had become that she didn't refuse him even this small thing. 

 

Normally for Yoona, to sit in her dad's presence was to let her guard down, was to place herself in a more vulnerable position. Sitting meant not only in a way cornering herself but it would also cost her precious seconds if she had to react or more pointedly run but right now, Yoona didn't care about any of that, what she cares about was assuring that Changwook's cover was still intact and her plan could still go forward unhindered. 

 

Sejoon fought to keep the smug grin from his face. He didn't want Yoona to realize just how pleased he was that his daughter was finally beginning to settle down. Maybe he should give Changwook another bonus. 

 

"I wanted to talk to you about your friend, Changwook." Sejoon began, not even trying to keep his good mood from leaking into his tone. 

 

Yoona stiffens which Sejoon didn't miss. Was that fear he saw flash in her eyes? What had brought that on? Did she think he intended to send her young suitor away or something to that effect? 

 

Or did his daughter care about the young man that much that she worried over his well-being? Sejoon had to admit it to himself, although he would never admit it to anyone else, that he had made a grave mistake in allowing the death of her friends when he had acquired her. Maybe if he had spare her friends, his daughter might have been much more manageable this entire time. 

 

On the other hand, Yoona obviously love her friends and the idea of threatening the well-being of her remaining friends had entered his mind various times over the past year, mostly when his daughter was being difficult but Sejoon had the suspicion that if he so much as mention to her that he knew about her other friends that she wouldn't hesitate to do something drastic. 

 

Sejoon had loved his wife and up until she had left him, he had known her well. She had been the love of his life and he had loved her since he had been thirteen. Even though he had regarded his wife as gentle and quiet for the most part, there had been an inner strength in her that until that night she had left him had made him believe that she had been strong enough to handle the stress and demands of being the wife of someone in the family. Sejoon had overestimated his wife's strength in that regards but if it had been ask of her, Sejoon had no doubt that his wife would have willingly sacrifice her life for her children. 

 

In truth, it was that trait that made Sejoon hesitant when it came to his daughter that made him treat his daughter with kid gloves. There was something about his daughter that warn him that if he pushes her too far he would see that same trait in his daughter. 

 

If Yoona took her own life then everything he had done since his son's death would have been done in vain. During those times when his daughter had pushed him the hardest that alone had been her saving grace from his temper. 

 

"What about him?" Yoona asked him in a carefully measured tone, drawing him back to the present. 

 

Sejoon felt strangely uncertain and a little awkward. He had never had the chance to be a dad to his daughter as she had been taken away from him when she had been very young so he wasn't sure what the right approach was in this situation. 

 

Sejoon had never considered the possibility that he might actually come to care for and respect his headstrong daughter but somehow he had. He respected her strength of will, even if she did use that strength solely for resisting him. 

 

"I'm a little concern about you," Sejoon confesses, leaning back in his chair and interlinking his fingers in front of him. 

 

Yoona's brow lowers in confusion, "I'm confused. Didn't you say this was about Changwook?" 

 

"It's about you both." Sejoon answer, intending to explain further but before he could, Yoona was on her feet, speaking quickly in that dramatized desperate way teenagers were known for. 

 

"If this is about last night then I can explain." 

 

Sejoon raises his brow skeptically. Who did his daughter think she was kidding? "Just last night? What about all the nights before that?" 

 

Sejoon almost chuckles at the deer-caught-in-headlights expression that appears on his daughter's face. Had his daughter really believe that they were being at all discrete? That it had gone unnoticed that Changwook was spending each night in her room? 

 

"Yes. I know Changwook has spent nearly every night in your room since he got here." Sejoon kept his tone calm and tolerant but carefully didn't allow any of his delight to seep into his voice. If his daughter knew how delighted he was at how far and how quickly her relationship had progressed, she may very likely end it just to stick it to him as the expression went, "If I hadn't approved then he never would have made it anywhere near your bed." 

 

Instead of getting all huffy as she usually did when Sejoon pointed out that she was under his control, confusion return to her gorgeous face. 

 

"Then what's this about?" 

 

"Can't a dad just check in with his daughter?" Sejoon asks her. 

 

The incredulous look Yoona gave him came straight from her mom and for a brief moment, Sejoon was transported back in time to when his young wife had given him such a look before Yoona had been born when things between them had still been good. 

 

Sejoon shook his head, pushing the images and memory away. He didn't want to remember the good times with his wife. She was gone and had been for a long time. He had let her go and that was that. He had too much happening in his present and looming in his future to linger in his past. 

 

Besides, if he let himself reminisce about his wife then he had eventually get to his son and he misses Sangho too much, his loss still hurt too much, for him to allow himself do that. 

 

"I guess a dad can." Yoona said, after a long moment, her tone hard and icy, "But then why would you check in with me? I'm no more of a daughter to you than you are a dad to me." And with that cutting remark, Yoona spun on her heel and stalked towards the door. 

 

Sejoon couldn't help himself. He chuckles softly under his breath in amusement. His daughter had such spirit, such fire, not to mention, his own temper. There was more of him in his daughter than Yoona would ever admit. If his grandson even has half her fire and strength of will then he might just come to rule the world. 

 

All day, her weird out-of-character conversation with her dad had been playing through her head and it was driving her nuts, although it was a nice distraction from the other things that were normally driving her nuts. After leaving her dad's study, Yoona had gone straight to Changwook's room. The sound of running water had alerted her to the fact that Changwook was in the shower and so, she had sat on his bed to wait. 

 

At first, Yoona had considered not telling Changwook about her conversation with her dad as it had been the first ounce of real genuine fatherly concern her dad had ever display towards her and she didn't want to confuse the situation by making Changwook hesitate in bringing down her dad because it might hurt her. 

 

Though, in the end, she had decided that she wasn't going to keep any secrets from Changwook; they were keeping far too many secrets from everyone else to add any more to the continuously growing pile. 

 

So, when Changwook had come out of the shower, thankfully wearing a fluffy white robe that covers him from neck to kneecap, Yoona told him about her conversation with her dad. 

 

Changwook had been a little surprised but had assured her that they had nothing to worry about, that her dad was just watching out for her. Then he had pulled her close and whisper in her ear so no listening devices would catch his words. 

 

"We are not the only ones playing a part Yoona, remember that. Remember who your dad is." 

 

As if she could ever forget who and what her dad was and chances were that Changwook was right; her dad was just playing up to her because he thought that he was now going to get everything he wanted from her but what if he hadn't been? An annoying voice whisper in her mind. What if that brief moment of fatherly concern for her had been real, as unlikely as that seem? Her dad had raised her brother, surely he had felt love for the son he had raised and then tragically lost. 

 

She wasn't having second thoughts about her plan or anything, Yoona assures herself. It was just that her dad's show of concern for her welfare had thrown her off just a little bit and Changwook knew it. Even now, half-way through their late afternoon jog in the park, Changwook kept throwing her worried glances as if he was concern about where her head was. 

 

Yoona would have love to reassure him that everything was fine, that her head was still in the game but even while running in the park, they had to be careful. One wrong move, one little slip or break in character could be disastrous. Even now in the park, blocks away from her dad's estate, her four bodyguards were watching her from the black SUV. 

 

Yoona shook her head in disbelief at herself. How could she ever have allowed herself to be deluded into believing that anything about her plan would be simple or easy? 

 

Could she really have been that big of a fool as to believe that her dad would be that easy to bring down? That just because she had put this big elaborate plan together that it was going to work out just like that? And it didn't help her with her self-doubt that there was a feeling of icy dread growing in her stomach. 

 

Changwook knew that Yoona was somewhere else, buried deep in her thoughts and she had been ever since her little chat with her dad. 

 

Something about which wasn't right. Changwook didn't know what it was but he had been inexplicably uneasy ever since Mrs. Choi had informed Yoona that her dad had wanted to see her. From what Yoona had told him about the exchange, there hadn't been anything said or done that had raised any red flags to warrant Yoona's deep-set worry, unless of course, Yoona hadn't told him everything but why wouldn't she? No good would come out of keeping things from him and Yoona knew that. He was there to help her, to get her out so keeping things from him would only be counterproductive. 

 

Changwook sighs heavily. He had so much on his plate right now. Between maintaining his cover, trying to gather enough evidence to convict Sejoon for life and keeping an eye on Yoona which involve always keeping an eye out for Kai and making sure that he never caught Yoona alone, his plate was full but having a full plate was something Changwook was used, too. What he wasn't used to though was that over everything else, he was most worried and preoccupied with Yoona. He very nearly fretted about her when she wasn't in his sight but when she was with him, he worried about what she was thinking and what she was feeling, about how happy she was and how he could make her happier, make her safer and on top of all that was the ual frustration that was driving him mad. He held her in his arms all night, every night, not doing what he really wanted to do with her. Instead, he spent a great deal of time just watching her sleep. 

 

Yoona was a spirited beauty when she was awake, all strength and passionate fire like a mythical fairy warrior of old but when she slept, she was as radiant as an angel, downright angelic in her peaceful and trusting state. She slept in his arms as soundly as a baby did in his mom's arms. 

 

Changwook actually found Yoona's complete and utter trust in him astonishing, given her current circumstances and why did she trust him so much after knowing him only a matter of weeks? Was it that he was an FBI agent who wanted to bring her dad down as much as she did or could it be that she really care for him every bit as much as he cares for her? Real affection and not some damsel-in-distress-prince-charming syndrome. 

 

Changwook didn't know but he couldn't shake the question. He wanted to know the answer. 

 

Changwook wanted to shake his head at himself. How was it possible that one woman, one petite strong charming woman, had so completely entranced and enthralled him? She was all that he thought about, all he worried about. 

 

Since he had lost his parents, he had been so determine not to fall in love, not to let anyone close enough to him ever again, that it would near destroy him to lose but here he was, coming to care very much about the woman who was the daughter of the man who had slaughtered his parents. The man he had sworn to bring to justice at such a young age. 

 

That had been what had driven him, that had made him one of the youngest FBI agents in the state's history to so quickly specialize in undercover work. It normally took season agents years to build such a great name for himself that he had. 

 

In his short career, Changwook had made a man for himself as the best undercover agent at the Bureau. There was no organization he couldn't infiltrate, no one he couldn't become. He was known for keeping his head and keeping his cool in the stickiest of situations. It had been said more than once that he had ice water in his veins and the devil's own luck. 

 

That was the name he had built for himself and now here he was, neck deep right where he had always endeavored to be, in the perfect place to bring Sejoon and his empire crumbling down and he couldn't keep his mind out of his pants. 

 

Or more to the point, he couldn't keep his mind out of Yoona's pants. 

 

What was he going to do with himself? He had to get a hold of himself or he was going to end up making a stupid careless mistake that was going to get him killed. 

 

Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, a vehicle on the street caught Changwook's attention, pulling him out of his thoughts. 

 

A red vehicle, a 1966 Chevy Impala, with a thick black stripe running from the tip of its hood over the cab to the back bumper was slowly creeping along the street that ran along the park on the opposite side from where Sejoon's four goons were park. 

 

Two things about the Impala had caught his attention. The first was that the Impala had very darkly tinted windows, not common in Impalas and the second was just how slowly it was creeping along. Genuinely people, mainly men, who drove heavy muscle cars like that didn't drive so cautiously, even through neighborhoods as nice as this one. No, people who drove cars like that love to show them off and most had little concern for traffic laws. 

 

They didn't creep along, not even a good residential street. Not unless they were occupied with other things. Changwook glance over his shoulder and mentally judge the distance between where they were running and the goon's SUV. 

 

They were at the furthest end of the jogging track from the SUV, a good distance separating them from help. Which wasn't an accident? Their timing wasn't coincidence or a of bad luck. No, the Impala turning onto their street just as they were at the furthest end of the running track from their transportation had been plan and carefully time. 

 

The hair on the back of his neck prickle in warning. Changwook's instincts were screaming at him. 

 

Three words pass through Changwook's mind, one after the other, turning the blood in his veins ice cold. 

 

Trouble. 

 

Danger. 

 

Yoona. 

 

Changwook acted a split second before he saw the Impala's passenger window quickly descend and a hand appear. A hand that was holding a black semi-automatic weapon. The kind used by gangs and the likes. The kind especially favors for drive-by shootings because it could release dozens of rounds in only a few seconds. 

 

Changwook slams into Yoona harder than he would have liked but he didn't have time to be gentle about it. He had to keep her from getting hurt, no matter the cost. 

 

As they fell, Changwook wraps one hand around Yoona's waist and threw out his hand so when they landed, Changwook caught enough of his own weight so that he didn't crush her. Once flat on the ground, Changwook swiftly pulls Yoona more completely beneath him, covering her with his body and protecting her head with his arms just as the first round of bullets flew overhead, right where they had been the moment before. 

 

The tree beside them exploded, sending slivers of splinter wood in all directions and then the bullets stop and Changwook heard the familiar squeal of screeching tires. 

 

Changwook didn't hesitate. He wraps both arms around Yoona's midsection and rolls them over several times until they reach the base of the thickest tree closest to them which was the tree next to the one that bullets had ripped into, showering them with bits of tree. 

 

Unfortunately, the tree they hid behind wasn't nearly as thick as Changwook would have like when it came to cover from automatic gunfire and the whole time Yoona hadn't said a word or utter a single sound. 

 

Chilling terror bolted through him. As quickly as he was physically able, Changwook pulls Yoona further behind the tree and propped her up against its base, relieved beyond all measure that her eyes were open, wide open in terror and that there was no sign of blood on her anywhere. 

 

Needing her to focus on him, Changwook simultaneously cups the side of her cute face in his left hand while with his right, he reaches for his concealed weapon. It was the one Sejoon had given him when he had joined as Yoona's bodyguard. He had it on him at all times, although he was always careful not to let Yoona see it as it would only upset her by reminding her of the necessity that he would always be armed. 

 

Gunshots fill the air, both automatic and the more evenly space gunshots associated with handguns; the automatic gunshots coming from one direction and the handgun gunshots coming from the opposite direction. Changwook didn't need to look up to know that their would-be assassins were now exchanging gunfire with Sejoon's goons in a public park filled with and surrounded by innocent people. 

 

Beneath the sound of gunfire, Changwook could hear the panicked screams and shouts of those innocent civilians as they desperately scramble to either flee or take cover. 

 

Changwook hopes that most would choose to find adequate cover, as most often those innocents killed in drive-by shootings were either those who have been caught unaware or had fled rather than dive for cover. 

 

Changwook knew from countless drive-by crimes scenes that one had a better chance of survival if they drop to the ground and laid flat rather than present their unguarded back to the shooter or shooters as they mindlessly turn to flee. 

 

It was in his nature to want to do what he could to save as many lives as he could, to shout at every civilian in the park to take cover but he forces himself to ignore the urge. Yoona was his first priority and protecting his cover was his second. 

 

He would just have to live with the consequences. If innocent people die today then he wouldn't be able to stop himself from blaming himself for their deaths. 

 

Changwook looks into Yoona's eyes as he forces his mind to focus on the weight of the weapon in his hand as a means of pushing past his fear for innocent lives. 

 

Experience with loaded and unloaded weapons reassure him that the weapon he was holding was indeed fully loaded. 

 

Changwook had known good and well that the weapon was fully loaded before they had even left the estate, not to mention, well clean and properly oil but he always made sure. There had been too many times in his career that his survival had depended solely on him and his weapon for him to take any chances now. 

 

"Yoona, look at me," Changwook order her firmly, noting grimly that all traces of color had washed out of her face. Changwook had to try to keep Yoona from going into shock. She was strong; he had complete faith in her that she wouldn't let herself do anything foolish or irrational. He needed her fully aware and functional and he needed her to think rationally and he needed to know, he needed her to tell him that she wasn't hurt so that he could function. 

 

"Are you hit? Are you hurt?" 

 

Yoona, eyes impossibly wide with terror, frantically shook her head no. 

 

It worried him that he had yet to see her blink. 

 

"N-No." Yoona stutter, her voice shaking as if she were nearly too terrified to even form the single simple word. Changwook forces himself to ignore the icy hand that was winding its way around his heart at the sight of her right now. He could have lived his entire life without ever seeing her so terrified. He was alright, this was his world, his job but it wasn't hers. She had seen two dear friends of hers shot dead and her brother had been kill as the target of a drive-by shooting so her terror right now was understandable, if not justified. 

 

"Trust me." Changwook implored her, not breaking eye contact with her as he needed to keep her focus on him, he had to keep her mind there with him or he risks her going into shock, "Trust me to keep you safe, to protect you. I swear, Yoona, I swear that I won't let anything happen to you." 

 

At Yoona's back, the other side of the tree exploded as more bullets rip into its exposed sacred flesh. Changwook wraps his arms around her, instinctively shielding her with his body again. 

 

In his arms, he could feel Yoona's tense trembling body and wish more than anything that she wasn't going through this terrifying experience. Her life was bad enough as it was without this. 

 

Changwook chance a peek out from behind the tree, exposing his head only long enough for him to catch a glimpse of what was happening around them. 

 

He saw three men all dress in black or grey with hoods covering their heads. They all wore slim dark sunglasses over their eyes darkly pattern bandanas cover the lower half of their faces. All three of them had taken cover behind their Impala and were firing across the park at Sejoon's goons who were behind the black SUV, returning fire. 

 

The men in the Impala had semiautomatic weapons and Sejoon's goons had 9mm handguns just like his own. 

 

It wasn't exactly a fair fight. 

 

Tightening his grip on his weapon, Changwook took two quick deep breaths, slowly releasing the second and then he swiftly moves his body sideways, staying down so he presented less of a target. He raises his arm, took aim and fire. 

 

With a sharp cry of pain, one of the three men behind the Impala drop out of sight and didn't reappear. 

 

Changwook knew he wouldn't. He had hit him right where he had intended. In the neck, the only piece of skin other than the man's hands that hadn't been covered. 

 

The man would be dead in less than a minute. 

 

Changwook moves to slip back behind the tree before the other two realize that one of their own was down when something further down the street caught his eye. 

 

Another Impala. This one was black with a white stripe along its top. It was heading straight for the red Impala and the windows were already down. 

 

Two pairs of hands were visible through both the passenger window and the smaller back window. Each pair of hands was holding a black semiautomatic weapon identical to those the three men in the red Impala had. Reinforcements. 

 

Great. Just great. 

 

More armed men of unknown origin who were targeting Yoona. There was no one else they could have been after unless someone from his past had caught up with him which was unlikely as the FBI did well to keep his identity and location top secret. 

 

Changwook ducks back behind the tree and took a single moment to assess the situation. He was outnumbered, he didn't count Sejoon's goons who so far hadn't hit anything but the red Impala and was hunkered down in an exposed location in which they had no real cover, the tree they were taking cover behind wouldn't last long against automatic gunfire. On top of that, it would all be too easy for them to be pin down or surrounded and if that happens with how many there were and with their lesser firepower then they were as good as dead and who knew how many men there were in that black Impala or if there were even more on the way. 

 

Yoona was there. She was the target. She was in danger. He had only one weapon and only one additional clip. It wasn't enough to mount a solid defense, especially with so many unknowns in the situation. 

 

Changwook had to get Yoona out of there. It was the only choice. It wasn't in his nature to run from a fight and he would have loved to have been able to stay and either shoot or arrest the men who were putting innocent lives at risk but right now, Yoona was what matters. Yoona came first. 

 

The SUV would be their safest escape route if they made it to the vehicle. If they did, they had be taken at top speed back to the safety of Sejoon's mansion, Changwook was well aware of the irony there but the SUV was a good fifty meters away with only a few sparsely space thin trees for cover along the way but the chances weren't good of making it before they were gun down. He couldn't take that risk with Yoona's life. 

 

Changwook scans the area around them, more specifically what lay in the opposite direction to the gunfight. 

 

More trees. More trees equal more cover and the intersection was only twenty meters away, give or take and there were no armed gunmen in that direction either that Changwook could see. 

 

It would mean that they would be heading in the opposite direction from Sejoon's estate but it was the only choice, the only safe route. 

 

Using only one eye which again, minimize how much of himself he exposed, Changwook look around the tree again. 

 

Both sides were focused completely on each other. No one was looking their way. 

 

Now was their chance, their only chance. 

 

Changwook sent a quick silent prayer skywards before he turns back to Yoona and what he saw both broke his heart and enrage him so greatly that murder flash in his eyes as he struggles against the urge to kill every gun-toting killer in the park, regardless of whose side they were on. 

 

Yoona was curled into a tight ball, her legs folded up against her body, her arms wrap around her knees and her head was press down against her legs, her arms folded protectively over her head. She had close in on herself at the base of the tree and she was shaking as she rocks herself back and forth, not making a single sound. 

 

For a moment, everything else faded from his notice. There was nothing else. All there was was Yoona and his gut-wrenching need to make her feel safe again. 

 

"Yoona?" 

 

At the sound of her name hesitantly and worriedly spoken, Yoona's head snaps up and her wide terrified eyes immediately found his. 

 

"I'm going to get you out of here. You are going to be ok." Changwook promise, his tone as gentle as he could make it but his words were a solid oath, a promise, "No one is going to hurt you but we have got to run. Can you do that or do you want me to carry you?" 

 

Something flash in Yoona's wide eyes and her hot pink color lips flatten into a straight line, "I can run." And with shaky but purposeful movements, she uncurls her body. After taking only a moment to compose herself, Yoona moves her feet under her and shifted her body into a crouching position, resting a hand on the tree behind her to steady herself. 

 

His brave Yoona. She was terrified but she wouldn't allow herself to become a sobbing helpless weakling. She was strong and her will was stronger than her fear. 

 

If they had been anywhere else, Changwook would have smiled at her stubbornness. Yoona didn't like being told or have it implied that she couldn't do something, especially because of her own weakness. 

 

Changwook had no doubt that if someone told her that she couldn't fly Yoona would sprout white angel's wings and fly to the moon and back just to prove she could. 

 

Changwook had no control over what he did next, the world could have broken apart around them and shatter into a million pieces but nothing and no one could have stopped him from cupping the back of her neck, pulling her upward to meet his open lips and kissing her fiercely with all the affection and desire he possess and with all the desperation of a man who was drawing his last breath. 

 

He knew his fingers were digging into the soft flesh beneath her soft silky hair at the back of her neck, holding her still against his near savage onslaught but he couldn't control himself enough to loosen his hold on her but Yoona didn't seem to mind his callous treatment of her. Instead of offering any protests as the remaining functional brain cell in his brain expected her too, Yoona curls her fingers tightly into the front of his black metal vent tech short sleeve shirt like he was her one and only lifeline. 

 

It was the closest Changwook had ever come in his entire life to losing control of himself completely. It was only the clear and present danger that gave him the will to break the kiss and pull away from her. 

 

Yoona looks a little daze and she was more than a little out of breath but Changwook was relieved to see that her fear was mostly gone. 

 

Changwook stares straight into her eyes, willing her to understand what his eyes were telling her, that he loves her and that he would do anything to keep her safe. 

 

Unfortunately, as reality return to him, along with the thunderous booms of gunfire and the terrified screams of the innocent, Changwook knew that he didn't have the time to say the words that he really wanted to say. 

 

Changwook had to forcibly but still gently pull Yoona's hands-free of his shirt and without breaking eye contact with her and keeping them carefully position so they remain concealed behind the tree, he raises them both to their feet. 

 

"Stay with me." Changwook told her seriously, "And don't stop running for anything." 

 

Changwook peek around the tree one more time. Still, neither side of the shootout was looking their way but that wouldn't last. They had to go and they had to go now. 

 

"Stay in front of me," Changwook instructed again, tightening his hold on his weapon, making sure that his hold was secure. His weapon was all he had to protect her with, that and his own set of skills and wits, "No matter what happens, don't stop." And with that, Changwook pull Yoona out from behind their cover, place his body between the shooters at the Impalas, duck his head and urge Yoona wordlessly forward. 

 

Fortunately, Yoona didn't have to be told twice. No doubt running as fast as she could, Yoona ran flat out, heading towards the corner of the block which was the exact opposite direction from her would-be assassins. Changwook was right behind her, carefully measuring his speed and the length of his stride so that he could remain as closely behind Yoona as he could without the risk of tripping or running into her. Given his greater size and longer legs, Changwook was capable of running much faster than he was but he firmly kept pace with Yoona. Not for one second was he going to expose her back to those who wanted to kill her. 

 

If they wanted to get to Yoona, they were going to have to go through him first. Literally. 

 

They were being followed. 

 

They were a full block away from the park but Changwook knew that they were being pursued and not by any of Sejoon's goons. 

 

They had made it to the street and had crossed the intersection without being fired upon from behind and after they had run into the next street, the high red brick wall of the corner building between them and the park, Changwook had told Yoona to keep going, not to slow down. 

 

They had then run the block at Yoona's full speed, the sidewalk empty of the pedestrians that would have usually fill the sidewalks and the street. They had either run away or sought shelter inside one of the surrounding businesses so the two of them made it to the end of the next block without bumping into anyone. 

 

At the end of the block, Changwook had directed her to cross the street and head down the next adjacent street but as they rounded the corner of the next block, Changwook had heard the sound of rapid pounding footsteps behind them, footsteps that were gaining on them. 

 

It wasn't any of Sejoon's goons. If it had been they would have called out, identified themselves and instructed them to stop or slow down and wait. 

 

Changwook knew the best way to deal with the man following them. He wonders why their pursuer didn't just shoot them both in the back and be done with it but Changwook wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth as the expression went. 

 

Scanning the street ahead and finding what he was looking for, Changwook readied himself. 

 

They were nearing the mouth of what looks like a small alleyway. Whatever it was, it would do. 

 

Three strides. 

 

Changwook reaches out with his free hand, reaching for Yoona. 

 

Two strides. 

 

Changwook slid his finger from the trigger guard where it usually rested unless he was ready to fire for safety reasons and onto the trigger. 

 

One. 

 

Changwook grasped hold of Yoona's upper arm from behind and threw her sideways. 

 

With a startled scream, Yoona disappears into the slim alleyway. He heard her land with a painful cry but didn't see her land as he was already in motion. 

 

Extending his arm and raising his gun and using the force that had a split moment before been propelling him forward, Changwook whirls his body around while simultaneously dropping himself down onto his knees. 

 

Changwook had known beforehand that this was going to hurt. He had done this maneuver before, only before now, he had only ever done it on a smooth surface. Those most commonly found inside, such as polish wooden or tile floors but he forced himself to ignore the pain as the material of his pants and the flesh of his knees tore as he slid along the abrasive rock-hard cement. 

 

He had been right though. Their pursuer was one of the men from the Impalas. His face was cover by a dark blue bandana with a white design and a pair of slim sunglasses and he was pointing an automatic weapon at him. Changwook took aim, expecting the ganger to fire at him before he could but then their pursuer did something unexpected. 

 

He hesitated. 

 

"Come out, !" He shouted threateningly in Yoona's direction, "Or I will kill him!" 

 

So, Changwook had been wrong about something. They at least wanted to try to take Yoona alive it seems. Although that made the drive-by shooting seem nonsensical, didn't it? They might have been aiming at him in the park but he had been too close to Yoona and their weapons had been designed for maximum kills by shooting as many bullets at one time as possible, not sharpshooting and those were the last words the gangster ever spoke. Before Yoona even had time to consider handing herself over to the homicidal badass wannabe, Changwook pulls his trigger. 

 

Even with the thunderous sound of the gunshot echoing around him, Changwook still heard the man give a startled grunt as he stumbles back a step and like a large red rose blooming on his chest right before Changwook's eyes, blood began to seep quickly from the hole in the man's chest. 

 

Changwook didn't need to note the speed in which blood pool from the wound to know that he had hit his target, the man's heart. 

 

As the man fell backward onto the ground, Changwook rose to his feet, ignoring the pain in his knees. 

 

In the distance, Changwook heard sirens, police and ambulance sirens. The police and emergency services were moving in which meant that Sejoon's goons would be fleeing the area, no doubt as would those attacking them. Without looking back and making sure that he kept himself between the man and Yoona so she wouldn't see the body, Changwook pulls Yoona out of the alley and urge her onward. 

 

Together, they ran to the end of the block and turn the corner. 

 

They didn't stop running until they were far away, although to Changwook, far away would never be far enough, not when it came to Yoona and keeping her safe. 

 

Yoona honestly didn't know how long they had run for or how much distance they had traveled but even after all the running she had been doing lately, her legs were refusing to move her another inch. 

 

The sirens had faded well and truly before Changwook had to pull them both to a stop and usher her into what looks like an abandon warehouse or factory. There had been no fence or security and getting into the old crumbling and cracked cement slab building with high windows had been a matter of just walking through the overgrown weeds and slipping through one of the man-size holes in the wall. 

 

It was dark inside despite the holes low in the wall and the high windows, none of which had any glass. Even the beams of mute sunlight brought no color into the grey that was the interior of the building. 

 

In the sunlight, Yoona could see the individual dust particles floated freely in the still air. 

 

There was nothing inside the large open space but broken support beams and shatter tiles from the ceiling. What Yoona guess had once been a second story of which there was now no other sign of except for a section of rotting floorboards attach loosely to the wall in one corner. Scatter pieces of garbage and small mounds of what had to be several years worth of dirt and dust litter the floor and in the nearest corner, along the wall were a few half-broken mostly rotten-through crates and wooden forklift slates. 

 

The smell of dust, rot, and mildew fill the air and her nose. It was unpleasant and left a bad taste in but Yoona wasn't going to complain. This was a place where they could hide for a while and Yoona trusted Changwook completely. If he had decided that this was safe enough to hide in then it was a safe place. 

 

Besides, Yoona prefers this crumbling building to her dad's fancy estate any day. If it meant that she could be free of her dad she had gladly live here for the rest of her days without ever saying a bad word against it. 

 

Changwook had told her to stay where she was and he had gone off to no doubt look around and assure that they were alone and hadn't been followed. Only after Changwook was sure that they had escape successfully and that there was no one else in the vicinity to threaten them would he relax enough to rest. 

 

They were both exhausted. They had run until Yoona hadn't been able to run anymore. Somehow, Changwook had known when she had reached her limits and just before she, herself, had admitted that she couldn't go on any further, Changwook had pulled her to a stop. 

 

Yoona suspected though that Changwook could have kept running for ages longer. That was the way he was, unyielding and mentally strong. Mind over matter wasn't just an inspirational saying to Changwook; it was his personal motto, his way of life. He was stronger than the weaknesses of his body that most of them endure. 

 

Yoona swore that the guy wasn't human, he was superhuman. His endurance was immense, his determination and drive unmeasurable. 

 

Exhausted and aching, Yoona will her legs to carry her to the wooden forklift slates, promising her legs that if they carry her just that far she had let them rest. 

 

The old wooden boards of the slates were dirty and coarse, making Yoona wonder how long it would take for her to get an infection if she got splinters in her behind but she didn't care enough about that right now as long as she could sit down. She had worry about splinters and an infected later, right now, she just wanted to sit and rest. 

 

Besides, she had much rather sit on the splintery wood than the dirty floor. She wasn't a prima donna or a germaphobe but she did have a healthy respect of personal hygiene. There was no way she was going to get any closer to that gritty floor than she had, too. Her life would have to be in danger first. 

 

Who knew how many rats call this place home? 

 

On the bright side, at least they had food and water as Yoona had her army green utility belt as she always did when she ran. It held her small canteen, still full and her energy bar that she had gone off lately but still carried with her, more out of habit than anything but now, Yoona was very grateful for her utility belt. 

 

Changwook had never said a word about her utility belt but she had seen him looking at it more than once and she knew that he had wanted to inquire about it or maybe make some smart comment but he hadn't. He must have decided against it as they had bigger issues than her unusual taste in running accessories. 

 

Changwook didn't carry anything with him when he ran. Yoona had never asked why but she had wanted, too. He didn't even carry any water with him when he ran, preferring to drink before and after running. 

 

Yoona smirk. She couldn't help it. She bet that Changwook wishes that he had something like her runner's utility belt now that they were stuck here after running so far. She had water. She had food. She had a first aid kit. Changwook had his shoes, a gun and he had her heart. 

 

Yoona groans inwardly. Of course, she was going to share with him but the temptation to mess with his head by taunting him with the fact that she was prepared while he wasn't had been a delicious one until she had reminded herself that she was in love with him and he had just saved her life, twice at least, added that practical voice inside her head that reminded her of her mom, the voice Yoona suspected was her conscience. 

 

"What are you doing?" 

 

Yoona blinks and looks up, realizing that she had been so preoccupied with her thoughts that she hadn't heard or notice Changwook's return. 

 

Changwook, who was currently looking at her as though he couldn't figure out the life of him what she was doing sitting there on the slates holding her canteen and staring off into space. 

 

"Thinking." Yoona answer simply. 

 

Changwook visibly shudders, an obviously fake shudder, "Now that's a terrifying thought." 

 

Yoona's eyes narrow at his reply as she tried to figure out exactly what he had meant by that, "What?" 

 

"Nothing," Changwook replied, as he reaches down and pluck her canteen from her hand and took a long swig from it. He then wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and he went on with a thickly amuse tone, "Except that you have a terrifying mind I have ever encounter." 

 

"And just what do you mean by that?!" Yoona demanded indignantly. 

 

"The way you think terrifies me. I mean, what you come up with." Changwook shook his head as if he couldn't believe something but had given up on trying too, "You are the most cunning person I have ever met." He indicated at her with both arms, "You could collapse governments if you wanted, too. Look at what you have done." 

 

Changwook settles himself beside her on the slate but didn't even pause in his explanation of why he found the way she thought terrifying. 

 

"Most people in your situation would have either given your dad what he wanted and brought their freedom. Or after escaping, they would have either tried to run on their own or went straight to the local police but no, not you." 

 

The way Changwook spoke with disbelieving wonder made Yoona want to hit him. He was speaking as if he couldn't believe that she had done what she had done solely because it had been her that had done it. 

 

"You escape like a spy in an old spy movie." Now, there was real amusement in his voice; he sounded like he was a moment away from outright laughing, "Damn near overdoing it. Then you waltz straight into the FBI and instead of asking the FBI for protection, you declare that you have a plan to bring down one of the most powerful and fear mafia families on the west coast with all the casual finesse of James Bond. Then you go back to your dad with an FBI agent. How many people would do that without at least asking too, let alone plan something like that?" Yoona realizes that this was the first time that they were actually free to talk about this, about anything. They weren't being watched and there wasn't much of a chance of being overheard. They were actually, in this moment in time, free and all Yoona wanted to do was hit him. Hard. He wasn't being mean or anything like that. He was just voicing his own interpretations on everything she had done that was so out of the ordinary and she supposed it was but the way he spoke, it was like he couldn't believe that she had done what she had done but at the same time, he was delighted that she had done what she had. He was amused and awed but in some strange way, he actually sounded grateful. 

 

However, what irks her was that he made her sound anything but normal because of how she had done things. 

 

She wasn't abnormal or strange. Was she? 

 

Changwook looks at her then, look straight into her eyes, his own shining with wide-eyed wonder and awe as he looks at her like she was a miracle from heaven and he stole her breath away. 

 

"You are extraordinary." He told her reverently, as though he were talking to a goddess or a deity, "You terrify me and you challenge me. You make me want to scream and pull my hair out one moment but you have me laughing the next. You are stubborn and bull-headed but you are strong and honest at the same time. You know what you want and you don't stop until you get it, regardless of who's standing in your way." His tone and gaze became so gentle, so tender that she was bespelled by him like a charmer hypnotizing a snake with his music. 

 

"People look at you and they see a kitten but then you shock the hell out of them when they realize you are not a kitten but a tiger." Changwook's lips quirk up in a half-smile, "You don't need me to protect you, not the way I want to protect you. You need my protection against bullets and kidnappers but you don't need me to fight your battles for you." 

 

Yoona was baffled. What was he saying? And why had that last bit made him suddenly sound a little sad? She didn't understand what had brought all of this on, she just knew that she couldn't stand to see that soulful sadness in his eyes like he was disappointed, not with her but with himself. 

 

"I need you," Yoona whispered emotionally, honestly. Realizing only as she spoke them just how true that was. She did need him, more than he could ever know, "I need you. You think I'm so strong but I'm not. When we were behind that tree, I was so scared that I couldn't move, couldn't think. Not until I heard your voice, promising me that everything was going to be alright, promising me that you had protected me. I don't just need your protection, Oppa. I need you." 

 

Changwook looks into her eyes with such sincerity that it froze her in place, "You were so brave. You might have been scare for a moment there but when we needed to move, you didn't protest or argue or refuse to move. You just did it. You push away your fear and did what needed to be done. If that's not strength then what is?" 

 

Silence stretch between them for a long time. Time they spent just staring into each other's eyes, lost in each other and their own thoughts. 

 

Until Changwook broke the silence with his beseeching plea, "Let me take you away from here. Let's just disappear, go and don't look back." 

 

Yoona crumple, both her expression and on the inside, "I can't, Oppa. I can't. There's no place we can go where we will be safe. We will never be able to run far or fast enough to escape my dad. My mom knew that. My mom knew that the only reason that she got away with me was that he let her go." 

 

"I have resources Yoona," Changwook told her, wanting desperately for her to agree. He wanted to stash her someplace safe and then come back and take down her dad, "I can keep you hidden, safe." 

 

Yoona didn't doubt that he could, at least for a while but her dad would always be there and if they ran, when her dad found them he will kill Changwook, no if, buts or maybes about that. 

 

"No." Yoona simply said, instead of saying any of what she really wanted to say, "I don't want you to stay if you don't want too just for me. If you want to go, I'm not going to stop you. I'm not going to ask you to stay and a part of me does want you to go so you will be safe but I have to stay. There's no hiding from my dad. He will find me eventually and he will make me very sorry for running." 

 

"I will keep you safe. He won't hurt you again." 

 

Yoona smiles ruefully, her eyes sad, "You will try and he will kill you." 

 

"It's a chance I'm willing to take." 

 

"But I'm not." And before Changwook could say another word, Yoona all but threw herself at him. She caught hold of his head between her hands, squishing his ears between her palm and his skull and pull him down until her lips met his. 

 

Yoona kisses him with all the ardor and all the passion she possesses. She kisses him, wanting desperately to say with her kiss all the words that she hadn't been able to say. She wanted him to know how grateful she was to him, how much she appreciate his strength and his wanting to take care of her. She wanted him to know how much she wanted to go with him, to forget everything else and just go but that she also couldn't but most of all, Yoona wanted him to know just how much she loves him. 

 

Those were the words she couldn't say, not even here, away from her dad's eyes and ears. She couldn't risk her dad discovering just how much she loves Changwook because if he did then her dad would have everything he needed to get exactly what he wanted from her. 

 

Just by threatening Changwook. 

 

To keep Changwook alive, Yoona would give up anything, even the one thing it would destroy her to give up. 

 

As it turns out, both Changwook's cell phone and Yoona's tracking ankle bracelet had been damaged beyond the point of repair. 

 

The screen of Changwook's cell phone had been smashed so badly that there were actually slivers of plastic-like glass missing, Changwook guess that it must have been damaged when he had tackled her in the park, he could have even landed on it and Yoona's ankle bracelet had a bullet hole through it. 

 

When Changwook had seen just how close she had come to being shot, he had gone so pale that Yoona had actually been concern that he was about to pass out on her. She had to reassure him that she was fine, that she hadn't been hit, five times before he had been convinced that she was indeed fine. 

 

They had then used Yoona's small first aid kit to see to their injuries, the worst of which was the road rash on Changwook's kneecaps from where he had twirl around on his knee on the sidewalk. 

 

Of course, being a man, Changwook had protested at first that he was fine and that he wanted to see to her injuries, such as they were before she saw to his. This had led to an argument, each insisting that the other had to be seen first which had ended when Yoona had threatened not to let him anywhere near her injuries until she had seen to his first. 

 

Begrudgingly, sulking like a little boy, Changwook had agreed. 

 

Yoona had to hide her grin from him. 

 

Changwook might admire her stubborn strength but obviously, there were times such as now that he didn't like her stubbornness. 

 

Yoona had clean the ugly rashes that had bleed only a little with some water then cover them with the antiseptic cream and lastly, used a quarter of the ace bandage to wrap them up to keep the wounds clean. 

 

Of course, Changwook had protested that the bandages were overkill but Yoona had pointed out that their hiding place was filthy and he had have to it up and deal with it because the bandages weren't coming off. 

 

Yoona honestly didn't know what all the fuss was about anyway. Their wounds were all superficial, Changwook having gotten the worst of them but he had acted like she had been shot and was bleeding to death and of course, the worst of her wounds hadn't been caused by any gun-wielding homicidal maniac intent on getting at her dad. No, her wounds had been caused when Changwook had thrown her into the alley. 

 

It wasn't bad. She had a few scraps, only one of which had bleed, along with a few bruises and that was it. 

 

Changwook had clean her scraps and put a band-aid on the one that had bled and then he had apologized for the bruises like he had intentionally given them to her by beating her. 

 

Then they had eaten the energy bars and had finished off her water. They had money on them, if need be, Changwook could go and buy more if they needed it. 

 

Now, all there was to do was to wait it out. Changwook wanted to wait a while until he found a phone and call her dad to come and get them, although he wasn't happy about it. He really did want to take her and run and he would too if only she gave him the go-ahead but it warms her heart a great deal that he respected her enough to let her make her own choice and that he hadn't tried anything more to convince her to run. 

 

Changwook was a rare breed, to want to protect her so much but restraining himself from turning all caveman and forcing her to go with him and all because he respected her. He respected her and trusted her enough to let her decide for herself what she wanted to do. 

 

Even though it was obviously killing him not to be able to do what his instincts were so obviously screaming at him to do, to take her and run and god bless him, Yoona love him all the more for it. 

 

The hour's pass and nothing bad happen. There were no more sirens or gunshots, no one pop out from behind a rotting beam pointing a gun at them and declaring that they had found them and it was rather quite boring. 

 

They had talked for the first few hours about everything and anything, just idle chit chat mainly for something to do to help pass the time. 

 

Yoona learns about how Changwook had gotten into the FBI and how he had quickly become their best undercover agent. He seems to have the natural talents for it and Yoona had told him all about her childhood, her best friends and what it had been like living with only her mom. 

 

Which led to Changwook telling her all about how he was an orphan and had been raised in an actual orphanage rather than in foster care. He had assured her that it hadn't been so bad. The men and women who had run the small orphanage had been good people that although hadn't allowed themselves to actually love any of the children under their care, they had care. He had a friend or two but he had mainly kept his distance because he hadn't wanted to lose anyone else that he cares about the way he had lost his parents. 

 

He was careful not to tell her anything about how it had been for him to lose his parents or the exact details of what had happened but he did tell her that he had been alright in the end and then, silence lapsed between them again, until Yoona, finally overcome by the events of the day and the physical strain on her batter body, fell into the blissful oblivion of sleep. 

 

Changwook glances down at his Michael Kors access digital Bradshaw pavé detail gold-tone stainless steel bracelet smartwatch and noted the time. It had been a solid hour since Yoona had dozed off, her head cushion on his shoulder as she lay snuggle into his side like an exhausted trusting child. 

 

They had been shot at only a number of hours ago and yet, Yoona still felt safe enough that she had allowed herself to fall asleep. 

 

Was she that exhausted, the adrenaline having taken such a toll on her or was she that trusting of him with her safety? 

 

Changwook didn't know. Maybe it was a little bit of both. 

 

It warm his heart that Yoona trusted him with her safety enough that she slept while they were quite possibly still being hunted but at the same time, he was sick to his stomach that he had to sneak off while she slept, leaving her alone and vulnerable, even if it was only for a short while but he had no choice. He had to leave her here where she was safe at least for the time being as he had no choice but to make contact with his contact. 

 

The attack on Yoona today only made him more determine and more desperate to bring her plan to a close. She was in danger, from so many sides and one way or another, something was going to arise that would threaten her again. He had to protect her and to do that, he had to do everything he could to bring down Sejoon as fast as he possibly could which meant that he was going to have to trade being careful and cautious, a plan, to a more aggressive method. 

 

Undercover assignments could run for an indefinite amount of time, years even because undercover agents not only had to search for and collect evidence against their target but they had to do so while protecting and maintaining their cover. It was like trying to live two lives, trying to be two people, all at the same time and that took extreme caution and a lot of time. 

 

Time Yoona may not have. 

 

It also meant that he was going to have to take more risks. It was all part of bringing Yoona's dad down and making Yoona safe once and for all but still, Changwook was loathed to leave her so vulnerable but if he woke her, Yoona would want to come with him and he just couldn't risk that. Her dad's reach was unmeasurable; if he was discovered in his deception, Yoona would still have deniability. She could tell her dad that he had tricked her and that she had no idea what he was up, too. 

 

Her dad might have his doubts about Yoona's denials but he had most likely given her the benefit of the doubt if only to keep her more cooperative. 

 

With a sick feeling in his gut, Changwook gently moves Yoona away from him and carefully laid her down on the filthy wooden slate they had been sitting on for hours. 

 

It wasn't ideal and she had needed a shower, they both would, separate showers, but it was the best he could do. He wishes he had worn a second shirt or even a jacket so that he could have spread it beneath her to protect her from the prickly surface but other than Yoona's green utility belt with the canteen, that always made him smile. It was just so Yoona, they didn't have anything like that with them. 

 

Yoona made a soft distress sound at being disturb but she merely adjusted her position a little and continue to sleep. 

 

Changwook had to get moving, he had to make the call but he just couldn't help himself. He took a moment to just watch her sleep. Her normally pretty face was cover in smears and streaks of dirt and grim that clang to her skin with the help from the now dried sweat that they had been near-drench in when they had entered the long abandon building. Not even her impossibly long golden blonde hair had been spare even though it was woven into a thick plait that Yoona usually kept it in when she ran, hair as long and silky as hers had to take a lot of maintenance. Her hair was smear with dirt and dust as well and after all, they had been through several strands had come free and stuck out at odd angles around her head and down the length of the plait but despite all that, she was still the most gorgeous creature he had ever seen. 

 

Unable to stop himself, Changwook carefully moves a strand of golden blonde hair back from her face and gently tuck it behind her ear. 

 

It still amazes him that her hair was so soft and silky, almost as soft and smooth as her skin was. 

 

Oh, god. How he wanted her. It was driving him mad. He hardly slept from wanting her which only made worse considering he spent every night holding her and when he did fall asleep, it was with the knowledge that he was going to wake up with a hard-on that border on painful that just refuse to listen to reason. 

 

Honestly, if he took any more showers during the day, Sejoon and the entire household was going to start to think he was a germaphobe or something but those showers were the only relief available to him. 

 

Changwook felt himself responding and immediately slam the door close on his current line of thought. He had things to do and little time to do them. 

 

They were going to be found eventually, either by Sejoon or his enemy's hitmen and Changwook had to act before they did. 

 

Changwook forces himself to get to his feet and step away from her then he took only the time he needed to quietly place some crates around her, hiding her from view the best he could given what little he had to work with and then, Changwook was on the move. He had to find a public payphone but it couldn't be too close or too out in the open. It was the middle of the day and he couldn't risk having the call, if discover, trace back to him. 

 

Which was the reason why he was going to use a public phone as far away from their hiding place as he dares to go while Yoona was so vulnerable? 

 

As quickly and as stealthily as possible, Changwook slips from the abandon crumbing building and went in search of a payphone. 

 

It took Changwook nearly half an hour to find a public pay phone that met most of his requirements. He had passed and dismiss two before he had found one suitable enough. It was over a mile from the factory where hopefully Yoona was still sleeping soundly undisturbed and it was partially concealed by the square of cheap press wood that had been messily hammered in place as a poor man's replacement for the sheet of glass that had once been there. Changwook dials the number from memory and waited for the cold efficient voice to demand his authorization codes. Codes that were a means of identification without giving any information away to anyone who might be listening in on his call which was virtually impossible as he had chosen a random payphone and had dial a secure number. 

 

Changwook promptly gave the require information and then quickly relay his message, using a few words as possible while also being as specific as possible. 

 

Less than fifty seconds after dialing, Changwook replace the receiver and left the payphone. He had another call to make but he wasn't going to make it from here. Instead, Changwook moves briskly but not fast enough that he risk drawing a lot of unwanted attention, through the streets, avoiding the same path he had come, back to the first payphone he had passed only a block and a half from where he had left Yoona. 

 

Changwook dial the contact number he had been given from memory and waited. 

 

As he expected, the phone was answered before the second ring began. 

 

"Yoona?!" 

 

Changwook wince, instinctively pulling the receiver away from his ear. 

 

Huh. Sejoon actually sounded worried about his daughter. Well, wonders never cease, although Changwook wasn't naïve enough to believe for even a second that Sejoon was worried about his daughter for his daughter's sake. No, rather Sejoon was worried that all his chances of seeing his bloodline continue on had gone up in smoke if Yoona happens to die on him. 

 

"She's safe." Changwook assures him, reluctantly putting the receiver back to his ear, "We are hiding in an old abandon factory off of Cheongpa-ro street. Next to the big KFC sign." 

 

"We will be right there. Is she hurt?" 

 

"No." Changwook didn't even bother telling him that she had a few bruises and scrapes because Sejoon wouldn't care about anything superficial. 

 

"Kai's on his way to pick you up." And the line went dead as Sejoon hung up the phone. 

 

Changwook pulls the receiver away from his ear and stares down at it for a long moment. It was tempting, so tempting, to just turn around and go get Yoona and run, just disappear. To get away from Sejoon, the FBI, and this whole mess and just disappear. He could keep Yoona safe if they got away, he was sure of it. He knew how to run and he had resources, some that even the FBI didn't know about. 

 

They could just live off the grid. They could be free. 

 

This was new to Changwook as for the first time in his entire career, something else was more important to him than the job than taking down the bad guy. For so long, all he had been doing had been bringing down the monster who had murder his parents but now, Yoona was more important than his life-long obsession that had been driving him since he had been a kid but Yoona had been right when she had refused to run. It was her choice and they did need to end this. Sejoon's homicidal madness had to come to an end. It was the only way Yoona would ever be free, would ever be safe. 

 

Changwook replaces the receiver and left the payphone. He had to get back to Yoona before Kai got there. There was no way in hell that Kai was going to be alone with Yoona for even a moment, especially when she was most likely still asleep. 

 

Which she was, Changwook discovers to his relief when he returns to the abandoned factory. Yoona was still curl up on the slate right where he had left her. She had her head resting on her arm that was folded beneath her head and her other hand was resting beneath her chin, holding her forearm as if to locks her body in place. 

 

Bless her, Yoona loves her sleep and it seems that she was capable of sleeping anywhere, no matter how uncomfortable but then, he himself was the same in that way. He didn't love his sleep the way Yoona did but over the course of his career, he had learned to sleep wherever he could, whenever he could. 

 

Reluctantly, as he would have loved to let her sleep even on the hard wooden slate that had most likely given them both a splinter or five, Changwook gently shook her awake, telling her that they were going to be picked up by her dad's goons shortly. 

 

Yoona unfurl and stretch with all the grace and poise of a cat, making Changwook smile fondly. She didn't like being woken up, he could see it on her face but she didn't grumble or complain. 

 

Not eight minutes later, a pair of familiar black SUVs with dark tinted windows roll around the corner, none of which had any bullet holes in them. 

 

Back into their overly gilded cage they went. 

 

Since the day his son had been taken from him by another rival family, whom he had promptly and successfully seen to the complete demise of, Sejoon hadn't felt a fear like the one he had felt when he had been informed that his daughter was under attack by yet another of his rivals. 

 

Yoona was the key to everything. If he wanted to keep what he had, if he wanted to pass on what he had built then he needed her and he needed her alive and healthy. 

 

What few people knew was that one of the things that fuel his desire for a grandson was that he was well aware of the other figureheads in the family beginning to discuss among themselves about his removal due to his lack of a credible heir. Sons were very important in his world and as was legacy and legitimacy. 

 

Sejoon needed a grandson and time was running out. The other powerful members of the family wanted reassurances in regards to the stability in the family and the business and only heirs truly provided that. 

 

Sejoon was closer than ever to providing just that. His daughter was falling in love with a man who might just be a worthy successor until his future grandson was ready to take the reins of the family business. Sejoon had tampered with the young man's birth control and as Changwook spent every night in his daughter's bed, it wouldn't be too much longer before his daughter fell pregnant. 

 

No doubt, Yoona wouldn't be pleased but she would bear the child. Sejoon didn't see his daughter as the kind of woman who would abort the pregnancy, not that he would allow her, especially with how smitten she was with the future father of her children. His daughter would love her children and with both the children and the man she loves to control her, Yoona would eventually settle down and accept this life as her own. 

 

Especially after he offers Changwook the position of his successor, he had had to marry Yoona before anything was made official of course and make both of them part of the family business. 

 

Things were all falling into place better than if Sejoon had designed them himself but then, Sejoon had answered the phone and his world had damn near come crashing down around him, even after he had been assured by the head of his daughter's protection detail that she had fled the area with Changwook. 

 

Sejoon had dispatch every member of his security force from the estate to find Yoona but they had turned up with nothing even after hours of searching and calling in every resource and source they had. 

 

Immediately, Sejoon had feared that Yoona had somehow convinced her young Changwook to flee with her, to try and escape him again, but then to his great surprise and delight, Changwook had called in with their location. Apparently, the bright young man had fled with Yoona only far enough that they had been able to hide in some slum until it had been safe enough to contact him. 

 

Changwook was proving himself to be a dream come true. Not only did Changwook have Yoona's affections but he was smart, cunning, skill, patient, careful and loyal. 

 

Everything needed to one day succeed him and become the next head of the family. 

 

If Changwook was truly loyal to him then many rewards awaited him, Sejoon would see to it. 

 

Once he had his grandson that was, everything depended on that. 

 

Sejoon heard the buzzer that signal that the front gates were opening and immediately headed for the front door, his trusted Mrs. Choi and the private nurse he had to summon for Yoona following after him. 

 

The SUV pulled up to the front door and immediately, the three of the four men that he had entrusted his daughter's safety too exit the vehicle. The one in the front passenger's seat smoothly opens the back door from which Changwook and his daughter appeared. 

 

Sejoon didn't fail to notice how protectively close Changwook was holding Yoona to him, his arms wrap around her shoulders, holding her tightly against his side, scanning the area and glaring at anyone who came too close. He was highly protective of Yoona and this both please Sejoon and worried him. 

 

It pleases him because it assures Sejoon that Changwook would protect Yoona, maybe even at the cost of his own life and it worried him because Changwook would protect Yoona, maybe even allow himself to be convinced by her that running was what was best for her. 

 

Sejoon had to assure that that would never happen. He had to make sure that Changwook knew that beyond a doubt that the safest place for Yoona to be, the only safe place for her, was right here under his protection. 

 

Sejoon steps back as Changwook and Yoona, followed closely by their protective entourage, enter the house. 

 

It was only then that Sejoon relax. He could see no blood on either of them, although he did note that Changwook had bandages wrapped around both knees and they both had an assortment of scrapes and bruises. They were also filthy like they had been rolling around on the floor of that abandoned building. 

 

Hell, maybe they had. If that were the case, Sejoon wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. The more times the two were intimate, the greater his chances of getting what he wanted increase. 

 

"Yoona." Sejoon address his daughter, his tone much gentler than it had ever been when addressing her, at least since she had been a young child, "Go with the nurse here. She's going to check you over, make sure you are ok." For the second time in one day, Sejoon was greatly surprised when Yoona offer no protest or complaint. Instead, she said nothing, only nodding docilely but of course, Sejoon reminded himself, Yoona had been through a terrifying ordeal today, one she was unfamiliar with unlike the rest of them. Women could be so delicate sometimes, so fragile, especially when their safety and sense of security had been shaken. 

 

Which was another reason why he needed a grandson? Women weren't capable of running the family. They couldn't do what needed to be done no matter how distasteful. 

 

Yoona steps out of her protector's hold and made for the stairs, the nurse following her with her medical bag in hand. 

 

The nurse was one he trusted. She was the nurse and assistant to the private doctor the family employ. He was a skill well-manner man who was at their beck and call and most importantly of all, he was discrete. He was a man who knew the cost of betrayal and wasn't prepared to pay for it. 

 

Unfortunately, the good doctor was in London at the moment, attending his son's wedding and so the nurse had come in the doctor's stead and since Yoona was obviously unharmed, the nurse would serve her purposes just fine. At hearing that his daughter was alive and unharmed, Sejoon had given the nurse strict instructions. Yoona was to have a full check-up and while she was here, he wanted the nurse to take some blood so a blood test could be run to assure that nothing else was threatening his daughter's well-being and also so that a definitive pregnancy test could also be run on her blood. 

 

Sejoon was optimistic that it would come back with a pleasing result. 

 

Changwook moves to follow the two women but Sejoon steps into his path, looking him straight in the eye, "Changwook, come into my study for a moment. There's a matter we need to settle." And without waiting to see if the young intense man would follow him or not, Sejoon turn and headed for his study. 

 

Out of the corner of his eye, Sejoon saw Kai enter through the front door and upon seeing the two of them headed for his study, Kai promptly follow. 

 

Sometimes, Kai reminded Sejoon of a spoilt little boy that didn't like being left out of anything but the man had his uses and so, Sejoon endure his childish behavior when needed be. 

 

Sejoon enters his study, going straight to his chair behind his desk and took his seat in the most comfortable and expensive chair in the mansion. 

 

When Sejoon looks up, Changwook was standing tall and proud, although somewhat impatiently, in front of his desk, waiting like a soldier waiting for orders. Three steps behind him to the right, Kai stood, glaring at Changwook, his hatred for him clear in his chestnut brown cruel eyes. 

 

Sejoon hadn't invited Kai to join them but he wasn't going to object. Kai wasn't happy. He was watchful and mistrustful but more than that, Kai loathed and envied Changwook which was only going to get worse after this little meeting. 

 

For now, Sejoon chose to ignore Kai and instead focus on Changwook, the young man to whom he now owed so much. His daughter might have been killed today without this man's bravery and quick thinking in getting her away from the danger. 

 

Without saying a word to either of them, Sejoon pulls open the top drawer of his desk on his right side and reach in, finding what he was looking for immediately. 

 

Sejoon withdrew his hand and place the tall pile of wrap clean new hundred dollar bills on the desk in front of Changwook as he sat back in his chair, waiting for the young man's reaction. 

 

Kai's reaction was predictable and immediate. The furious hate that flash across his dark face made Sejoon wonder what had possessed Changwook, a clearly clever and skill young warrior in nature, to allow Kai to ever be at his back. 

 

Did Changwook truly not view Kai as a threat or did he do it solely for the surprise of further infuriating Kai? Sejoon couldn't tell which it was but he wouldn't be surprised if it were a little bit of both. 

 

To be on the safe side, Sejoon gave Kai a warning glare, warning him not to do something stupid like attack the man's back and then turn his gaze back to the dark-haired young man. 

 

As far as Sejoon could tell, Changwook's eyes hadn't so much as flicker downward towards the cash. Instead, Changwook glare coldly down at him for a long moment before abruptly spinning on his heel and briskly stalking towards the door. 

 

"I didn't protect Yoona for you or for the money," Changwook said icily, as he left the room without looking back. Huh. Changwook continues to impress and surprise him. He was a man of honor who had clearly taken the little offer bonus of fifty thousand dollars in cash as an insult. It appears that it had anger Changwook that Sejoon believed he had acted for his own welfare rather than Yoona's and so, Sejoon's suspicions were well and truly confirm and he couldn't have been happier at how things between the young man and his daughter were developing. What was between this young man and his daughter was love, blind selfless love. 

 

It couldn't be more perfect. 

 

Of course, Sejoon had intended to hint at his future plans for Changwook but that could wait. There was no rush, neither he nor his daughter were going anywhere. 

 

"I will get him back!" Kai snarl coldly, already moving to go after him. 

 

"Don't bother," Sejoon told him, calling Kai off with a dismissive wave of his hand. No doubt with Changwook's training and his current dark protective mood, Changwook wouldn't hesitate to wipe the floor with him. 

 

Kai backtrack, his expression disbelieving. He obviously couldn't figure out why his boss was being so forgiving of Changwook's disrespectful behavior. 

 

Kai couldn't possibly know that it was because he was in too good of a mood to care about such a little thing. 

 

"I don't trust him," Kai stated icily, staring at the door for a moment longer before turning back to him but Sejoon wasn't a fool. He knew beneath that ice was white-hot rage and burning hatred, all directed at Changwook. 

 

"He's too good. Too righteous. If he ain't here for the money then what's he after?" 

 

Sejoon fought the urge to shake his head at Kai's immature and spiteful jealousy and resentment. He couldn't, however, keep the soft chuckle from escaping his mouth. He leans back in his soft leather chair and entwined his hands together in his lap, "You really can't see it, can you? They are in love. He already has everything he wants." Kai scoffed cynically but Sejoon's smile just broadened. Finally. Finally, he was close to getting exactly what he wanted. It couldn't have been more perfect. It well and truly couldn't. His daughter had gone and fallen in love with her young bodyguard and Changwook had gone and fallen right back in love with her. 

 

It was as if hands from on high were shaping events solely to suit him. It was all he could do to stop himself from crying halleluiah to the heavens. 

 

They were in love. They couldn't keep their hands off of each other. It wouldn't be long now before he had exactly what he wanted and the best part was that, as long as he had them to use against each other, the both of them would behave or the other would suffer. Changwook was too protective to take even the slightest risk with Yoona so he had behaved for certain and Changwook would keep Yoona in line as well. Not because he fears harm to himself but because of the threat of harm against her. 

 

It couldn't be more perfect. Especially since the both of them believed that they were being safe. 

 

Which brought him back to another issue at hand. His smile and his delight faded until only cold furious ice remains in his veins. 

 

Now that Yoona was safe and sound back inside the estate, Sejoon had another matter that urgently needed attention and he was actually glad that Kai had followed them in, uninvited. 

 

"Kai, I want you to find out who was behind this attempt on my daughter and I want you to retaliate, am I making myself clear?" Sejoon leans forward, his narrow cold eyes focus on Kai, "I want everyone, friend, and foe, to know the price of attacking my own and I want it to be a very loud, very clear message. Do you understand?" 

 

The grin that spread across Kai's lips was sadistically delighted. Kai was never happier than when he was spilling blood and causing pain which made him a very useful weapon indeed, especially when unleash upon those who had displease him. 

 

"I will take care of it personally," Kai assure him, with an evil glee that those who knew Kai knew to fear more than the grim reaper himself. 

 

Later that day, after night had fallen and her dinner eaten, although she couldn't even remember what it was that she had eaten, Yoona step out of her walk-in wardrobe, wearing a mid-thigh ivory kate spade new york charmeuse chemise. It was one of the really expensive self-indulgent items she had bought just for the sake of spending her dad's money. She couldn't understand why but she hadn't felt like wearing her flannel pajamas tonight. 

 

For some unknown reason, she had just felt that she had outgrown them; she had worn cutesy flannel pajamas all her life. Tonight, she wanted to wear something adult, something y. She wanted to feel like the woman Changwook saw her as. 

 

Yoona wanted to wear something Changwook would like. 

 

Maybe it was the time that she said goodbye to the flannel for good and said hello to the feminine, the grown-up. She wasn't a little girl anymore. 

 

She felt feminine, she felt like a woman. A strong y desirable woman. 

 

It was the exact same way she had felt in the pool right before she had pulled Changwook in with her and they had made out like there was no tomorrow. She had felt that way not because of what she had been wearing but because of the way Changwook had been looking at her. 

 

Like she was the most dazzling thing he had ever seen and that made Yoona feel powerful. 

 

Maybe that was why she had wanted to dress in something more feminine than her flannel pajamas tonight, maybe after what had happened today she needed to feel like that again, to feel powerful again. 

 

Changwook was sitting right where she had left him when she had told him that she needed to change before going to bed and had gone into her wardrobe to change. She had shower after the nurse had checked her out and had taken blood so at least she hadn't had to shower again. 

 

He was sitting right where she had left him, in the exact same position, wearing the exact same serious expression as he had when she had left him. He was sitting slump down on her bed, staring down at the floor but not seeing it. No, he was so deep in thought that Yoona had to wonder if he had even noticed her absence which in itself was odd for him. 

 

Changwook always seem to be just as in-tune with her as she was with him, watching her and reading her better than anyone else ever had with the exception of her own mom. 

 

Something had happened. Something that had upset him, something that had him worried. There was the faintest trace of lingering anger in his eyes that he tried to keep hidden from her which told her that his anger wasn't aimed at her. 

 

To Yoona, Changwook looks like a warrior at his emotionally lowest moment, the moment in which he needed to be reminded that there was still hope, that whatever battle he was fighting could still be won. 

 

"Changwook Oppa?" Her voice was soft and uncertain, a question that seems to voice all her worries and fears. Changwook raises his head and his gaze to look at her but didn't say a word even though the anger was gone from his eyes. Now, his eyes were filled with such emotion, so many that Yoona couldn't possibly name them but still, the look in his eyes now threaten to shatter her heart into a thousand pieces. 

 

How could a man she knew to be so strong, so determine and steadfast be looking at her right now as though all hope was lost? He was looking at her like he was a lost scare little boy who was terrified that he had lost everything he had in the world. 

 

What had happened in her dad's office? First, he had been angry but now he was fearful but of what? 

 

Changwook raises his arms out towards her, silently calling her to him and without a word, Yoona went willingly into his strong arms, arms that gently wrap around her, holding her and silently promising her that they had always protected her from harm. 

 

Was that it? Could he be fearful for her? But that didn't make sense to her, not with what she knew about Changwook, not with how well she knew him. 

 

When threatened, either himself or someone he cares about, he acted protectively. He acted. He did whatever had to be done to deal with the threat and assure that it wouldn't be a threat ever again, but he didn't worry and fret because that wouldn't be productive to solving the problem. 

 

That was what Changwook was, a problem solver, as most men naturally were. 

 

So, had Changwook come across a problem that he couldn't figure out how to solve? 

 

Yoona sighs inwardly. All these questions were giving her a headache and all she wanted to do was relax and focus only on Changwook and how wonderful it felt being in his arms, even if she did seem to be the one comforting him for a change. Comforting him just by being there in his arms, allowing him to hold her as he works through whatever it was that he was working through. 

 

Time pass unnoticed but neither of them moves. All there was was each other and the comfort only the other could give. 

 

Neither of them moves nor spoke for a very long time. All they wanted was to hold each other, to wallow in the peace and sense of belonging that being together provided them as they tried to forget about everything else for a short while. 

 

In the dead of the night, when all was silent and still, Changwook reluctantly slip out of bed where Yoona had fallen asleep in his arms, exhausted more than usual after their long and stressful day but right now, Changwook didn't want to think about anything other than the mechanics of his task. He was tired of thinking, tired of going over and over in his mind just how much danger Yoona was in. Today he had realized that Yoona was in danger from Sejoon's enemies but that was nothing compared to the danger she was in from her own dad. 

 

When Sejoon had offer cash to him in return for saving Yoona's life from his enemies Changwook had realized for the first time just how Sejoon really saw his daughter. 

 

To Sejoon, Yoona was nothing more than a possession, a thing that was a means to an end for him and it had sickened Changwook to his very core. 

 

Yoona wasn't a possession, she wasn't a thing. She was a beautiful fantastic spirited woman who went her own way whether others like it or not. She was strong, brave, caring and selfless, everything that her dad wasn't and Changwook was going to do everything and anything that he could in order to get Yoona away from her dad once and for all. 

 

What he needed, what he had as of yet failed to find, was evidence strong enough to convict Sejoon and send him to prison for the rest of his life for his crimes. 

 

Sejoon's study had turned up little to Changwook's frustration. The floor safe had held nothing but money, about eight hundred thousand or so, by his estimation. No doubt from illegal dealings but without Sejoon's books detailing where the money had come from, the money in itself wasn't of interest to him. 

 

One place Changwook hadn't gone to yet was the basement which in order to get too had force Changwook to pick the locks of two reinforced doors, one at the top of the basement stairs and another at the bottom. 

 

The locks had been simple deadbolts that he had learned to pick years ago so he had gotten through them in no time at all but the sturdily reinforce doors had perk Changwook's curiosity and his hope that he may finally be onto something, that he might finally find what he was looking for. 

 

From his late night recons, Changwook knew that there was only one way in or out of the basement unless Sejoon had secrets tunnels or something. 

 

The basement had caught his interest early on but up until now, Changwook had focused his search mainly on Sejoon's study and the upper floors, believing that if there was any real hard evidence, Sejoon's books and records of kill orders and such, paper evidence. After all, Al Capone had been brought down with charges of tax evasion since there hadn't been enough evidence to bring him up on murder and other organized crimes, would be kept close to hand than in the basement. 

 

The main thing that had caught Changwook's attention about the basement and given him the suspicion that there was more down there than old boxes and furniture was that the basement was the one and only area for which he hadn't been given a blueprint for. This had made him wonder just what was down there and now that he was there, Changwook was sorry that he hadn't come down sooner. 

 

It had to be the largest basement Changwook had ever been in and the cleanest in the city. 

 

Most basements were notorious for being dark, damp and dusty or having been redone into assorted living spaces but what Changwook saw made him think of the basement one would find in a newly built multimillion-dollar office building. 

 

Changwook stood in the second doorway at the bottom of the cold grey cement staircase that had brought him down from the second floor and he was staring ahead, down a very long grey concrete corridor that had to have more than a dozen solid-looking dark grey doors on each side and one door facing him at the corridor's end with bright long fluorescent lights. 

 

The lights were so bright that the entire corridor seems to glow with white light and it was so clean. Even the best-kept hospitals would have been envious of how clean this basement was. There was no dust or dirt even though the entire corridor, only with the exception of the lights above and the doors themselves, were all concrete. Smooth seamless walls of concrete. 

 

Unlike most basements that were grey, dirty, dark, gloomy, musty and dusty, this basement was clean, well light and well-vented. There was no dust in the air, no musty dank smell. It smelt most strongly of cleaning chemicals, hospital grade. 

 

Changwook was tempted to go back upstairs just to check that he hadn't somehow been transported to the basement of a brand new industrial building. Honestly, it looks almost exactly like the corridor of doors from the matrix reloaded film. 

 

Methodically, Changwook began searching, opening doors, one after the other, checking each and every door as he came to it, methodically making his way down the corridor. 

 

All the rooms seem to be identical in size and design. All were reasonably sized square rooms with one long fluorescent light in the center of the ceiling above. Each and every one was perfectly clean and almost perfectly square in size. It was what each room held that differentiate it from the next although there didn't seem to be any pattern or discernible order to how the rooms were assigned with which made Changwook suspect that there must be a floor plan detail of what was in each room somewhere. 

 

Some rooms were meticulously-arrange neat and order storerooms with adjustable metal shelves lining the walls, holding meticulously label seal or lidded boxes and some were filled with furniture wrap in industrial plastic, neatly stack and store. 

 

Then there were some rooms that contain nothing at all. Those rooms felt different from the others in a strange way. They felt empty as if the rooms themselves were eagerly awaiting the day that they had be made useful, that they had had a purpose to justify their existence and then Changwook reach the halfway point along the corridor and the rooms began to show differences. They were near empty but their use, their purpose, was clear. 

 

There had been nothing to prepare him for the shift from the irrelevant to the ominous. 

 

It actually shocks Changwook the first time he opens a door and found himself in a room that was neither empty nor being used as a storeroom either and it was clear that this room had never been built to be used as a storeroom. 

 

He was in a cell. There was no other word for it. The room was exactly the same as all the others Changwook had checked in size and design but it was the contents of the room that change everything. 

 

Along one wall, there was a metal bed frame that Changwook could see was bolted to the floor with bolts thicker than the barrel of his weapon. A thin obviously cheap mattress lay neatly in place atop the frame. The fluorescent light above was protected by a thick metal cage that made it impossible to be reached by human hands; the kind that was used in prisons and protruding from the wall in the corner opposite the bed was a seatless metal toilet bowl. That was all there was but it was more than enough to betray the purpose of this room. 

 

Changwook wasn't sure when he had crossed the invisible line that had turn the basement from a good order basement and storage area to a dungeon but he obviously had since the next seven doors he opens revealed the exact same thing. There were eight cells in all, all unoccupied with no evidence of ever having been used but some unknown inkling that causes an icy chill to run down his spine told him that they had been used, just well clean afterward. 

 

It never crosses Changwook's mind that it would get worse from there but it should have and it did. 

 

There were only five doors left, two on each side and the door at the end of the corridor. 

 

The first of the five doors led to a room that chill Changwook to his core. The room was empty but it was slightly different in its design than all the others, even the cells. 

 

Once again, the purpose of this room was obvious and chilling. 

 

In light of this room, unlike all the others, wasn't in the center of the ceiling. Instead, the long florescent light was situated above the door because in the center of the ceiling of the cell was an o-link hook the size of a human hand and was a good inch and a half-thick. From the o-link hook hung an eye-link hook of equal size and from that hook dangle a set of manacles. 

 

The cuffs of which hung there at what had to be a good ten feet from the floor which also differ from the other rooms. 

 

The floor was slanted towards the center of the room wherein the dead center of the floor, directly beneath the manacles, was a hole in the floor cover by a metal drain covering. It was a drain, design to drain away any and all liquids that were spilled anywhere in the room. 

 

This was a place for torture and suffering, of pain, blood, and death. 

 

Suddenly, in his mind, Changwook saw himself hanging from those manacles, his feet hovering an inch or so off the floor, his blood trailing down his body and dripping from his feet into the drain, his entire body bloody, bruised and broken. 

 

Bile threatens to rise from his stomach and into his throat but Changwook forces it and his panic down and then the image change, morphing into something that very nearly unmanned him. 

 

In his mind, it wasn't him hanging bloody and broken from the ceiling but Yoona and worst of all, his past experience with crime scenes and murder victims made the gruesome details all too realistic. 

 

Changwook could see Yoona's delicate skin slice open and torn, her cute face bloody and distorted, her golden blonde hair stain with blood, several strands of which stuck to her skin that was either sticky wet with blood or tarnished with the ugly colors of forming bruises. 

 

Changwook fought against the bile in his stomach that wanted to evacuate his body and his vision swam before his eyes, the world seems to twirl off its axis. 

 

Blindly, Changwook shot out his hand and grasp hold of the door-frame, struggling to catch his balance as the room whirl around him and it was all he could do to remain on his feet. 

 

For a long moment, Changwook fear that he was going to pass out or be sick or a combination of both but eventually, the room around him still and his feet were steady beneath him once again, though the sick feeling in his stomach remains, icy with fear and horror. 

 

Unable to stand it a moment longer, Changwook back out of what was, for lack of a better term, a torture chamber. 

 

Changwook just wanted to take a moment, to close his eyes and settle himself, to reassure himself that it wasn't real, that it was all in his head but he didn't dare close his eyes, knowing fully well that the terrible gruesome image would still be there in his mind's eye, just waiting to pounce on him again, the moment he closes his eyes. Changwook gritted his teeth and turn his full focus outward, not dwelling on anything that was in his head and left with no other choice, he hurriedly checks the remaining three doors along the walls. 

 

All three were exactly the same as the first. There were four torture chambers in all. Why Sejoon needed more than one was a thought that Changwook didn't let himself dwell on. 

 

It was very clear that Sejoon was as mad as a hatter and a cold-blooded monster to boot. What kind of man built such rooms in his basement, let alone multiple of each? And then Changwook found himself standing in front of the final door, the one at the end of the corridor that he had been making his way towards since he had entered the basement. At his back was the door that led out of this hell and in front of him was the door that Changwook was now fearful to open for fear of what lay beyond after all he had seen. 

 

Chances were that beyond this door laid either a second staircase, a second very-welcome exit or another horror that would haunt him. 

 

Unable to stand not knowing a moment longer, Changwook reaches around and took his weapon out from beneath his burgundy polo Ralph Lauren lightweight waffle-knit thermal shirt, from its holster that was always clip to his belt. He wraps his hand around its grip, needing the reassurance of its weight that helps him believe that he could face anything that lay beyond this final door. 

 

Right now, Changwook wanted nothing more than to finish his search, to check out this final door and then return to Yoona. He wanted to hold her and tell himself over and over that she was ok and she hadn't been tortured, that she had and never would see inside of either the cells or the torture chambers. 

 

Changwook drew in a deep breath, both for courage and to prepare himself. He reaches for the doorknob of the final door that was exactly identical to every other door in this basement/dungeon. 

 

Changwook slowly turns the knob, his grasp on the grip of his weapon tightens as he mentally prepares himself for whatever new horrors might lay on the other side of this last door. His body tense, adrenaline flooding his system, making his heart pound in his ear but he was ready for whatever he was about to face on the other side of the door, whether it be dead bodies or armed men. 

 

It could hardly be worse than what he had seen already. 

 

Changwook swung open the door, his weapon ready as he came face to face with another door. 

 

One hell of a door. 

 

There was only enough room in the small box in space in which Changwook now found himself to open the first door. He stood in the tiny space facing the second door that was hanging ever-so-slightly ajar and it was the mother of all doors. 

 

The door that he was looking at was made of solid shiny silver steel over two inches thick, clearly reinforce and was securable with what looks like two separate states of the art security locks. One was a touchscreen keypad in which the numbers appear to be displayed in random order, that no doubt require a lengthy passcode and the second, Changwook identified as a hand-print scanner pad. 

 

What money could buy? 

 

Changwook's first thought was that the room behind this door was a vault, Sejoon's own bank vault but the very thought seems farfetched regardless of the evidence standing right in front of him. 

 

A vault? Down here in the basement? Behind an unlocked normal door and left standing open? 

 

Now, this was really weird. It looks like a vault door but it wasn't locked. Had Sejoon just install it and hadn't put his valuables in it yet? 

 

That didn't make sense. From the day after Yoona had walked into FBI headquarters, the estate had been under discrete but constant surveillance before he had even been hired. There hadn't been any workman or contractors other than the pool cleaner and the cleaning service in over two months. 

 

If it had been built that recently then Sejoon hadn't yet had a chance to fill it with his valuables then that meant that Sejoon had either been sneaking contractors in and out right under the FBI's nose or his own men had built this. 

 

If it hadn't been built very recently then how had Sejoon not had his valuables move into it? And if he had put his valuables inside, why wasn't it lock? And the FBI had no record of anything like this being built here. They had been watching Sejoon for years and had the resources to learn when something like this was being installed but there had been nothing, not even a whisper about Sejoon building a room-sized vault in his basement. Changwook knew this because he had gone through every file that the FBI had on Sejoon before he had gone undercover as he always did and that file had included a detailed floorplan and a map and images of the grounds of the estate, along with which had been every work order for the estate since Sejoon had acquired it when he had become the head of the family. 

 

So, what could be so valuable that Sejoon had built a vault in his basement which he hadn't wanted anyone to know that he was building? Not even anyone who might be watching the estate. 

 

Changwook had a very bad feeling about this. 

 

With a shaking hand, Changwook took hold of the edge of the door and swung it open before he lost his nerve to do so. 

 

The first thing he notices was the smell. Up until now, all he had been able to smell was the sharp distinctive odor of cleaning chemicals and the faint trace of dirt that all underground rooms seem to have but there was something else there, something newer, something out of place. 

 

The smell of fresh paint and then what he was actually seeing register and his gun slip free from his numb fingers but Changwook didn't even notice. 

 

His mind had gone blank, had gone numb in horror. 

 

The room was bigger than the rest, it was the size of an average-size bedroom and at first glance, it looks like a normal bedroom in a normal house, except there weren't any windows. 

 

The walls were plasterboard, painted a pleasant cream color and the floor was layer with white fluffy carpet that didn't have a single smudge or stain. There was a queen-size bed against the opposite wall, perfectly center along the wall, its thick mattress cover with white fluffy bedding. To the right of the bed was another door, this one standing open, revealing a white porcelain sink on which Changwook could see was a stack of neatly folded white fluffy towels. 

 

That was all Changwook could see from the second room but it told him that it was a bathroom, most likely with a toilet and probably a shower. 

 

To the left of the bed, in the corner was a large overstuffed armchair. 

 

Embedded in the ceiling above were three sets of fluorescent lights, evenly spaced, cover by thick clear plastic that ran in smooth alignment with the ceiling, although one set of the lights, the set above the armchair, gave off a golden glow rather than a white one. 

 

It was a sunlamp, artificial sunlight. 

 

For keeping someone healthy while they were lock in this room long term. 

 

Changwook staggers back a step as if he had been physically struck and that was when something metallic on the bed reflected the light and caught his eye. 

 

Changwook looks closer and the bottom drops out of his stomach. 

 

On each side of the headboard was single-cuff manacle, bolted to the wall behind by a two-foot-long thick chain. This room was just as much as a cell as those he had found only seconds before. This one though had been designed to contain one specific person for a long time in reasonable health and comfort. 

 

A specific someone who would need to be tied to the bed. 

 

It was only by sheer force of will this time that Changwook didn't empty the contents of his stomach onto the floor. He just couldn't comprehend what he was seeing. 

 

The logical part of his mind was telling him to search the room, for any evidence or for future need but the rest of him couldn't even consider taking another step into this prison that had one blatant purpose. 

 

Yoona. 

 

Changwook was sure that he was going to be sick. He couldn't take his eyes off the shackles, lying like dead metal snakes on the bed, their mouths wide open as if in a silent scream but still, that wasn't the worst of it. As he turns to flee, that was when Changwook saw it, the worst thing of all. 

 

There, tucked into the corner or more accurately, welded into the corner, was a cold grey metal crib. A crib with grey metal bars like those of a miniature jail cell. It was over a foot deep and was about four feet by two feet in size. There was no mattress or crib blanket but Changwook knew that Sejoon would supply those when needed. 

 

The whole cell was a human breeding cage and the scent of fresh paint told Changwook that this cell hadn't long ago been constructed. 

 

Sejoon had well and truly gone insane. Yoona was in serious danger, not of death but something that was in a lot of ways was a lot worse. 

 

Changwook knew Yoona enough to know beyond a doubt that she would rather die than suffer this fate. 

 

There was no question about it; he had to get Yoona out of there now. He had to get her away, as far away from her dad as possible. 

 

A plan was already taking shape in his mind. He had to get Yoona out of Sejoon's reach and that meant getting her out of the country. 

 

Changwook whirl and ran for the stairs. He still felt like he was going to be sick but he couldn't allow anyone to know what he had seen down here and vomiting all over the floor just might alert the next person down here that someone else had been there. 

 

Changwook's mind was already in motion, his own plan taking shape before he even reaches the basement stairs. Where could they go? Where could they hide? The two best options were polar opposites but they were what work. The safest places to hide were either in the middle of nowhere or in a heavily populated city where they had be able to blend in with the crowds and strangers and not be noticed. 

 

Yes, the latter was the better option. The latter had the best chance of keeping them hidden. 

 

A city. A big city. A big city where they could blend in and he had still be able to get everything he needed to protect Yoona. 

 

London. If one wanted to disappear in a crowded city and not be noticed then London was the place to go. It was one of the worlds most visited cities. It was a city of eight million people, with a future of thirty-one million people visiting every year. On top of that, it was a major transport hub; there were countless ways to get in and out of the city. 

 

It was perfect. Even if Sejoon discover that they were in London, it would be like finding a needle in a haystack. 

 

So, London it was but not by a direct route. He had to make sure that he left a false trail for Sejoon to follow that led where they weren't. 

 

He wouldn't be able to get her out tonight or even tomorrow, it would take a couple of days for him to make the arrangements but as long as everything didn't hit the fan Yoona should be safe for the next few days or so as she had been in the last month but right now, in this very moment, he had to get back to her. He had to hold her. He would get her out, he would keep her safe but right now, he needed to feel her in his arms. 

 

Hell would freeze over before he ever let Yoona know that that room even existed, the cell that had been built solely for her and for one purpose. 

 

Sejoon was deranged. He belongs in a padded cell or in the ground. Who would even think of doing this to their own child let alone constructing such an atrocity? 

 

Deep down, Changwook hadn't really believed that any father, even a man as mad and as cold-blooded as Sejoon would let his own daughter be in order to get a grandchild but now, Changwook knew better. 

 

Changwook didn't care about the FBI or his assignment or bringing Sejoon down anymore. He had a new purpose now, a new mission in life. He had to protect Yoona. He had to get her far away from her madman of a dad and keep her away. 

 

Changwook reaches the stairs and drew in a deep breath. He needed to get his poker face back on. 

 

As long as he had any breath in his body Yoona would never see the inside of that room let alone be lock inside it. He had to get her away and then once she was safely hidden away, he had come back and put an end to Sejoon once and for all, one way or another. 

 

It was the only way Yoona was ever going to be safe. 

 

In the middle of the night, Yoona was awoken abruptly when Changwook suddenly and almost violently wrap his arms around her and held her press against his chest so tightly that she fears that she was going to suffocate. His large hand cup the back of her head, pressing her face into the hard hot flesh of his chest, beneath which she could feel his heart racing a million miles a minute. 

 

His other arm wraps around her tightly and she could feel his hand fisted against her back. He threw his top leg over hers, holding her captive against him, wrap in a cocoon that was made up of his hard hot body. 

 

It took her a moment but she realizes that he was actually trembling, his body shaking around hers, his heart beating as though it were about to explode. 

 

Changwook held her tightly, not tight enough that he was hurting or bruising her but it was close. 

 

She wasn't able to move, unable to even raise her head to try to read his eyes in hopes of finding some answers but even if she were to raise her head it wouldn't help her as his head was resting on her shoulder, his eyes press into the soft flesh of her neck, his face turn slightly into her hair. 

 

He was liked a terrified little boy who had had the worst nightmare of his life and was seeking refuge from the horrors with the one he loves and trusted most. 

 

Yoona tried to soothe him, tried to get him to tell her what was wrong but he refuses to say a word, he just held her until eventually his heart rate slow down but not once during the night did he so much as loosen his hold on her. Yoona came to realize that he wasn't going to explain anything for a while nor was he going to let her go so she did what little she could to try to ease his distress. She had no idea how long they had stay like that but for what had felt like endless hours, she whisper soothing reassurances to him and his arm with her hand with all the soft tenderness of a mom soothing her child but in those long hours that Changwook held her tightly to him, trembling and holding her like she was the only thing holding him to this earth, Yoona realize two things that she now knew without a single doubt. 

 

The first was that something had happened that had terrified the daylights out of him and the second was that Changwook loves her, really truly right down into his soul love her. She could feel it in him, could feel it as surely as she could feel his strong heartbeat beneath her touch. 

 

He loves her. It wasn't part of playing a character for her precious plan. Somehow, against all odds, the two of them had fallen in love and Yoona was going to fight for him, fight with everything she had to make sure that he came out of this alive, whether she did or not. 

 

Because she loves him that much but now wasn't the time for the words. Now was time for comfort. Now was the time to just be together and take comfort in each other. 

 

Tomorrow, there would be plenty of time for the outside world to catch with them once again.