She wasn’t sure how long she’d been in the car, but she figured trying to memorize the scenery outside might be helpful. Despite the darkly tinted windows, she was able to make out several streets that she was familiar with, which made her wonder why Kai was so nonchalant about her staring out the window, clearly in observation. Perhaps it was the fact that he might have known she wouldn’t be able to contact Irene without being caught out by him or perhaps he just didn’t care, but Seulgi felt a little unnerved both at his coolness and the blatant gaze she felt on the back of her head.

“Are you planning on memorizing where we’re going?”

Seulgi glanced to her side at Kai’s voice but didn’t turn to look at him. “I like to be informed. Such a simple thing, yet a precious commodity these days.”

“Spoken like an intellectual. Yet, here I thought you were smart enough to notice that we’ve been circling the same places for a while now.”

At his words, Seulgi blinked, taken aback, and squinted at the street signs. He was right. They’d passed Apgujeong again, making Seulgi realize that the driver had been going back and forth from Sinsa-dong to Cheongdam-dong. Damn it. Why hadn’t she caught on?

“As long as you keep trying to know more than you should, we’ll keep circling. So it’s your choice: finish dreaming up that impossible fictional escape route in your head or sit back and we can have a nice chat.”

Seulgi wracked her brain for any alternatives to suggest in negotiation but found none; pressing slowly into the cushion of the carseat, she gave Kai an impassive face to continue.

“I can’t decide if you’re clever or not. Your actions hint at both.”

“I won’t comment, lest you pick a side, whichever it may be.”

Kai raised an eyebrow but didn’t push further. “So we’ve done my introduction. Do you still want to go ahead or shall we skip that formality? I’m willing to play dumb just this once.”

“Let’s not waste time then.”

“Very well.” Kai crossed one leg over the other in a swift and sharp motion, tapping slowly against the side of his sleek watch. “Moving on: you probably have questions.”

“Everyone seems to think so.”

“Ah, so it seems like Irene has been holding some degree of conversation with you already. Good.” He lifted his chin slightly, angling his face so that he was looking down at Seulgi. It made him seem even more predatory than he already was. “It’ll be easier for us that way.”

“Why am I here?”

Kai tilted his head to the side innocuously. “We haven’t reached a destination yet.”

“You know what I mean. Why am I with you in your car? You know who I am and why I’m around.”

A small smirk painted Kai’s lips as he brought his head to an upright position again. “Well, if you haven’t figured it out yet, I’m holding you hostage.”

“Against who? Irene?” Seulgi sighed, pressing her palm into her eyelids. “What good reason is there to anger one of your business partners?”

“‘Business partners’ is a rather stringent term. Plus, if I were to be honest with you, our dealings are a lot more fraught with tension than that of men trading fancy AI knowledge or manufactured steel. Not that we don’t have connections in those places.”

“But there has to be a reason you’re doing this. If there is so much tension, as you say, there isn’t any incentive to angering any of the other parties.”

“You deem yourself to be of that much importance?”

Seulgi inhaled sharply. “Well…no, but…I can’t think of any possibilities in which you would kidnap one of Irene’s workers for s and giggles.”

“Ah, well. It seems that you can’t be sold.” Kai dropped his lighthearted demeanour. “There is something I need from you.”

“From me? I’m under constant observation and I can’t fight. It seems like you don’t want to tell me the reason, but I can’t deny that I’m curious about your motives.”

Kai tapped his watch again. “Just testing a theory,” he mocked. “Whatever use Irene found in you, so did I.”

“That tells me absolutely nothing, but I’ll play along.”

At that moment, Seulgi’s phone rang, piercing into the closed space of the car’s interior like shrapnel. She nervously glanced at Kai, who coolly nodded at her to answer her phone. Taking care not to tremble, Seulgi pulled out the device to see that the call was from Irene. Kai held a finger to his lips and took the phone from her, placing it on speaker.

“What the are you doing with her?”

Irene’s voice was a low growl that barely made itself audible over the quiet rumbling of the car’s tires over the gravelly road. Seulgi wondered when they had left the area they had been traversing but quickly turned her attention back to the phone conversation, realizing that Irene seemed to know Kai was with her.

Kai placed his finger down to speak, keeping his eyes on Seulgi the entire time. “I thought you would call much earlier. At this time, with that tone was not something I expected.”

“Don’t play with me, Kai.”

“And she’s lost her composure too, I see.” Kai leaned forward, forcing Seulgi to look at him. “Have I touched a sensitive spot?”

Seulgi shivered.

Irene was silent for a moment. “Whatever suspicions you have…they’re wrong.”

“I wish we trusted each other enough for me to believe that.” A humourless chuckle. “I’m taking her for the time being. I trust you won’t move hastily given our positions.”

“You’ll find nothing. She’s innocent; leave her out of this.”

Kai hummed, unconvinced. “Rats don’t squeak until they’re frightened. Let’s see if she’ll fight or surrender to stay alive.”

“Kai. If you touch a single hair on her head—”

“Irene.” Kai narrowed his eyes. “Goodbye.”

He hung up the phone and pocketed it, leaving Seulgi a bit dumbfounded. Noticing her bewilderment, Kai sighed.

“You heard me. Do as I say, or you die.”

“You said you wouldn’t kill me yet.”

“I won’t.” He briefly glanced out of his window. “Ah, we’re here already. Let’s talk somewhere nicer, shall we?”

Afraid to move without permission, Seulgi waited until her door was opened for her and she was led out of the car onto soft grass. She was met with a long one-story building that was covered in reflective glass; it stretched between two rows of young oak trees with a small skip in one row to provide an opening to the entrance. The roof was a dome made of several triangles meeting at a tip, sharp enough to ward off any landings on top of the building.

“If you’re done admiring my company office building’s exterior, I’ve already ordered my men to prepare some coffee. Unless you prefer tea. Or juice.”

Seulgi gave Kai a blank stare. She may have looked young and incapable compared to all the killing machines in this damned organization, but she was strong enough to handle some coffee at this point in her life.

“Coffee is perfectly fine. In fact, I’ve gone without it the whole day today,” she said with a too-wide smile. “Was just starting to feel caffeine withdrawals.”

Kai lifted his hands in faux surrender. “Was just trying to be a good host.

Seulgi internally scoffed at the centuries-old host etiquette of kidnapping your guest. Some real Beauty and the Beast right here. “I’m overwhelmed by your consideration.”

“More to come; don’t be too enthusiastic yet,” Kai shot back sarcastically. “Come on in.”

They made their way past the kempt grass into dark sliding doors that were activated by biometrics. Seulgi looked around to see that the ceiling was a lot higher than it seemed from the outside, probably due to the structure of the roof. The lights were harshly bright. She furrowed her eyebrows and forced her gaze to the floor in defeat only to see faded bits of red footsteps spread erratically amongst the white marble floors. Seulgi gulped.

“If you’ve been to Grace, you’ll realize that the company buildings are a lot different in structure due to each group’s area of specialization,” someone informed Seulgi from beside her. She jumped a bit at the sudden presence of a small man with large eyes and a shaved head. “Oh, sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Kai continued to walk without looking back at Seulgi. “That’s D.O. He’s my consigliere. I don’t believe you’ve met him yet.”

Seulgi glanced at D.O. who scanned her with curious eyes. “No, I don’t think I have.”

“Pleasure to make your acquaintance. May our meetings be long and our ends quick.”

Seulgi furrowed her eyebrows even further in confusion. “What?”

“It means I hope I don’t have to kill you, and if I do, that you’ll die with the first shot.”

“Oh.” Seulgi looked at the floor again. Her shoes were scuffing against some of the red footprints. “Yeah, I hope so.”

They soon arrived at a lift on the other side of the building. No one really seemed to be using it other than Kai, so Seulgi assumed it was exclusively for the administration of Kai’s group: boss, underboss, consigliere. She was proven right when upon arrival to a lower level floor (so the building wasn’t just one story, as deceptive as that was), they were met with a tall man with hands so large the gun he was spinning around seemed like a child’s toy.

“Loey. I didn’t know you’d already be here.”

“I heard you were bringing someone back, so I thought I’d be p