Seulgi jerked back from the older woman’s touch, nearly tripping if it weren’t for the soft hand grasping her forearm. There was an unexpected strength to Irene’s grip, which frankly threw Seulgi off. Although she shouldn’t have been surprised because Irene was a mafia boss. It’d be weird if she didn’t have some sort of physical training.

            “I’m sure Yeri told you that she’d give you a tour of the place. Is there a reason you left your room without her?”

            Again, that eerie knowledge of everything happening. Seulgi righted herself and tried to pull her arm from Irene’s grasp, unsuccessfully. The shorter woman continued staring straight into Seulgi’s eyes, unnerving the writer a bit, and stepped closer.

            “Or are you looking to memorize the layout of this place so you can do things behind my back?” Irene tilted her head expressionlessly. “You can go ahead and memorize it. I won’t stop you.”

            Oh, but how dangerous that statement sounded. Seulgi narrowed her eyes at her captured arm, unsure of whether using a mão de vaca* would be a good idea to get out of the wrist grab but the steely eyes focused on her face deterred her. Irene probably had a gun anyway. You can’t win guns with wristlocks.

            “I was just looking to see if there were any windows in his claustrophobic building. I actually feel like a prisoner.”

            Irene slowly let go of Seulgi’s wrist, grazing her fingers downward, brushing the back of Seulgi’s hand. Goosebumps rose in the wake of her touch. Stepping back for some space, Seulgi rubbed the ghost of warmth subconsciously, wary of Irene’s next moves.

            The mafia boss silently observed her before walking past her, brushing shoulders in the process, and taking a seat on the couch. A slender finger tapped the empty leather of the seat next to her.

            “Sit.”

            “I should head back to my room and wait for Yeri.”

            “Yeri probably knows you’re out and about. Come.”

            “Oh, I wouldn’t want to stay outside of my room too long.” Seulgi smiled sardonically. “Might really want to start memorizing the building layout if I do.”

            “As I said, feel free to. I can’t guarantee the consequences that will follow though.” Irene tapped her finger again. “I won’t ask a third time.”

            Sensing that she shouldn’t upset the cold beauty in front of her, Seulgi sat as far as she could from Irene by placing herself in a far diagonal within the C-shaped arrangement of the sofas. The latter didn’t look pleased, but given her neutral features, Seulgi couldn’t tell if she was necessarily displeased either, so she stayed put.

            “Have you had a chance to look over the papers yet?”

            Seulgi shook her head. “I got them a little while ago from Wendy.”

            “I apologize if Wendy was brash with you. She and I had some disagreements about your situation.”

            There was a lot that Seulgi wanted to ask in regards to that, but she pressed her lips together and smiled tightly. It was in moments like these that Irene seemed like a normal working adult than the leader of a large, illicit underground network. In fact, all three of the higher-ranked women she’d met so far didn’t strike Seulgi as the type to work in the mafia. “I must admit that you all do a good job with getting people’s guards down.”

            “I will take that as a compliment.”

            “Interpret as you will.”

            A brief silence settled over them before Irene crossed her legs, leaned back into the couch, and spoke again. “Once you start working in the nightclub, you will meet a good friend of mine who works outside of our rank system. She’s not listed in the papers, but you will know that she’s an elite right away.”

            Seulgi wasn’t sure what to expect, although she kind of wished that this woman would be a bit nicer. Well. What was she even thinking? She was now working for a mafia—nice things didn’t happen in the mafia unless it had to do with ridiculous amounts of money.

            “You’re thinking about what she’d look like.”

            At this point, Irene’s matter-of-fact vocalizations of Seulgi’s thoughts were somewhat impressive, although Seulgi would not admit that nor like it. She grimaced slightly. Irene was looking at her expectantly, waiting for Seulgi to react, perhaps confirm, Irene’s statement.

            “I’ve given up on having those sort of expectations, because the world tends to let you down in every way possible.”

            And boy, did Seulgi know it. A few years in the world of investigative journalism taught her to never trust what you see and to expect the worst. Sure, she did do some wishful thinking at times—hopefully this rich man isn’t truly a necrophiliac who hires desolate teenage runaways to steal bodies from morgues or hopefully these incidences of unusually high mortality among stray dogs isn’t because a retired naval officer hopes to terrorize his loud neighbours by hanging their carcasses in plain sight—but Seulgi was just one person praying in a world of over seven billion, and she wasn’t even sure if gods existed. If anything, it was people like Irene, powerful and untouchable and domineering, who were the gods among mortals, and nothing could bring them down with simple efforts. They didn’t grant wishes. They brought destruction.

            “It may come off as ironic for me to say this,” Irene replied, “but you will always find yourself pleasantly surprised if you have no expectations.” A grim recollection of something flashed in her eyes and Seulgi soon found Irene’s intense gaze staring at her, as if finding memory there in Seulgi’s face. “The things you thought were let-downs...they may come back to find you. Changed.”

            Seulgi wasn’t sure if that was a good thing, but Irene’s tone was in no way ominous. In fact, whatever emotions she had previously kept repressed in unreachable abysses shone through at those words, almost wistful, almost hopeful. She didn’t break eye contact with Seulgi, so it made the writer wonder even more why Irene was treating her like she was. None of it made sense unless Seulgi had previously interacted with Irene or her organization.

            “I would ask you what you’ve found, changed, but I don’t believe you’ll answer me.” Seulgi stood up, trying to keep her face free of emotion. “Now, if you’ll excuse me. I’ll head back to my room.”

            Irene grazed her eyes down Seulgi’s body before settling her sights on the younger woman’s lips. She gave another one of those barely visible smirks. “Goodnight. You’ll be busy tomorrow.” She got up and brushed past Seulgi, whispering in the taller woman’s ear as she did. “Make sure to make it back to your bedroom, not mine.”

-------

            Thankfully, Yeri had found her, given her an extremely brief tour, and locked her in her room. Literally. Seulgi woke up early, around five am, because her habitually irregular sleep cycles allowed her little rest when the sky was dark, only to find that she couldn’t leave to use the restroom. Sighing deeply, she had waited on the floor in the middle of the room with a full bladder for nearly three hours until Yeri silently opened the door and walked in on her about to burst at the seams.

            Fortunately, however—and to the great gnawing at her conscience—the mafia had money for everything, and that included food. Greeting the two women at the kitchen, which was on the second floor, oddly enough, was a buffet-style setup of foods ranging from scrambled eggs to steak. Seulgi braked on the way to the table as Yeri proceeded on without her, seating herself next to a brightly smiling Wendy who greeted her with a plate. The underboss and advisor chatted while Seulgi continued eyeing the food in disbelief, wondering if the mafia members had people who shopped and cooked for them or did so amongst themselves. It was probably the former.

            At least she thought, until a warm breath hit her neck from behind and Seulgi heard Irene whisper: “Are you not going to eat? I promise that Wendy didn’t put any poison in the pancakes.”

            Seulgi flinched at the smooth voice, unintentionally shivering. “I had assumed that you had maids, since you’ve already mentioned having cleaners back at your headquarters.”

            “It’s called Grace.” Irene made her way to the table. Seulgi followed reluctantly. “And we do have maids. It’s just that Wendy likes cooking at least one item every day.”

            Well, at least Seulgi knew to avoid the pancakes. If Wendy was anything like Irene and knew beforehand that Seulgi loved breakfast foods, she might have lined them with laxatives or something. The writer still shuddered at the image of Wendy’s overly cheerful smile.

            “Kang Seulgi.” Speak of the devil. “You should join us. There’s a long day ahead of you.”

            Seulgi bit her lip, plate still empty. “I should look over those papers you gave me. Will probably take breakfast back to my room.”

            “Sit down, Kang.” This time it was Yeri who spoke. “Wendy specifically made chocolate chip pancakes today to welcome you; unless you’d rather skip out on the sugar for the rest of your stay here, which-” she checked her fancy digital watch- “should be approximately for the rest of your life.”

            Jesus. Seulgi gritted her teeth but nodded. “Fine.”

            “Oh, and there’s usually someone who visits us here from time to time, but it seems like she’s busy today.” Wendy placed the chocolate chip pancakes directly in front of her with that predatory grin. “You’ll like these. I’m sure you have a bit of sweet tooth.”

            Wendy probably just straight up knew Seulgi had a sweet tooth, and for some reason, the extensive knowledge on her background didn’t surprise Seulgi. She actually was pretty undeterred by many things ever since her kidnapping...yesterday. Jesus, she’d only been a mafia member for a day. A groan slipped from .

            “If you wanted me for breakfast instead, you should have just told me earlier when we were over there.”

            Seulgi wanted to scream. Between Irene’s innuendos and mysterious intimidation, Yeri’s concerning (and perhaps somewhat intentionally threatening) dark humour, and Wendy’s intense and unfounded hatred of her, the writer was going to go insane in this place before she even got a chance to start the ‘i’ of investigation.

-------

            Fortunately, after learning the basics of running Sunny Afternoon, the ironically cheerful name of the sinister nightclub, and memorizing the faces and details of important ‘business people’ who would be frequenting it, hidden amongst the throngs of intoxicated young patrons, Seulgi received her phone and was left to her own devices as Yeri went to do some of her own work. The writer started exploring the sleekly-designed