“I see you’ve met Joy.”

            Seulgi snapped her head towards the smooth voice. Irene regarded her with an even gaze, crooking her finger for Seulgi to come forward. Still confused by the turn of events, Seulgi hesitantly followed the motion of the mafia boss’s beckoning, only to be met with Yeri’s glare now directed towards her. Blinking wildly, Seulgi raised her hands again.

            “I swear I just found out who she was.”

            “Oh,” Irene interrupted. “I’m sure you already knew her. With all your roaming around in the club. You just didn’t know her name or job.”

            . Seulgi blinked innocently. “I—”

            “No need to explain yourself. I did say that you would meet her.”

            Seulgi nodded. “Right.” She slowly lowered her hands, eyeing Yeri’s scowl discreetly. Irene cleared , to which Yeri sighed and rolled her eyes. “Um, is everything okay…?”

            Yeri humphed but nodded stiffly. “Just keep to yourself. We’ll tell you what you need to know.”

            Unsure of how to proceed, Seulgi pressed her lips into a tight line before lifting the corners up hesitantly. “So...uh, I guess you guys know about how I found the basement then, right?”

            “Have been expecting you to but didn’t know that it would be so soon,” Irene answered. “Although I’m not surprised in the least.”

            “Sorry, it’s just a habit of mine to stay observant.”

            Irene stepped forward to peer into her eyes before flicking a strand of hair out of Seulgi’s face with a finger. Seulgi flinched but didn’t break eye contact.

            “I’m aware.”

            Seulgi heard Yeri snort from behind Irene. “Don’t look so stiff. It’s not like it’s the first time she’s known what’s going on.”

            “Alright then.” Seulgi looked away first, meeting Yeri’s eyes instead. “Am I allowed to ask what I’m allowed to know about Joy?”

            “She’s a .”

            “Yeri,” Irene said in a tone that Seulgi was sure was supposed to be warning but still maintained a cool neutrality behind it. The mafia boss, who hadn’t broken her gaze from Seulgi’s face, lifted an eyebrow. “I can tell you what you want to know, but keep in mind that I don’t give out things for free.”

            Oh . Seulgi nodded curtly.

            “Well, if you don’t have any questions at the moment, I need to attend to some business, so feel free to visit Wendy on the second floor. I’m sure that she has some things to discuss with you.”

            Seulgi wasn’t really looking forward to whatever these things were that Wendy wanted to talk to her about, but knowing that 1) Wendy could easily hunt her down and do something to her if she didn’t show up and 2) whether she showed up or not, she could never be safe from Wendy anyway, Seulgi decided to go ahead and nod to assure Irene that she’d ‘feel free’ to ‘visit’ Wendy.

            “And stop worrying about her. She wouldn’t do anything to you that isn’t within reasonable constraints. You’re mine, after all.” Yeri nodded enthusiastically in agreement, obviously refusing to think that Wendy could do anything to upset Irene.

            There was an icky connotation to that statement that made a shiver run down Seulgi’s spine. For one, she didn’t know what this crazy mafia organization considered ‘reasonable,’ especially given the fact that Yeri’s absurdly dark sense of humour never helped her figure out what ideals Irene or anyone else had. In addition to that, the writer constantly felt intimidated by Irene’s use of possessive when it came to her. On one hand, Seulgi knew that it was expected because she voluntarily submitted herself to this. On the other hand, being under the complete control of another person’s jurisdiction brought dangers Seulgi knew about but had only experienced by proxy because of her former job.

            “You have a lot of confidence in your...things.” Jesus, she was getting brainwashed.

            “Indeed.” Irene clicked her fingers and Yeri left the room, presumably to allow them some privacy. Or perhaps she was getting whatever preparation materials were needed for Irene’s business. Either way, Seulgi was alone with Irene again, and it caused her to instinctively take a step back. “Although you seem to be more wary of me than Wendy at times.”

            “Is that so?”

            “That is so.” Irene stepped forward. “But you may be assured that as long as you are under my care and do not upset me, I will try to keep you safe. That is the least I can provide to my people for their loyalty.”

            Seulgi took a few more steps back until she felt the sofa behind her and leaned against it, studying the cold woman in front of her. “Keep me safe…” she murmured, gripping the back of the sofa gently. “Does that include from yourself?”

            “If necessary. But you will have to protect your own body first and foremost.”

            There was no time to respond, because Irene left right after that, leaving Seulgi to muse over her softly-spoken words. What did she mean by ‘if necessary?’ And why specifically just her body?

-------

            For the most part, Seulgi didn’t extract too much information from her snooping at Sunny Afternoon, but whatever dumb luck she had must have struck her all at once, because a chance encounter with the mayor of Seoul soon enough brought her information that left her reeling. She hadn’t been following him or anything—she didn’t necessarily stalk people unless she was dealing with more risky cases where she couldn’t chance being caught—but they came into contact anyway after the mayor bumped into her.

            He had thought she was one of the ‘special’ servers that Seulgi had soon found out about and requested that she bring him a whiskey straight up to a room on the second floor. Seulgi wasn’t really sure what the procedures were in such a case and she didn’t want to bother Yeri over something so trivial, so she ended up receiving it from the bartender and taking it up herself.

            It was a jackpot of sorts, because she caught the tail-end of a conversation that the mayor and one of the mafia members had been engaged in. The man hadn’t cared enough to cut the discussion about intentionally skyrocketing the land prices in a rather underdeveloped area of Seoul, even after Seulgi had knocked and entered. As a result, the former journalist found herself repeating the tidbit of information over and over in her head as she made her way back downstairs, fingers itching to grab a pen and some napkins to jot it down before the words fled her mind.

            Land, land. Seulgi remembered Yeri telling her that the man named Kai was in charge of dealing with any proceedings that were related to land and thanked her good memory for giving her a starting point. She wondered if Irene, Lucas, and Kai all discussed these things beforehand and came to a unanimous decision on what plans to drive forward or if each boss worked solely within their own areas without interference from the others. She hoped to find out soon.

            Joy turned out to be an unexpected source of information, because she knew enough about the proceedings that the three bosses carried out (perks of being high in Irene’s ranks and needing to know things but not having to serve Kai and Lucas). Seulgi found time to talk to her at the club despite being half-scared that Joy would try to sit on her lap and distract her from investigating, not that she was doing a whole lot with the current restrictions of being locked away at the club. Part of her suspected that Irene had stationed Joy at Sunny Afternoon to watch over Seulgi when Yeri had to pull several ‘servers’ out for a mission. Irene had said that she had eyes everywhere.

            “So you’re telling me that this stuff is only happening in Seoul?”

            Joy nodded, legs crossed from where she sat on the high stool and hand lazily swirling the straw in her nearly empty glass of Blue Hawaii. “It’s limited because having it nationwide would cause a total collapse of the stable infrastructure they’ve set up in this city, and it’s easier to deal with customers in a concentrated area because things can be cleaned up more quickly when anything goes askew.”

            “But doesn’t it also increase the chances of the entire network being busted? Like, they’ve placed all their eggs in one basket.”

            Joy shrugged. “I’m not sure of all the logistics. I just know what I do; Irene handles the rest.”

            Seulgi drummed her fingers anxiously on the counter. “And are you allowed to be telling me these things so freely?”

            “Well…” Joy drawled, setting her drink aside with a devilish grin on her lips. She leaned closer to Seulgi and the monolidded woman’s plain ear cuff. “Who says it’s free?”

            There was a sense of déjà vu as Seulgi jerked back and nearly knocked over her beer bottle. This woman was basically a taller, flirtier version of Irene, equally cunning and remarkably tactical. “There must be something you want from me, I assume. To tell me all this so nonchalantly”

            Joy winked. “Oh man.” She laughed. “You’re not a journalist for nothing, aren’t you?”

            “I’m not a journalist anymore.”

            “But you’re here because you still are. At heart.” Joy took another sip of her drink, eyebrow raised at Seulgi as she downed it slowly, and smiled widely. “And fortunately for you, I’m no-contract who can tell you things. At a price, of course. I technically am not tied to the same obligations as everyone else, and the worst Irene can do about me giving out inside information that I do know is kill me.”

            Seulgi ignored the repeated mention of give and take. “That’s...rather optimistic.”

            “Eh.” Joy shrugged. “It happens, you know. In this industry, you’ve got this voice in the back of your head that tells you that everything is temporary anyway. You see it happen. You make it happen. One moment you could be a kid living on the streets, next you’ll be killing others, and then you’ll be the one dead. It’s vicious, but it’s the reality, and most of us have accepted it. Better than the alternatives, really.”

            “Most?”

            “The newbies and the associates.” Joy uncrossed her legs and knocked on the counter for the bartender. She arrived and made Joy a mojito upon request. The killer flashed her a dazzling smile and lifted her drink to motion for the bartender to leave. “The newbies don’t know anything yet. They’ll learn soon enough. And the associates stupidly fight the way they do because they think