A pain in my neck was the first thing I felt when I came to. Eyes still closed, I stretched out the muscle to try and ease the pain. It helped. A little. 

The surface under me was soft but firm and smelled heavily of floral cleaner. Letting out an involuntary groan, I pushed up on my palms and opened my eyes. It was a couch that I had been laid down on, dark gray and somewhat new that sat in the middle of a minimally decorated living room void of any personal photographs or clues as to who lived there. What little artifacts did decorate the mantel above the gray brick fireplace and dark wooden shelves flanking either side gave the area more of a film set feel, like a murder mystery set in an old mansion far away from the city. Not exactly what I had been expecting. Well, at least I wasn’t tied to a chair in some remote warehouse or basement ready to be tortured. I woke up haphazardly thrown on a couch in a living room. 

Slowly, I sat up the rest of the way, keeping an eye and ear out for any signs of life. No one seemed to have been assigned to watch over me. A mistake that would hopefully work in my favor. Strewn out on the glass coffee table were the contents of my purse - keys, dead cellphone, driver’s license from back home, passport, the address of my apartment in case I ever got lost, along with a few pieces of gum, a stretched out hair tie and a couple of coins I hadn’t been able to put away in the old jar sitting on the counter back home.

Well, .

Okay. So, they knew my name. That was fine. I could be out of the country in two days. A quick goodbye email to work involving a fake family emergency and a plane ticket bought with the emergency funds I had saved away. All I had to do was get out of here and then hide away while doing the rest. Surely, I could hide out in a jjimjilbang and use an internet cafe for the rest. 

As silently as I could manage, I gathered up my belongings and put them back into my purse that had been thrown on the floor. I slipped the strap over my head and tiptoed out into the foyer. A light shined down the hallway from an open entryway, leaking out hushed voices with it. To the right was the front door. I looked around one more time to check that I was really in the clear before hurrying to the door. My feet were weightless on the wooden floor to my relief. Taking a deep breath, I curled my fingers around the handle and tugged. 

It didn’t budge. 

I suppressed a groan and tried again. 

Still nothing.

“No, no, no,” I whispered through clenched teeth. I looked for the lock that kept freedom from me. That was when I finally noticed it: a keypad located to the left  of the door kept it securely locked until the corrected code was punched in.

“No use running, sweetheart,” a deep voice rumbled behind me, his hot breath tickling the hairs on my neck.

A gasp shrilled from my throat as I whirled around. Though he had been mostly in shadow, I recognized the man who had knocked me out as he wrapped his fingers around my wrist and pulled me down the hallway towards the entryway. On the other side was a kitchen, chrome and massive with a breakfast island in the middle where eight men stood and sat around with half empty plates in front of them. My eyes bounced over their faces to the walls surrounding them. Another entryway led to what looked like a formal, enclosed dining room. A door was located on another wall, but as the wall was deeper into the house, it was most likely a pantry. At best, it could have been an old servant’s hallway that led to another room, but that was on the other side of the island. There was no way I would make it before being caught. 

I was trapped.

My jailer let go of my wrist and nudged me forward.

“It’s nice for you to finally wake up, Wren,” said the man who sat directly on the other side of the island facing the entryway. His face might have been friendly and handsome under other circumstances, but the way he spoke told me he was no boy next door and it sent a shiver down my spine.

Not daring to speak in case my voice came out meek and cracked, I glanced around the men who now held me captive. They were nothing like the gangsters I had grown up watching on TV, staring intently at the TV as the documentary interviews played. These men, each one so different in height, facial structures, and even hair and styles, looked more like the guys you were to eye at the bar than murdering criminals. But what they did have in common with the TV gangsters was their aura. Every single one of them gave off the feeling of danger, warning not to get too close. And I was now surrounded.

The one who spoke waved towards the stool in front of me. “Please, sit.”

I didn’t move out of the stupid need to be defiant. I kept my gaze steady with his as if he’d relent and let me go if I showed enough courage. A hand shoved me forward into the stool and forced me to sit. I shot a look at the man behind me, who merely smirked in response. To the other, I huffed, “What do you want with me?”

He leaned back and folded his arms against chest as he balanced on the stool. “Well, it seems you went and made friends with the wrong person.”

“He wasn’t my friend,” I bit. Then felt a bit guilty. John was actually something close to a friend. Well on his way to one. Before they killed him. “He went into the same cafe I did a few times and we would talk. That was it.” I crossed my arms to copy his posture, though my stool wobbled at the movement. “He was American, so I felt comfortable around him.”

“Huh,” someone scoffed. “Still the charmer.”

I bit down on my tongue to stop myself from correcting the speaker about John still being anything but dead.

The man directly behind who I had assumed to be the leader stepped forward, leaning forward with his hands on the counter. Cat-like eyes set into a young face narrowed at me. “What did he tell you?”

“Nothing,” I answered sharply. “Nothing but lies, apparently. He said that he was in town on business for his company. That his boss sent him because he could speak Korean. He kept everything vague.”

The leader turned to Chanyeol. “Did you find it on him?”

Setting his jaw, the referred to as “Chanyeol” shook his head. “No, we didn’t. We’ll have to wait until nightfall again to see if he hid around the alleyways.”

Cat Eyes motioned to me without bothering to look at me. “Did she have anything on her?”

“Just her cell phone and a gum wrapper.”

“We’ll find it eventually,” the leader concluded. He turned to me. “For the meantime, you’ll stay with us.”

“What?!” I jumped up, the stool landing with a cladder behind me. “I don’t know anything! I don’t even know who you people are! I can’t say anything to anyone. Just let me go!”

“It’s too dangerous. Our rivals got a glimpse at you and they won’t be as hospitable as us.”

“Hospitable?” I scoffed. “You call kidnapping someone and hitting them with chloroform hospitable?”

“Compared to brutal torture? Yes.”

I opened my mouth to fight back but the motion of standing up so quickly that the world began to tilt. The edges blurred, slowly growing to take over my vision. 

“Is everything okay?” someone asked.

“No. No, I feel….” My eyes closed and the black took over.

**

Sehun caught the girl before she could hit her head on the tile floor. She was limp but breathing. After a few gentle shakes when she didn’t come to, Yixing stepped forward, taking her head in his hands. Blood appeared on his left fingers when he pulled his hand away.

“She’s had severe trauma to her right temple,” Yixing concluded. “Could be a concussion. We need to get her to the infirmary.”

Sehun stood up and followed Yixing down the hall while still carrying the girl, the rest of the boys trailing after them. After putting her down on one of the two high tech hospital beds, Sehun stepped back to let Yixing work.

“I thought you said you didn’t harm her?” Junmyeon growled out of the corner of his mouth through closed teeth.

“We didn’t,” Sehun shrugged. Junmyeon’s tough act didn’t really work on him anymore; it simply rolled off of him and disappeared into the air like vapor.

“How did you miss a head wound?” Jongdae snickered.

Kai sighed sheepishly. When other people were around, he was scary and intimidating, as soon as it was just them, though, he turned soft on a dime. His mouth crinkled in the corner as he scratched the back of his head. “I think the blood blended in with her hair. She never said anything about being injured.”

“Kind of hard to do that when she’s unconscious, don’t you think?” Jongdae poked. Kai sent him an annoyed look that held no power. Sehun rolled his eyes as he leaned against the wall, folding his arms over his chest. He really hoped that Jongdae wasn’t about to really get going. Once either he or Baekhyun started, it was nearly impossible to get them to stop. 

Yixing cleaned the wound and pulled out his sewing kit. “She’s lucky. The cut isn’t too deep. I won’t know if she has a concussion until she wakes up. I can say, however, that having chloroform in her system didn’t help anything.” With great precision, he began to sew the tiny cut on the side of the girl’s head while Kyungsoo held her hair out of the way.

“Do you believe her when she says she doesn’t know anything?” Minseok asked, frowning deeply. He was the one with the least amount of trust, never taking anything at face value. Sehun admired that, especially after he’d been too trusting in the past.

Instead of answering, Junmyeon turned to Kyungsoo, who nodded, never taking his eyes off of the girl. He was their human lie detector, able to read even the smallest facial movements to detect a hint of deceit.

“She’s telling the truth.” Kyungsoo said confidently. His gaze never left the girl, never flinched as the thread poked through the delicate skin, pulling the thread through after it. “She doesn’t know any details about the chip or John’s mission.”

“John wouldn’t have been that stupid,” Chanyeol huffed. Though they weren’t exactly on the same side, he had a soft spot for the American. 

Baekhyun ran a hand through his hair. “Are we really going to keep her? It could bring trouble down on us.”

“We have to,” Junmyeon replied as he rubbed his eyes with his fingers. “If the others really saw her, then they’ll be after her, too. They’ll torture her until she’s dead, telling the truth or not. I don’t know about you, but I’m not a fan of innocent blood being spilt. Besides, she might lead us to something, even if she isn’t consciously aware of it.” He turned to Sehun, puffing up to full leader mode. “She’ll stay here with you.”

“What?” Sehun snapped to attention. “Why here? There’s eight other houses she could be at, including yours.”

“My house is the most dangerous., That’s exactly where they would be expecting her to be,” Junmyeon reminded him. Sehun had no argument against that. “Your house is the most secure and easiest to get to in an emergency. Don’t worry, we’ve got a lot on our plates now. We’ll need to meet up often, so we’ll be in and out of here more than you think. You won’t have to be alone with the girl too much.”

“Lucky,” Jongdae murmured with a sly smirk, causing Sehun to roll his eyes. Kai elbowed Jongdae in the stomach. “What? She’s cute.” Kai chuckled in agreement.

Junmyeon pointed at Jongdae, “You definitely will never be alone with her.” Jongdae pouted, but didn’t argue. “Will she be okay, Yixing?”

The little surgeon nodded. “She should be fine. In fact, I believe she should wake up soon.”

“Good. You and Kyungsoo will stay here with her. Everyone else, back to the kitchen.”

**

The side of my head throbbed with a dull pain when I came to. The light was harsh and bright, giving off the same atmosphere as a hospital room. The bed I was lying face up on was not-too-comfortable, rigid and stiff, needing to be broken in. Without thinking, I shot up and started to climb out of the bed, hoping to make a break for it.

“Yixing!”

I mistakenly believed that I was alone. One man - a shorter one of the group - was standing in the doorway. The other one in the room was standing at a steel counter, cleaning some tools that I couldn’t clearly make out. He turned around quickly and, at the sight of me trying to stand up, ran and pushed me down back on the bed.

“Hold on, there,” he said softly. “You’ve had a serious hit to the head. There might not be too much damage, but you still need to take it easy.” He sat down on a stool beside the bed, smiling in a warm way that didn’t match the rest of the mansion’s aura. I had to resist smiling back, especially with that dimple. “I’m Yixing. It’s Wren, right?”

I nodded slowly. “I guess you got that from my ID?”

A guilty look came across his face. “Sorry. We just needed to make sure that you weren’t someone dangerous. Someone working for the enemy.”

“Yeah,” I scoffed. “Because I’m the dangerous one.” The fact that anyone could look at me and think that I could do any sort of harm was almost laughable. I mean sure, I could throw a punch and my dad taught me how to shoot a gun when I was younger, but I didn’t exactly scream superspy.

Unless, that was the point.

“In our line of work, anyone could be a danger,” the second man in the room said softly, stepping up behind Yixing. He had a soft face as well, not quite as inviting, but not scowling like some of the others. “My name is Kyungsoo.”

“Okay, Kyungsoo,” I tested out the name, letting out a breath. It was a friendly type of name as well. “What exactly is your line of work? Spies?” I shook my head, taking abc the answer. “No, that can’t be it. But it’s something illegal, especially with that,” I pointed to Kyungsoo’s gun hanging from a holster under his arm, very visible without his blazer.

“We’re more of an underground crime syndicate,” Yixing explained. “I believe the word used in your language is… a mafia.”

“Explains this house,” I murmured, glancing around. No normal person had a room like this at the ready. In that moment, my stomach let out an involuntary gurgle, causing both men to chuckle.

“Come on,” Yixing stood up and held out his hand, helping me down from the bed, “I’m sure the others are already eating again and you’ll see we’re not all that bad.” I eyed him suspiciously. That was a hard statement to believe, given the circumstances. To placate me, he added, “Kyungsoo made the dinner. He’s the best cook out of all of us.”

I caught a quick glimpse of a shy smile from an otherwise stoic mafia member.

Back in the kitchen, the other men were laughing and talking loudly, gathered once again around the kitchen island, eating like a normal group of friends. The silence was sudden and deafening once they all turned and stared at the three of us entering. Yixing pulled out an empty chair for me to take before sitting down on my right.

“Kyungsoo, come sit down. I’m done eating,” the leader-like one called, waiving him over. He cleared his spot and held out the chair for the chef.

Yixing grabbed two clean plates and bowls, setting one of each down on the table within arm’s reach and started serving food onto my plate. He handed me a pair of silver chopsticks. “Do you know how to use them?”

“Yeah,” I said, trying not to sound bitter. It was an honest question. “I’ve been living here for six months, so I’ve had to get used to them.” I dug into the food, hopefully not too eagerly as everyone watched me closely.

It was amazing. Bulgogi had easily become my favorite dish since moving here, but this was beyond any sort of expectation. Though the meat was indeed thin and layered, the marinade was different, better even. The spices blended together perfectly. I couldn’t help but smile.

“Do you like it?” Kyungsoo asked cautiously.

I nodded enthusiastically. “It’s amazing!”

He fought a smile again.

Leaning up against the counter, the leader cleared his throat. “We’re not too bad then, are we?” I sent him an unamused look without stopping my chewing. He half laughed at that. “Although I’m sure Kyungsoo and Yixing already have, I think it’s best we introduce ourselves. My name is Junmyeon, the leader here. This is Minseok, my right-hand man.” He gestured to Cat Eyes who sat to Kyungsoo’s left. “The big eared giant is Chanyeol.”

I squirmed in my seat a bit, remembering the interaction with him and John just a few hours before. But now he had a smile on his face and I could see that his ears were indeed a bit larger than average. They clashed heavily with his low voice and the demeanor he had carried himself with.

“Over here is Baekhyun,” Junmyeon gestured to the other side of Kyungsoo. Baekhyun had a soft face, like a puppy, and a smile to match. He waved at me and I couldn’t help but give a small wave back, my chopsticks still stuck between my fingers.

“I’m Kai.” The tanned skinned man who knocked me out earlier leaned forward onto his end of the island. The smile he gave me was somewhere between sweet and flirty. I prayed that any blush I couldn’t fight would be too noticeable. “But you can also call me Jongin,” he informed me. I simply nodded, slightly confused in regards to the two names and what the difference between them was.

“The name’s Jongdae,” the man to my left beamed, inching in closer.

Instinctively, I leaned away. “Hi.” My voice came out small.

“Wow, scaring her already,” Baekhyun laughed.

“Jongdae, back off,” Junmyeon ordered.

Jongdae shrugged nonchalantly before righting himself. “Sorry.”

“Back there,” Junmyeon pointed to the corner behind me, “is Sehun.”

I turned in my seat to the direction he was pointing in and kind of wished I hadn’t. 

Brooding in the corner was the tall, black haired man who had been part of the group from the alley. His face seemed to be in a permanent expression of distinct annoyance. His arms were crossed over his chest and his eyes flickered to me for only a moment before settling back on the floor.

“This is his house,” Junmyeon continued, pulling my attention back to him. “And this is where you’ll be staying for the time being.”

I gulped and my eyes flickered back to Sehun. If only this had been Yixing or even Baekhyun’s house. I would take almost everyone - save Jongdae or Minseok - over the one person not smiling. I put my chopsticks down on the table, the rods clanging slightly from the motion.

“Are you done?” Yixing asked softly. I nodded. He stood up, taking my dishes with him and placing them in the sink.

“I think we should all be done,” Junmyeon suggested. “While you get some rest, Wren, I’ll have a few of my men pick up some clothes and other necessities from your apartment. Just write down your code.” He gestured to someone with his head.

Yixing placed a scrap of paper and a pen in front of me. 

I didn’t want to do it. Writing down the code to my door felt like giving in, like surrendering my life over to them. But there was hardly any other choice. It didn’t matter if they had access to my apartment or not. I was stuck here. Might as well stay here with a few comforts of my own. Reluctantly, I wrote down the four-number code and pushed the paper away. Baekhyun swiped up the piece of paper, folded it, and placed it in his pocket.

“Can’t I go with them?” I asked. It was a long shot, but I dreaded the idea of any of these guys going through my underwear drawer. Not to mention praying they would remember that I was female and therefore needed certain products for that time of the month.

Yixing answered instead of Junmyeon. “It’s too dangerous. The Chinese Cartel has men everywhere, and I’m sure they will try anything to get their hands on you.”

“Clean up after yourselves, men,” Junmyeon ordered, ending the conversation and sending Yixing a scolding look. Apparently, he wasn’t supposed to let the part about the cartel slip out. “Sehun, show her to her room for the time being.”

Begrudgingly, Sehun pushed himself off of the wall and headed towards the entryway, motioning with his head for me to follow. I bowed good night to the rest and ran to catch up.

Sehun’s legs were almost twice the length of mine and I had to nearly jog to keep up with his stride, falling very behind while going up the stairs. He didn’t say a word to me until we stopped at a door at the end of the right hallway.

“This should make it easy to remember which room is yours,” he said without any feeling whatsoever. He pointed down the hall, past the stairs. “My room is on the other end, on the left. If there are any emergencies. You can wander around the house tomorrow. I don’t care. Just use common sense. You can go anywhere, unless the door is locked, then obviously it’s off limits.”

I nodded in understanding as he opened the door. 

I gasped after taking in the room. It was just as big as the living room downstairs, but it wasn’t as aristocratic. The theme was simple, with white walls and matching dressers. The large king-sized bed, located directly across from the door, had a crème colored comforter with pink roses embroidered in the fabric.

“You have your own bathroom,” Sehun informed me. “Get some rest.” He left without a single second of eye contact and stalked down the hall with speed.

Trying not to take too much offense, I stepped further into the room and closed the door behind me.

Removing my purse from my shoulder, I placed it down on the nightstand to the left of the bed. After taking off my jacket, I remembered my cell phone that John had shoved in my face. I jumped up on the bed, crossing my legs and inspecting my phone. It really was dead, with not a single percent of battery to even turn on for a second. I never carried around my charger and I doubted that Sehun would give me one, so I was out of luck there. I flipped the worthless device over and over in my hands until I noticed something odd. The slide where my sim card and SD card were stored was slightly sticking out from the top. It took some digging, but eventually I got my fingernail under the cap and popped it open.

Where my white sim card normally was, a small black card that just barely fit was in its place. Could this be what the men were looking for? What John was so desperate to keep hidden? 

An internal debate started inside me. I could give it to Junmyeon - that seemed the right thing to do. But what then? Even though it would be great, I doubted they would let me go as soon as I handed it over, insisting that I was still in danger from this other cartel. But John said that I couldn’t trust these men either.

“But how could I take you at your word, too?” I wondered out loud. 

For now, I would keep it hidden, wait and see what happened over the next few days. If these gangsters could prove to me that they could be trusted, that they weren’t as bad as my mind was insisting, then maybe I would give it to them.

Maybe. 

Or maybe, I would destroy it.