"He was arrested." The waitress, who had served them just a short while ago, said the very last words that SeungHyun expected to hear. He wasn't the only one taken by surprise by them.

"Uh… He was what?" Jae Sang demanded.

"Arrested," the waitress reiterated. "Don't you guys, you know, talk to each other about stuff like this?"

Jae Sang didn't have an answer to that, but he did step back and put his radio to his lips. Hyunsuk instantly stepped into the space he had just vacated.

"Tell me exactly what happened," he said.

But the waitress's recollection was brief and totally lacking in any detail. SeungHyun knew, without a doubt, that they wouldn't be getting the information they needed from her.

Then Jae Sang, having quickly ascertained that the arrest was false, stepped back into the fray and took over the questioning.

"How do you even know he was a cop?" His tone was hard and unyielding – it riled him beyond reason that the police were somehow being blamed for Seungri’s disappearance.

"He said so!" The waitress was beginning to get agitated, feeling as though she was indirectly being accused of something. "And I'd been going to call 911 when he…" She gestured towards SeungHyun. "Told me to."

"Wait. You didn't call the police?" SeungHyun asked with dismay; his own guilt beginning to fester. He had left Seungri alone and now his brother was missing.

"No! I figured somebody else must have." The woman was now on the verge of tears, but nobody was prepared to afford her much sympathy. Getting details from her was like drawing blood from a stone. "Anyway, this car pulled up and the guy was shouting and waving his gun around…"

All of them tried hard not to dwell on the word 'gun' and it was Jae Sang who ground out the next question: "What did he say?"

"Cop stuff!" When the three men in front of her all looked ready to explode with exasperation, she quickly elaborated: "You know, like 'put your hands up' and 'get down on the ground'…" She trailed off with a shrug.

"And Seungri just complied?" SeungHyun asked, uneasily.

"He looked… confused." The waitress shrugged again.

"Of course he did," SeungHyun murmured, the guilt cranking up another notch. Seungri was suffering the after effects of a head injury and SeungHyun had left him. He conveniently ignored the truth that he had acted to save his father's life. At that moment, Seungri was the only one who mattered.

He, his dad and Jae Sang split up then, speaking to the other patrons of the café. But the waitress wasn't the only unhelpful witness they were destined to encounter: nobody else in the café could shed much light on exactly what had happened; even though the majority of them had been gawking through the window as the drama had unfolded outside.

They barely got any corroborating statements. The colour of the car was described as dark, or black, or dark blue, or green. The vague hope that someone might have noticed the licence plate was soon shot down.

The description of the man posing as a cop hadn't been any less vague: "He looked like an undercover cop." "He had those reflecting sunglasses." "He sounded like a cop."

The only thing everyone agreed on was the fact that he had a gun; and that gun had been pointed at Seungri.

"So what now?" SeungHyun stood with his hands on his hips and looked slowly around the café, ensuring that everyone had been questioned; that he hadn't missed a potentially valuable witness.

"Now," Jae Sang answered. "We get you and your dad checked out." He held up his hand to forestall any protest. "The EMTs are right outside."

"My dad, yeah." SeungHyun easily acquiesced to that, head injuries weren't to be taken lightly. "But…"

"SeungHyun, your hand." Jae Sang interrupted, softly.

Seunghyun looked down sharply as Jae Sang’s words seemed to reignite a pain that he had, until then, successfully ignored.

He was brutally reminded that, when he had deflected Arashi’s knife to save his dad, he hadn't got away completely unscathed. Now the white handkerchief he had wrapped around his bleeding hand was soaked scarlet.

"It's nothing." He tried to shrug it off. Finding Seungri was his only concern.

"SeungHyun!" Jae Sang let his anger get the better of him. The family were going through enough without adding self-sacrifice to their list of problems. He grabbed the young man's wrist and the makeshift bandage fell away.

Both Jae Sang and SeungHyun himself got their first real look at the injury. His contact with the serrated blade had been fleeting, but still damaging. The fingers of his left hand were torn; the wound ragged and it was still bleeding sluggishly in spite of his attempts at field first-aid.

"It'll be fine." SeungHyun stubbornly tried to insist.

"It won't." Jae Sang grabbed the other man's arm and then he went for the low blow: "And if I can get you out to the ambulance, then your dad's more likely to go, too."

It was strange. SeungHyun had thought his dad to be fine. Then he followed Jae Sang’s pointed stare and saw his dad sitting slumped in a nearby chair. The PI looked as though he had aged about a thousand years and he wore despair around him like a shroud. And, though he kept his hands clasped in his lap, SeungHyun could still see how much they were shaking.

SeungHyun nodded slowly. There was nothing more they could do there, anyway.

Seungri lay in the darkness and, with no way to track the passage of time, it felt like he had been there forever.

When the light eventually came, it came with such intense ferocity that Seungri was instantly blind again. The brightness made his eyes stream and his head pound and it felt as though a thousand watts were being shined on him from every direction.

He instantly wished for darkness again.

Squeezing his eyes shut, he waited for them to adjust to the sudden illumination and then cautiously cracked them open again. The brightness was still painful, but no longer felt like needles being stabbed directly into his brain.

With a tremendous effort, Seungri forced himself upright. He was staring at a concrete wall and he let his eyes drift slowly to the right. There was a bed, though 'bed' was a somewhat grandiose term. It was more of a metal frame, with a thin mattress, threadbare blanket and tatty pillow. It hardly looked comfortable.

Further around were a toilet and a hand basin; and beyond that another wall.

Moving awkwardly with his hands still bound, Seungri turned around a full 360 degrees. Three walls made up the majority of his cell and the sparse furniture it contained. The fourth wall was made up of metal bars: wall to ceiling and covering the entire length of the cell.

Recent memories assailed his still fuzzy mind: "Police!" "Put your hands up!". "Get to your knees!"

And now he was in what appeared to be a jail cell. If only he knew what he was supposed to have done.

SeungHyun’s hand was freshly bandaged and Hyunsuk had a sterile gauze taped to the side of his head. Neither injury had even warranted a visit to the hospital, much less a stay of any length. But neither of them considered themselves particularly lucky.

Arashi was insanely dangerous and he had also been armed. Yet he hadn't done either of them serious harm. Yes, the thrown knife had the potential to kill Hyunsuk, but that had merely been a ruse to facilitate his escape. No, Arashi hadn't been trying to hurt them. He had been a lure and his plan had worked frighteningly well.

Now the two of them sat in Police Chief Jin’s office, back at the police station. Jae Sang also sat with them and Police Chief Jin himself prowled restlessly in the background. A half-eaten pizza occupied the centre of the table, a laughable excuse for lunch when nobody really felt like eating.

"Seungri hasn't been taken by any law enforcement agency in the area," the Chief informed them, grimly. "I've called in as many favours as I can. Nobody can shed any light on this."

"He wasn't arrested." Hyunsuk own tone was grim. "It was Arashi."

"Dad…" SeungHyun felt the need to voice the inevitable argument. It couldn't have been Arashi personally; the timing just wasn't consistent.

"He had an accomplice." His dad's voice forestalled the protest. "Arashi was the distraction. He wanted to get one of you alone."

"And we fell for it!" SeungHyun exploded in anger but that anger was only aimed inwards. He had left his brother alone; thus playing straight into the psycho's hands. And now Seungri was missing.

"Wait a minute." As ever, Police Chief Jin’s voice was the one of reason. "There was never any evidence that he worked with an accomplice before."

"There was never any evidence of a lot of things!" Hyunsuk snapped back. "But he couldn't have worked alone not all of the time. He has an accomplice and he has my son!"

"But why put himself in such danger?" Jae Sang was doing nothing more than thinking aloud, but he suddenly felt all eyes burning into him. He looked up and then glanced away self-consciously.

"You want to elaborate on that, Jae Sang?" Police Chief Jin snapped, the tension was getting to all of them and the Chief was never one to mince his words; not even in the best of times.

A blush coloured Jae Sang’s cheeks as he suddenly found himself at the centre of attention and he sought the way to put into words his theory that was still only half-formed.

"Arashi being in that café can't have been a coincidence." He spoke slowly, giving his idea the chance to coalesce into something more. "He's not a stupid man and yet he put himself in plain sight of all three of you. Then he let himself be seen."

SeungHyun nodded slowly as he recalled the moment when the newspaper had been lowered and he'd looked into eerily familiar eyes – eyes that he had only ever seen in a photograph before.

"And then he ran," Hyunsuk took over the fragmented train of thought. "And he had an accomplice waiting. But he can't possibly have known…"

"Yes he could." SeungHyun felt almost breathless with the realisation of how well their enemy knew them. "Seungri wasn't going anywhere, he was in no condition…" He swallowed hard as he thought about that – and then forced himself not to dwell on it. "And he knew how on edge he'd got us, especially with mom…" another pause but this one was to swallow tears. "You went after him and I went after you. If I'd have gone first, you'd have done the same."

"He was targeting Seungri." Hyunsuk reached the inevitable conclusion. "Arashi had the chance to kill both of us, but he didn't. He didn't even try. He wanted Seungri."

"And now he has him," SeungHyun concluded, bleakly.

"I've had my partner canvassing the other businesses." Jae Sang tried for a positive spin. "Maybe we'll get some luck on the licence plate."

"More likely we'll just find the car abandoned again." Hyunsuk dropped his head into his hands. He still hadn't fully reconciled to the death of his wife; now he was being forced to face the loss of a son. And the last time he'd spoken to his youngest… "SeungHyun," he whispered. "Does he hate me?"

"No, dad." SeungHyun answered with absolute truth. Seungri didn't hate easily and he reserved such an extreme emotion for those who truly deserved it. "He doesn't hate you."

"But why Seungri?" Police Chief Jin put the conversation back on track even as he pretended to ignore the poignant look exchanged between father and son. "And why such an elaborate ruse? Why lure you both away and then have someone pose as a cop?"

"To make him do as he was told?" Jae Sang ventured. He knew Seungri and no other ruse would have worked in a circumstance where both his brother and his dad might have been in danger.

"But why make him believe he was under arrest?" SeungHyun hated this with a passion. He couldn't even imagine what his brother might be going through and that bothered him more than anything else.