He walked out of her bedroom and disappeared for the rest of the day without letting anybody know where he was going.

Back inside the office, a suspicious envelope just made its way to Ji-Hoon’s desk with the rest of the group all reunited after having heard a shocking revelation from one of their men.

“Are you sure about this?”

“Yes sir. I even traced the phone call that was made from that phone and it led straight to him.”

Running his fingers through his hair, Ji-Hoon leaned back against his chair while staring at the envelope, hesitant on opening it.

From Seungho to Mir, the four boys were spread out across the room, still trying to wrap their heads around the statement from their spy. As for G.O, he felt as if there was an information missing, as if there was some kind of loop hole surrounding the rumor of Seonya’s betrayal.

“I don’t think she’s working for him… There’s something there but I don’t think she’s on his side.”

“What do you suggest then?”

“We ask her about this.” Turning around from the window, his gaze landed straight at his uncle with his hands crossed over his chest. The rest of the boys were left in silence as they waited for the man’s reaction.

“What if she lies to us? What if she is actually working for him and she played us all along? She was with Hyunseung for the past three f* years Byunghee! She could’ve well fooled us all!”

“And you believe this?! You had kept an eye on her for those same three years Ji-Hoon! You knew her even before all this started! You are the only one that knows what the hell is going on.”

Feeling frustrated, G.O walked out and loudly shut the door behind him without giving a second glance at the rest of his friends.

He was walking his way to Seonya’s bedroom and knocked on her door without having a response for the next few seconds. From there, he walked around the house until he saw her outside, standing over the balcony with the view from their garden in front of her.

Observing her, he breathed out to calm himself down.

He didn’t want to believe a word that his uncle just said; he believed that she fell into a trap and that she was forced into whatever Hyun Su had planned for her. But deep down, a part of him was afraid that he had been lied to, he was afraid that she had tricked him into believing she was the victim when in fact she may have been the perpetrator all along.

He made his way to Seonya while she was still looking in front of her, unaware of her new company until he softly called out her name; turning around she spotted G.O walking up to her and smiled, pushing away the slight ache she was feeling seconds ago.

“Hey you, what’s up?”

“We need to talk…” The serious tone he used had caught her attention; her smile faded away and looked at him with a concern creeping up, afraid about what he wanted to say. “What’s going on?”

“About what’s going on… I need to know if you’re telling us the truth.”

“Truth? About what?”

“We know that you had something to do with Leo and Jae Hwa being targeted by Hyun Su…”

With her breath suddenly stuck in , she looked back at G.O with her eyes wide open trying to figure out how to answer him when all she had in her mind was a pure blank.

“Seonya… Are you really working for him? A-are you on his side?”

“N-no, of course not-”

“Then why did you do this? You know that if Joon ever finds out he’s going to be the one coming after you.”

He took a step closer to her as he looked in her eyes, trying to see something that would prove to him that he was right. She was about to answer him when they got interrupted with Seungho coming out, somewhat looking angry.

“G.O, Seonya; office. Now.”

He quickly went back in with the other two following him behind. Once they were inside the office, Ji-Hoon had his arms over his chest with his back leaning against the edge of his desk.

The glare he was giving his niece sent shivers down her spine but she could also see disappointment flashing through.

“J-Ji-Hoon? What’s going on?”

“Sit. I want to show you something.”

She did as she was told without any questions and once she took her seat, she had an envelope thrown her way. “What’s this?”

“Open it.”

She took it in her hands and open the lid. Once she looked inside, she pulled out the pictures and silently gasped when she noticed the content of the photos.

One by one, all of the pictures were showing her encounter with Hyunseung just from a few days ago when he corned her in the streets; the last one she saw was the one where he took her by surprise with a kiss, making her linger as she stared at it.

She placed them back on the desk and took in a deep breath before looking back up at her uncle.

“What do you want me to say?”

“I want to know what happened.”

“Why should I tell you when you obviously sent someone to spy on me!” She got up from her seat and was about to walk away when he got a grip on her arm pulling her back. “I didn’t. Someone sent us those pictures.”

“W-what? Who?”

“Obviously your dear boyfriend! What were you thinking?!”

She pushed herself away from his grasp and slapped him across the face, surprising everyone in the room.

“Don’t you dare call him my boyfriend.”

She was stomping her way out of the office when Seungho suddenly stood in her way, blocking the passage to the door. She heard G.O’s voice softly calling out to her, pleading her to explain what happened.

“Hyunseung… He corned me.”

“What do you mean?”

“He was forcing me to reveal Leo’s name but I didn’t say anything. I knew I caused trouble when Hyun Su went after the boy… I mean I get that he’s the uncle but-”

“Uncle? Hyunseung?” Ji-Hoon was the one to speak out as he took a step closer with his arms still crossed over his chest.

“Mhmm. Leo is his nephew… You guys didn’t know?”

“Then that would make him Stefanie’s brother and… Hyun Su’s son…” The shock was clear on their faces, which surprised Seonya thinking that they had already known this information. “Seonya… what else do you know?”

“Well not much, except that Leo’s mom was a ballet dancer, a famous one at that and that she is related to both Hyunseung and him… But Hyunseung never told me this. When we were together, all he told me was that his father had died, that he never knew his mother and that he had a half-sister but they never talked.”

“Half-sister? That would be Stefanie I guess…”

“Must be.”

Silence floating across the room, Seonya was looking down on the floor while she was nervously playing with her fingers.

“What are you guys are going to tell Joon?”

The pictures displayed across the desk caught his attention.

He walked closer and grazed with his fingers over the content as he was taking a closer look at them. ‘What the f- Seonya?!’

His anger was slowly starting to rise as it crept up in his veins while he was still staring at the pictures. He suddenly threw them across the desk until they fell on the floor and looked around to see if he would find anything else.

Looking around, he didn’t realize the chaos he was creating until he heard his name being called out. He shot his head up and saw the youngest Mir, eyeing him with concern, asking him what he was doing.

“I need to find out the truth.”

“What truth?”

“About Seonya damn it! Where the f* is she?!”

“I-I don’t know…”

He stomped his way out of the office as he roughly pushed Mir aside, making the young one stumble backwards. Rushing down the hallway, he took out his gun from behind him and kept calling out Seonya’s name through every room he was walking into.

Once he was standing in front of her bedroom, he shoved the door open with his foot and searched around. Seeing that she wasn’t there, he walked out and made his way to the ballroom where he heard the sound of faint music playing.

Without a second thought, he stood in front of the door and pointed the gun straight at her. She still didn’t see him as she was to focused on her routine to clear her mind from today’s events. The sound of a gunshot made her fall straight on the floor with a pain shooting from her arm.

She cried out from the sudden impact and suddenly found herself with a heavy grip around her neck, making her gasp. She looked up and saw Joon in front of her as he had his gun in one hand and had it pointed against her head while he was still strangling her.

“I should just kill you right here. I can’t believe you betrayed me like this! I TRUSTED you!”

His grip around her neck got stronger, losing the air to reach her lungs. She tried to push him away but she could slowly feel her strength fade away; she choked out her words to make him stop but he only ignored her.

“Pl-please! Joon! J-just let me explain!”

“Why?! So you can lie to my face again?!”

“N-no! Joon! Please! It w-wasn’t what you think-”

“STOP LYING TO ME!!”

He had knocked the back of her head against the floor making her cry out from the pain as she suddenly started to feel dizzy from the lack of air as well.

The next thing she knew, she found herself coughing out loudly with the sudden grip gone while loud voices were being heard around her. She turned around with her stomach on the ground as she was still catching her breath.

“Are you okay?” She looked up and saw Seungho hovering above her; she wasn’t able to form an answer, still under shock. “Let me help you get up.” He grabbed onto her hand and she suddenly felt the pain in her arm from earlier. She looked down and saw nothing else but a small cut.

She turned her head to look at Joon who was being held up by G.O and Cheondung as he tried to get to her, scaring her more. She backed away further against Seungho who was tightly holding onto her as she was still slightly shaking from the impact.

“Do you know that because of you, my boy can’t even sleep at night?! He has constant nightmares because of your stupid betrayal! I should just kill you right now- Let me GO!”

He tried to get out of the grips around him, using all his strength and energy but got nowhere.

“He forced me to do it! I didn’t have any choice!”

“OF COURSE YOU HAD A CHOICE, YOU IDIOT!”

His rage sent shivers down her spine as she kept staring at Joon, not able to look away. “I DIDN’T! He threatened me countless of time! And every chance he got, he always sent someone after me-”

“So what?! You did this to save yourself?! Haven’t you thought about the rest of us?! ARE YOU THAT SELFISH?!!”

“NO! I did this because he threatened you all! He said that he would go after you one by one and make me watch – Joon… He has my dad… a-and he’s alive…”

“Your father? He’s been dead for two years. Hyun Su lied to you. You should’ve known better.”

He spit out his words with such anger, she could feel her heart break. The way he was looking at her wasn’t helping either. She grabbed onto her chest trying to regulate her breathing with her body leaning further against Seungho’s chest; Joon’s words echoing through her mind.

“Y-you’re lying. H-he can’t be dead. I-if he w-was, I-I would’ve known-”

“Well to bad, so sad. Now you know how it feels.”

A hit behind of the head from G.O, the older one looked at him with a look of disbelief and anger at the insensitive act coming from his friend. “Stop being like this. She told you her reason. You would’ve done the same thing if you were in her shoes and you know this.”

She let go of her hold from Seungho and took at hesitant step towards Joon with her arms hugging her chest.

“I promise you, I never meant to hurt you like this – I didn’t even know why he wanted me to know about you leaving town so constantly, I didn’t even think it was a big deal… Joon… When he told me that he was going to hurt you, I-I panicked! He already hurt G.O with that blackout at the school and he almost killed you with the drink at the charity event, I was afraid he was going to do something worse… I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

Her tears were falling with a shaky breath escaping through her last words. She had her gazed fix on Joon, completely forgetting the others that were surrounding them. She saw his expression softened but there was still a little sting of hatred that was there. He had to admit that he hated to see her like this, but what he hated more was that she hid something so big, it put not only himself or his son, but the lives of everybody he knew in danger and it tore him apart.

What made it worse was that he was actually falling in love with her but whatever love he was feeling inside his heart just froze with hate coming through, feeling like he got cheated on.

He was still angry because his only son was probably scared for the rest of his life and it broke his heart; he promised his mother that he would protect their little one and he failed just because of the girl that was standing in front of him.

He was blaming himself for trusting her to easily even though she was technically the victim, telling himself that he should’ve let her escape instead of bringing her back into town and risk his life to protect her; but another part was blaming her for making him going through this. Once was enough when he was holding onto the body of his deceased wife but knowing that his son might be harmed by that lunatic was the last straw that held him together.

With no rationality left in his mind, he acted quickly, taking everybody by surprise; hitting the two people that were holding him, he grabbed onto the closest gun and pointed straight into Seonya’s forehead with the click of the trigger echoing.

She looked back at him with her eyes wide in shock and froze in her spot, her breath cut from her lungs. Another click was heard and from the corner of her eyes, she could see Seungho holding out his own gun, pointed towards Joon, ready to shoot.

“Drop the gun Joon.”

“No.”

“I said drop it.”

“Are you really going to shoot me because of her?”

“If that is what it takes to calm you down, then yes I will.”

“And since when do you even care?! She caused nothing but trouble!”

“You know that it isn’t her fault, we were in this long before she was in the picture. Now drop it.”

One last glance at Seungho and Joon sighed, letting his arm fall by the side of the body. Seungho followed and just for a moment Seonya quietly breathed out in relief; Joon looked back at her and quickly used his gun to hit her over the head, making her fall on the ground.

The sudden act made the others jump on him as they pulled him out, taking out the gun from his hand.

Trying to get herself back up, she could feel something wet falling down the side of her head; reaching out and looking on her fingers, she saw blood and looked back up at the boys, half of them distraught while Joon showed nothing else but that same hateful gaze.

“Be lucky that’s all you’re going to get from me. And don’t you dare come any close to my son or I am going to kill you.”

He roughly pulled himself out of the strong hold of the group and walked out of the room without looking back.

Betrayal isn’t a strong word to describe how twisted and distressed he was feeling at the moment, but he knew that his world was slowly falling apart once again and this time, he wasn’t only going to stand by and do nothing; someone was targeting his goal and he was ready to jump on anyone that was blocking his way.