For several horrible seconds, Semi was unable to breathe.  A rush of blood filled her ears and she almost fainted.  Laughing, Luhan came around the table and pulled Xiumin into a reciprocated embrace, patting his back – with a gun in one hand, Semi saw.  Feeling sick, she staggered back a couple of steps.  She had to get away before she started hyperventilating, or she had no hope of escaping the situation.

Before she could make it any further, however, a hand clamped around her wrist, yanking her to a halt.

“Don’t,” Xiumin told her curtly.  “He’ll shoot.”  He and Luhan had broken apart.  Forcing herself to breathe, Semi let her gaze travel from Xiumin’s impassive face to Luhan, who was grinning like Christmas had come early as he held the gun up in her direction.

“Better listen to your husband, dearie.  No pregnancy tests to save you this time round.”

Betrayal burned like acid in Semi’s throat and behind her eyes.  Maybe if she sat down, she’d have the opportunity to discreetly get her phone out and send a text or ring for help.  Limply, she relaxed her arm.

Xiumin, however, clearly saw through this, because he took her clutch off her and set it down in the middle of the table.  Luhan put his pistol down beside it and flung himself back into his original chair.  Without letting go of Semi’s arm, though he did relax his grip a little, Xiumin followed suit.  Semi stood there, unsure what to do and feeling helpless.  If it had just been one of them, and if there had been no gun, then she figured she knew just enough self-defence to floor one of them and run, but if she tried that here, the other one would just pick up the gun and shoot.  There was a slim chance that she could turn the tables if she had the gun—

Almost as if he could read her mind, Luhan reached out and pulled the gun a little closer to his side of the table.

“Hey, sit down,” he said, waving an airy hand.  “Xiumin said it’s your birthday.  Might at least enjoy the meal – there’s a high possibility it’ll be your last one, after all.”

Semi turned the most betrayed look she could muster on Xiumin, but he wasn’t even looking at her.

“Of course,” added Luhan, “that wouldn’t be the case if you agreed to take the blood oath with me, but Xiumin said you were very unlikely to accept that.”

“How could you do this to me?” Semi directed tremulously at Xiumin, trying to tug her wrist free.  He responded by tugging back, and she tumbled into the waiting chair.  Before she could react, Xiumin pushed her in.  He shot her a warning glance and tilted his head at the gun.  The meaning was clear.

“I’ll take that as a no,” Luhan said.  “You’re going to break Xiu’s heart, you know.”

“If this is what he does to me, he deserves it,” Semi spat out before swivelling to glare at Xiumin.  “I trusted you.”

He met her glare impassively, and after a moment or two he shrugged.  “I’m a good actor.”

“I can tell.”  Semi’s tone was so acidic it would have melted limestone.

“Hey, hey, hey.”  Luhan held his hands up.  “Let’s be civilised here.  He’s giving you a last chance, darling.  Don’t you think you should at least consider it?”

Semi loaded all her hatred into the look she gave him for that remark, and Luhan sighed.

“You’re a lost cause, aren’t you?  Let’s just get on with it, in that case.”  Ignoring Semi, he turned to Xiumin.  “We shouldn’t drag this out.  Let’s eat and get it over with.”

Feeling helpless, Semi watched as Xiumin nodded and sat up.

“How long has it been since we last had one of these meals?” he asked Luhan.  The man gave a shrug.

“Too long.  Over two years since we last ate together, and nearly five if we’re talking about dining out together with the pleasurable company of a female.”

“Ah.”  Xiumin leant back in his chair.  “So much has changed since then.”  He fell silent as the waiter returned.  Seeing the numbers evened and an opportunity to make a bid for freedom if the waiter was willing to help and quick on the uptake, Semi immediately tried to pull her wrist out of his grip, but Xiumin’s fingers tightened like a vice.  Letting out a small whimper of pain, she tried to pry him off with her free hand, and to her great surprise, he eased up.  But she was cowed enough not to try running away, especially when she noticed Luhan shooting a pointed look towards the gun.  She didn’t particularly want to get an innocent waiter killed.  Assuming he was innocent.  The man didn’t appear to notice the weapon, or he was choosing not to, and considering it was in the middle of the table, Semi suspected it was the latter.

She ended up watching in silence as Xiumin confidently ordered wine without looking at the menu and then asked for the soup of the day for all three of them.

“We’ll decide on mains after, if that’s okay,” he said.  The waiter nodded and swept the menus up before departing.

The instant he was gone, Luhan leant across the table.

“You said you were going to try to get the phone.  Did you?”

“I did.”  Xiumin’s hand slipped down into Semi’s as he slid a white iPhone 5 over the table top towards Luhan.  The familiar panda keychain and scratches made her heart sink.  Sickened, she pulled her hand out of Xiumin’s, which fell to her thigh instead.  “It was just lucky Jongin happened to bring it in for Kyungsoo to look at and he was so preoccupied with the final details on Seungri that he didn’t notice me taking it.”

Luhan let out a loud laugh, already flicking through what must have been the photo or video gallery on the phone and pausing every so often and tapping the screen.  Deleting the evidence.  Semi felt more and more helpless by the second.  Everything had come to nothing, and she knew that there was no chance of her walking out of the restaurant a free woman.  It was highly unlikely she was even going to make it out alive.

“Young girls can be so gullible, can’t they?” Luhan said without looking up from the screen.  Semi certainly felt gullible.  She sent a wistful gaze at her clutch, but there was no way she was going to be able to use her phone if she managed to get it.  “A few ‘I love you’s here and some chocolates and roses there and they’re willing to do anything for the guy they think they love.  Granted, this time you kind of got caught in your own trap, Xiu, but it’s pretty much fool proof, isn’t it?”

To Semi’s absolute disgust, Xiumin raised an amused eyebrow.  “What, have you been trying to get women to fall for your harmless face as well as mob bosses?”

“There’s a huge gap in the market since your rings closed down.”  Finished with the phone, Luhan tossed the phone aside.  “I know you didn’t really go in for soliciting, but Seungri and I were wondering the other day exactly how you ended up with so many girls working for you.  He wants some words of wisdom.”

Xiumin shrugged.  “Depends on the girl in question, to be honest, and whether you’re basically letting her live a double life at home and trusting her to come back without the police on her tail or essentially abducting her.  The first is much less conspicuous, but the second is much more solid in terms of risk-taking.”

“Yes, but we can’t decide to pick up forty girls from the suburbs of Seoul within a few months of each other, even if they’re not all legally in the country.  We can’t even do that within a year.  It’s far too noticeable.  People are beginning to notice with the thirteen we’ve so far taken.”

“You don’t have a problem killing that many people in a year, though,” Xiumin pointed out.  “What’s the tally so far?”

Luhan paused for thought.  “I’m not sure.  Somewhere in the hundreds.  Lots of it was inter-gang warfare, so I lost count somewhere after a hundred and twenty.”

Semi couldn’t help openly balking at how casually Luhan was treating all of this.  Xiumin wasn’t exactly much better.

“And Park Hankyung, the man who had the personal honour of being beaten to death by you in that video, how come he was on the list?”

“Oh, him?”  Luhan pointed to the phone.  “Drug money.  He was broke and owe me several million dollars for hard drugs, so I gave him an ultimatum – his family, or he could give me information in payment.  He tried to get away so I took his daughter.  The begging—”

Semi flinched, unable to think of a word that even expressed how abhorrent she found him.  Xiumin’s thumb started rubbing absent circles on her thigh, and she shifted away from him, casting him a dirty look.  He retreated his hand with some reluctance.

“Oh, look, I’m making you uncomfortable,” Luhan observed with amusement, and Semi shuddered.  “It wasn’t anything ual, I assure you.  Of course, he came looking for his daughter, so I told him I’d exchange her for information.”

“He worked in the government, didn’t he?”

Luhan nodded.  They both paused the conversation as the waiter returned with the wine, allowing them to taste it, and then placed bowls of soup in front of them.

“Yep,” said Luhan as he dunked his spoon into the soup.  Xiumin, hugely restrained by contrast, lifted a small spoonful to his mouth and blew on it before swallowing.  Semi didn’t even pick up her cutlery.  There was no way she would want to eat with two such disgusting people, even if her stomach hadn’t been churning so badly.  “Pretty senior position.  I got hold of a fair few state secrets through him.  And then he decided he didn’t want it anymore, so I shipped his daughter off to some partners of mine in China and he tried to involve official people, but without anything that would reflect on his doing drugs.”  Like Xiumin, he blew on his soup before swallowing the mouthful.  “Of course, after that, I had to kill him.  And he decided it would be a good idea to run.  He just wasn’t very good at it.  Didn’t even get out of the city.”  He took another spoonful of soup, but paused with it in his mouth, eyes abruptly widening before he spat it out into the bowl – Semi flinched backwards – and started coughing into the napkin.  His eyes were watering in a matter of seconds, and his face began to turn red.

“What’s in the soup?” he demanded urgently, getting to his feet.  “Xiumin, you ordered it!”

Xiumin set his spoon down, suddenly looking incredibly uncomfortable.  “Pesto and basil,” he said in a quiet voice, “to mask the fruits de mer.”

The spoon dropped from Luhan’s hands with a clatter.  “Y-you—”

“You were only ever going to be taken down by somebody close to you, Luhan.”

Semi felt her jaw drop open.  Her mind was whirling as she tried to take in what had just happened, and Luhan’s obviously was too from his stunned reaction.

Then he started retching, one hand going to his throat and the other covering his mouth.

“Luhan, sit down and relax,” Xiumin told him, rising to his feet and reaching for Semi’s clutch.  “You’re only going to make it worse.”  He removed the epipen and started round the side of the table.  Luhan scrambled away, putting the chair between them.  “Luhan, please, you need the adrenaline shot.”

Shooting Xiumin a frantic, deeply betrayed look, Luhan shook his head and retched.  Deciding it was useless to approach any further, Xiumin held out the epipen.<