“Jongguk! Jongguk, please, we have to go now!” Mark cries, trying to drag Jongguk along the pavement on his two little feet. “I’m not kidding when I told your teacher that a family issue came up!”

“But I want to see the firefighters first! Is it cool to be a firefighter, hyung?” Jongguk protests, trying to pull Mark back to his daycare center instead.

Mark has only traveled about 50 meters away from the daycare at most, but it feels like he has trudged through a hundred miles of sand because Jongguk is being extremely insistent about watching the firetrucks come in all their blazing red glory. And it was already hard enough to convince Jongguk’s after school childcare worker that Mark was not trying to kidnap the kid—and that she didn’t have to call the police.

Luckily he has more than a few pictures with Iseul who is registered as one of Jongguk’s guardians. The firetrucks began pulling up to the scene shortly afterwards, and by then the childcare staff was okay with letting Jongguk go. Now the problem morphed into the form of a stubborn kid.

“Oooh, that looks super cool. Are they gonna climb those ladders?”

“It’s very dangerous, Guk,” Mark says through gritted teeth as he finally decides to scoop Jongguk up into his arms. “It’s not safe here. We need to get you somewhere safer like with your appa or something.”

Mark looks from left to right wildly, trying to figure out where to take Guk. What’s the plan, Mark? He chides himself for not knowing.

“Where are we going?” Jongguk asks like an echo to his own thoughts. Fortunately, the kid has accepted his fate of not being able to watch the firemen do their job today and is now resting his chin calmly on Mark’s shoulder. “Is there a problem with appa?”

“I don’t know yet,” Mark mutters, “and I think it’s a problem with noona.”

“Noona? What happened to noona?”

“I don’t know yet, Guk,” Mark repeats. A bead of sweat trickles down the side of his face as Mark waits to cross the street. How can he make the pedestrian light hurry the up?

“Is it a problem at noona’s office?”  

“Noona—, .”

“??” Jongguk repeats, starting to giggle. “That’s the word appa always tells noona not to say in front of me!”

But Mark isn’t listening. A black car has just pulled up in front of him with the window rolled down, and somehow, Mark finds himself staring down the barrel of a gun held from inside the car.

“Get in the car,” the driver says in a low, even voice, tilting his head to gesture at the backseat.

Mark freezes, his fight or flight response completely failing him. The pedestrian light turns green. Mark knows he should move his feet, but in his terror, he only finds himself capable of holding the back of Jongguk’s head to make sure it stays facing the other way.

Mark tries to take a step backwards, but then suddenly, he feels something small and cylindrical pressing on the left side of his waist.

Oh .

There are at least two of them.

“Hyung?” Jongguk pokes his head up, starting to sense that something is amiss.

“Not now, Guk,” Mark whispers, not daring to look at his left. “Listen to hyung and close your eyes for a bit, okay?”

“Watch your step,” the mystery driver says in a bored voice. “I don’t have all day here.”

Mark knows a deadlock when he’s in one. Slowly, he begins to step to the right and towards the back door. Maybe, maybe if he’s fast enough—

“What are we doing?” Jongguk asks, lifting his head again. “Are we taking an Uber?”

“You know what an Uber is, little guy?” Mark teases, attempting to sound breezy. Maybe if he’s fast enough, he can pretend like he’s about to get in the car and then—

“Of course! One time, noona came to pick me up in an Uber! I think this is back when she was still my babysitter because then appa got mad because—”

“Jongguk, I’m sorry, but please be quiet for a second, okay?” Mark begs. He finally gathers the courage to dart his eyes at the other man standing on his other side. “Um, you can’t be noisy in an Uber.”

“Really?”

The stress is splitting Mark’s brain in half. He knows this is stupid, crazy, and probably only works in movies, but he needs to try. He needs to try making a run for it.

He’s seen enough movies to know that it’s all about timing. So with shaky hands, Mark opens the door. He pretends to look imploringly at the captor on his left, shaking his head a little to convey that no, he doesn’t want to do this. Predictably, the stranger only responds by digging his gun deeper into Mark’s waist.

Mark holds his breath and bends down, pretending to step one leg in. Half of his body seated on the backseat already, Mark slowly lifts his other leg to tuck it in… but not before landing a solid kick on the other man’s shin.

The man stumbles, taken off guard, and Mark leaps out of the car at what feels like the speed of light.

His feet start running despite not knowing where to go. They trip and take him behind the body of another parked car, and Mark pauses to duck as the sound of bullets raining onto metal fills the air. Behind this car, he sees a bus approaching.

“HYUNG! What are we—”

“Kim Jongguk I am begging you to please shut up!” Mark yells as he makes a beeline for the bus, tripping back onto the sidewalk. People start filing out through both the front and rear door, and Mark jumps into the vehicle through the front one.

Come on, come on, just move already!

“Hey! Have you paid your fare?” the bus driver calls after Mark as he pushes through the remaining passengers to make it to the back of the bus.

Mark turns around to say he’ll do it at the back but just then, the mystery man bursts through the front door of the bus.

“Oh hell no,” Mark mutters, quickly lunging out the back exit.

Mark trips again as he lands—he blames the weight of the 6-year-old in his arms for the lack of athleticism today—but ignoring the springing pain in his ankles, he stumbles back into a run.

He cuts through the light crowd, zigzagging his way through pedestrians going in both directions. The sound of blaring car horns, irritated ‘hey!’s, and his own heartbeat blend into a cacophony of discordant noise that makes his head spin. Mark stops for a second at another intersection, trying to decide if he should just run for it.

“Hyung, that guy is still chasing us,” Guk warns, and that’s all the push that he needs. Bracing himself for a reckless real-life rendition of Crossy Road, Mark takes his first step forward.

But just before he can take another one, another car—a bigger, blacker SUV this time—halts right in front of him. The door slides open.

“Are you ing stupid?! GET IN!”

Another alarm bell goes off in Mark’s head. “What are you—who—”

“Kim Jongguk! Look at me and tell your Mark hyung who I am!”

Jongguk whirls his head around and lets out a small cry that sounds like relief. “D.O. hyung! That man is chasing us—”

“Mark Tuan, get in the car,” D.O. orders with an icy glare. Wordlessly, Mark complies. How does this guy know his name anyway?

“What the hell were you thinking?! You know people who do that in movies use stunts and choreography, right?”

“What was I supposed to do?! There’s a guy with a gun chasing me!”

“Back seat,” D.O. barks, ignoring him completely. “Keep the kid busy while we talk. Let’s move!”  

The car door slides shut and before Mark can fully sit down, the vehicle is in motion again.

“Uh, yeah, okay,” Mark sputters between pants. He can still hardly believe everything that just happened, but shaking himself out of his daze, he starts bouncing Jongguk on his knees.

“I’m clear. All yours, Taec,” D.O. says into his phone. Just as the words leave his lips, Mark hears something that he’d prefer to describe as a bottle of champagne popping.

Yeah, Kai is definitely a mobster alright.

“Hey Guk, that was kinda crazy huh?” Mark says, throwing on a perfectly manufactured faux grin. He pulls out his phone. “Wanna turn on some music to chill?”

“Chill?” Jongguk repeats, looking around. “But what’s happening outside?”

“That guy who was chasing us is a bad guy, Guk,” Mark explains, going to Youtube to pick out a random music video for Jongguk. “Here, don’t worry about it while hyung and D.O. hyung make sure the police catch him, okay?”

“Why was he chasing us? And Jongguk can watch anything?”

“Mmhm!” Normally, Mark uses his mobile data sparingly, but today, he could care less if Jongguk decides to watch a 2-hour Valorant stream.

With Jongguk occupied, Mark crouches and moves to occupy one of the bucket chairs in the middle row of the car. “I’m sorry, who are you again? Do you guys have any idea about what’s happening here?”

“I’m D.O. and I work with Kai. I think I should be asking you that. Why did you pick Jongguk up and why is someone chasing you?”  

 “Okay, this is going to sound insane but Iseul—she basically sent Lucas and me this bunch of code—”

“I’m sorry, did you say Iseul?” D.O. interrupts, tapping urgently on his phone screen. “Taecyeon, get a hold of someone with Kai! Mark, hold on, I gotta record this.”

“Yeah, she sent this, uh, code that basically turned out to be a message to Lucas and me,” Mark feels his mouth racing against his heartrate. “It was a bunch of short messages like pick up Jongguk, run programs—oh, she also built a program to set off the fire alarms in her building and the daycare—”

“That was her?” D.O. frowns. “Why did she set off an alarm? Is she trying to—Taecyeon, did the other car find anything at the daycare—wait, what did you say?”

D.O. is obviously wearing an earpiece but Mark has no idea how many people are on the other end. He watches D.O.’s face, tapping his feet anxiously.

“Morse code? A bomb?”

“Holy .” Mark’s eyes widen as everything falls into place. That’s why she was being so cryptic—it was a bomb threat.

Iseul never warned them about the bomb in her message—maybe she was scared that Lucas and he would not want to help once they knew the actual stakes. Or maybe she didn’t want them to panic too much. Mark’s brain ping pongs endlessly between the possibilities. Iseul getting a bomb threat. Iseul warning them and Jongguk, and also Jae and Suzy—

“Find it and disarm it! Let the goddamn police know and send all the other kids away!” D.O. turns back to him. “Mark, what else did Iseul say?

Mark’s brain races through the facts. “She told us to run the programs at 5.15, which Lucas evidently did. And then she mentioned Jae and Suzy. Kai’s dad. Check the HOC and look at the roof. Oh, and she told us to hurry.”

“What the hell?” D.O. whispers, mostly to himself. Talking to his earpiece again, he says, “Who’s at Safehouse Q? Sehun? Chanyeol? Tell them what Mark just said. I’ll be there in 5.”

Before Mark can ask who all these people are, where base is, or where the hell are they going, D.O. suddenly turns to him again. “Mark, you said Iseul sent all this to Lucas too?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Then tell Lucas to stick with other people. He might be in danger too.”

The unexpected revelation hits Kai like a gunshot, but he has no time to bleed. Springing into action, he ducks into the car to help Iseul’s sister out.

“—Jae, are you okay?” Kai pulls the cloth gagging Jae’s mouth away. He notices a trickle of blood coming out of her hairline. “What the hell happened? Where—why—did this happen when you were supposed to meet Iseul? Where is she?”

Kai has a million questions that he doesn’t even know how to begin asking. As Jae gasps for air, he tries pulling her out of the car but then realizes that her feet are bound too.

“, that jackass is gonna cut off the blood flow to my feet,” Jae hisses in annoyance as tries to wriggle her way towards the open door. “I don’t know, I haven’t met her yet. I arrived at her apartment building just as people were flooding to the parking lot because of a fire alarm, and out of nowhere someone grabbed me from behind. You don’t know what’s going on?”

“I’m going to carry you to a car that will take you back to the HOC. Once you’re there I want you to work with Chanyeol, Sehun, and the rest of the Aces who are back there to figure this out, alright?”

Without waiting for a response, Kai lifts Jae up and carries her to one of the SUVs they came with. “Someone help her out of these and take her back to our medical facility!”

“I’m not going back to the HOC.” Jae frowns stubbornly. “I’m coming with you to look for my sister.”

“You can’t—”

“You won’t be able to stop me. She risked her life for mine when she told me to wear a very specific outfit. I’m probably dressed the same way she is today, that’s why your men got mixed up.”

So Iseul knew everything that was happening. Youngmin was probably using her to pull the strings. Kai tries to shake himself out of speechlessness and says, “Jae, I have to look for both Suzy and Iseul. It’s going to be dangerous and you’re already bleeding—”

“Just get in the car, Kai, I’ll tell you what those guys said when they abducted me.”

That effectively shuts Kai up. Mechanically, he climbs in and signals at Taeyong, who’s in another car right behind the one they’ve just wrecked, to follow him.

“I’m taking the SUV. The rest of you, make sure everyone who is in that car and with that car is dead. Call for clean-up, then get back to the HOC.”

The moment the door of the SUV clicks shut, Taeyong backs the car up to leave the wreckage and starts apologizing. “Boss, I apologize about the confusion—Jae really did look like Iseul and was covered.”

“Don’t apologize as if we wouldn’t have needed to save Jae anyway, Tae. You said you left Jaemin at Iseul’s apartment right? Any updates?” Kai asks, pulling out a retractable knife from his back pocket. Turning around to look at Jae, she holds out her tied hands and in one swift motion, he sets them free.  

“I’ll take that,” Jae says, taking the blade and using them for her ankles.

“About that, boss… Jaemin is reporting to me live about the apartment’s fire alarm. It’s a Morse code message. It’s only saying bomb leave bomb leave over and over.”

There’s only one thought that crosses Kai’s brain.

Iseul.

It feels as though his nerves are being electrocuted when he makes a call to the person in his earpiece.

“Chanyeol, get some of your guys to scan Iseul’s apartment building STAT,” Kai yells, delivering a series of rapid-fire orders. “There’s a bomb in the building and I’m convinced this was Youngmin’s doing. I don’t know how much time we have but you have to disarm it—, someone call D.O. for the daycare team—”

“I’ll do it,” Jae readily supplies.

“And Taeyong, you tell Jaemin to confirm whether Iseul is the building or not! She’s not here!” , . Kai feels like his mouth can’t move fast enough to race his psycho dad and it’s driving him mad.

“Yeol, I don’t know how much time we have but if the bomb explodes before you—”

Taeyong, who is on the line with Jaemin, suddenly holds out his hand and plucks his earpiece out with a grimace.

Instantly, Kai knows what that means.

His entire body goes limp.

“Boss… the bomb just went off.”

Silence.

Someone finally breaks the silence. Someone in the backseat.

“What?”

Jae’s voice is strangled with disbelief, denial, and living, breathing rage.

Kai’s face is as white as bone.

It seems like a perfectly timed announcement. Like a virus, the report from Jaemin’s team has begun to spread and is now causing Kai’s phone to vibrate incessantly.

“Iseul,” he whispers. A kind of fear that he has never met before grips him. It takes him several tries to ask the simple question. “Taeyong, was Iseul—was she—”

“We’re checking, boss.”

“Jongguk,” he says next, turning to Jae with deranged eyes. Kai doesn’t normally whisper, but this time the energy left in him only exists in wisps. “Jae, please—please tell me you have something.”

He can’t bear the thought of both halves of his heart being taken away from him at the same day—in the exact same way.

“D.O.’s team is with Mark with Guk already,” Jae says after a long, killing second. “They caught Mark running from an unidentified man with a gun.”

Kai exhales, feeling like he’s been resurrected. But as soon as he turns back to Taeyong, the choking feeling returns. “Anything?”

Taeyong shakes his head once. His knuckles are white against the charcoal black steering wheel. None.  

In the backseat, Jae is just as paralyzed. They wait in equal silence, equal fear until Taeyong holds a hand to his ear again.

“Jaemin. What do you—”

Kai starts in his seat, like someone just dumped a bucket of ice-cold water on him. Aggressively, he turns to his subordinate.

“None?”

Jae leans between the two front seats, not wanting to miss the news. With bated breath, they watch the lines on Taeyong’s face intently.

“The explosion came from her apartment but she wasn’t there. Her apartment was empty.”

Jae utters a loud cry, and Kai finds himself bending forward and pressing his forehead to his knees in relief. She’s not dead, he convinces himself. Seo Iseul is not dead yet.

And that gives Kai enough hope to function again.

“She did get some flowers after all.” Understanding dawns on him. “It must’ve been from Youngmin. The bomb must’ve been planted there.”

“What?” Jae knits her brows, but Kai shakes his head. No time to explain.

“Tell D.O. to take Mark and my son to one of our underground safehouses. Taecyeon’s team was with him, wasn’t he? Make sure they take care of the bombs.” Whipping out his phone, Kai punches on the speed dial code to Suho. “Taeyong, get us to where Suho and Baekhyun are. Yeol, please try to get an update about the whereabouts of Kim Youngmin.”

Jae tries to put the pieces together. “Wait, wait, so what’s the situation here? Suzy’s also in trouble?”

“Suzy was also heading to Iseul’s apartment. She didn’t tell Dongwook, me, or any one of us who are in charge of looking after her safety.”

Kai’s sentences are short and choppy as he races between receiving updates, barking orders, and explaining the situation to Jae. He tells himself that at least Jongguk, for one, is going to be okay. But the fates of Iseul and Suzy are still up in the air—and by extension, his too.

“Suho, talk to me.”

“We need more cars, Kai. Junho and his team had brought Suzy to Iseul’s apartment and she arrived several minutes before people started rushing out because of the fire alarm. When that happened, it seems like she suspected something was wrong so she started walking back to the HOC car, but just before Junho could pull up in front of her, another car came and grabbed her and sped off.”

“Well? Is Junho following that car?!”

“Yes, but they got held back when the firetrucks came,” Suho says, sounding a little apologetic. “By the time they were on the chase, there were identical black cars everywhere. All Youngmin’s, probably, all designed to throw us off.”

Kai closes his eyes. “.”

“If it weren’t for the firetrucks, maybe we… but I’m not blaming her, Kai. Iseul did what she had to do. She didn’t know the timing was going to be extremely crucial.”

“She did what she had to do,” Kai repeats.

The agreement is there. What’s lacking is his confidence.

He knows she did—anyone with a functioning brain would know that. But if they all somehow make it through this alive, Kai has a feeling that it won’t be that simple for the Royals. At the end of the day, Seo Iseul is and was a vulnerability.

But that is something to be dealt with later. “Do we have any updates on Youngmin? Did Chanyeol or Sehun find where he’s hiding or where he could be taking her?”

“He talked to me through the driver in my car,” Jae pipes in. “He didn’t mention anything specific, but he said he was going to get rid of me again. He said he liked it better when I was out of the picture.”

“Again?” Kai furrows his brows. “What is he—”

“You remember why I’m part of all this right? After the warehouse incident with your dad all those years ago, the HOC made me move to the States.” Jae looks at him gravely. “Otherwise you’d have to kill me because I was a witness that night.”

There’s no time to go dig up the ghosts of the past. Understanding the information he needs, Kai nods. “What did he say exactly? Do you think he—was he taking you somewhere to kill you?”

“I don’t think so. If that was his goal, he probably would’ve done it immediately.”

“So he was probably going to send you somewhere abroad again.” Kai’s eyes widen in realization, memories of dark nights by the water crystallizing. “Incheon.”

“Oh—yeah, that’s possible. They have operated there before. Youngmin could be waiting there.”

“Suho, I’ll send three more cars to join you. I’ll go to check Incheon. Tell Chanyeol to dispatch his own men immediately if he finds anything suspicious around the HOC.”

 And with a nonchalance only years of experience and pent-up hatred can bring, Kai swipes a speck of dust off the muzzle of his gun with his thumb.

The first thing that comes into Suzy’s mind when consciousness starts to trickle back in is that , her arms really hurt.

Blinking blearily, Suzy opens her eyes and comes face-to-face with… dark grey leather. The soft murmur of a car’s engine explains it all to her. She’s lying sideways on the backseat of a car with gagged and her hands and feet bound together.

The memory of what happened at Iseul’s building amidst the chaos caused by the fire alarm comes back. Youngmin’s men grabbed her from behind and held something to her face. It must’ve been chloroform. Then they must’ve stuffed her into their car. . But what about her guards?

Suddenly, the man behind the steering wheel chuckles. “We lost them.”

Them. Suzy’s stomach twists at the realization that they must be referring to her HOC crew. Double . Does that mean she’s all alone?

“Should we head back to Boss now?”

So none of them are Youngmin. Suzy quickly squeezes her eyes shut again. Youngmin’s goons must’ve not realized that she’s awake and Suzy intends to keep it that way.

“Yes. Boss is pissed since that other girl messed with his plans. We need to hurry back.”

“Not bad for a little civilian girl, huh?” The one in the passenger seat chuckles. “The Morse code message in the fire alarms was a pretty good idea. She evacuated all those people and helped those HOC idiots dismantle the threat.”

Iseul! Suzy’s eyes widen.

“Wonder if Boss will let her live after all this. She could be an asset to the Triple Union Society.”

“She’s pretty cute too,” Passenger Seat Guy snickers again. “If the HOC princess dies, which mean Boss’s son dies as well—”

Suzy’s heart lurches. No…

“—That means Iseul will be defenseless. No more boyfriend protector,” Driver Guy says mockingly. “And after he dies, I’m going to take her first.”

“We could take her together,” the other one quips, grinning. “Just like how we spied on her and her friend together last time, before she moved in with Kai.”

That’s it! Suzy feels hot with rage and the urge to do something. But what? Her hands and ankles are completely incapacitated.

“! The HOC got to the car with Iseul’s sister!”

Jae? Jae’s in trouble too? Suzy tries to wriggle her hands and feet free more urgently but to no avail. Suddenly, an idea strikes her.

As quietly as possible, she uses her feet to slip off her shoes.

The ropes around her ankles have loosened a little and this time, she successfully forces one foot out of the tight loop. Suzy nearly sighs in relief when she finally manages to shake the thick ropes off her other ankle. Her feet are free!

“Do we need to go there?”

“Of course not, you ing idiot. We need to focus on getting back to the building as soon as possible. Kai and Jae are probably already on the hunt for Iseul so we can’t risk losing Suzy either.”

“Iseul is still with Hyungwon, right?”

“Yeah. When Boss found out what she did, he made Hyungwon knock her out cold and move her to the taxi car again. They’re still 5 blocks north of here.”

“I told Kihyun to drug Jae too but he didn’t listen. If she were knocked out cold like Suzy is—!”

Passenger Seat Guy never got to finish his statement because suddenly, a brutal force kicks his jaw and sends his head slamming into the window. Driver Guy cusses and the car swerves as he tries to reach for his gun, but Suzy, strongly motivated to outlive her captors, is too quick and too livid for him.

Climbing her way between the seats, she attacks him in any way she can with her leg. Thank God for all Dongwook’s training. Perhaps there is a point to the weekly near-death experiences she’s had to suffer through for the past few months.

“Mmmpfh!” Suzy groans through gag. The car swerves wildly again and outside, long, angry honks follow. Suzy quickly punches the button to activate the vehicle’s autopilot mode. That’s one problem half-solved, at least.

The guy riding shotgun peels himself away from the window, recovering with a flowing stream of curses, and Suzy wastes no time in blindly driving her elbow back into his face.

“ing !” He spits as his head collides with the window again. Driver Guy tries to unholster his gun again, but Suzy kicks his hand away—and dives for it with outstretched arms that are still tied at the wrist.

The grip meets her fingers. Holding it between both hands, Suzy smirks mentally and pulls the trigger.

“Argh!” The man behind the wheel slumps down in his seat, blood oozing from the right side of his head.

Nothing gets the job done like a bullet to the brain.

“BOSS!” A panicked voice exclaims behind her. “B-boss, Suzy—urgh!”

With a muffled grunt, Suzy bashes the back of her head into the passenger guy’s face. She hears the phone clatter down the side of the car. In a flash, before her next victim can pull out his own gun, Suzy twists herself around and aims straight for the spot between his eyes.

With a loud bang, Suzy finds herself alone in the car.

She spares herself a few moments to pant. But her fight is far from over. There’s a stupid best friend Suzy absolutely needs to rescue and a phone that’s giving away her location like a shining beacon. Then there’s the matter of her saving her own life and taking that of Kai’s father.

, Suzy huffs in her head. So. Many. ing. Problems.

Pulling herself over to the passenger seat with a struggle, Suzy tries not to think about how she’s sitting on a dead guy when she opens the car door with both hands. Immediately, the vehicle starts beeping.

Goodbye, she sings. Kicking the fallen phone out with her heel, Suzy slams the door shut again and smiles when she hears the satisfying crunch of the metal device being flattened out by the car’s wheels.

Now for Iseul.

Suzy looks at dead guy slumped in driver’s seat and sighs. Great. Now she’s got to sit on another corpse.

Reluctantly lifting one leg over the center console of the car, Suzy pulls herself over to the driver’s seat and tries to get comfy on top of the other dead guy.

Thankfully, Youngmin had the decency to give her a fancy car. There’s a button on the car door to move the seat backwards, so Suzy digs her elbow into it and allows herself to stretch out her legs. Rotating her ankles, she steps on the gas experimentally.

Okay. Now for the steering part. She pulls off her gag with her fingers and gasps for air. Without wasting another second, she then tries to use her teeth to free her hands.  

Biting on it, Suzy tries to widen the loop and slip her hand out of it. After several minutes of wrestling with the rope, her own limbs, and her spit, finally—ing finally—she creates just enough wiggle space for one hand to eventually pull itself out.

“Oh thank God!” Suzy cries in relief, flicking her aching wrist. Another car honks loudly at her and Suzy steers the car back to its lane with a shriek.

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