Chapter Text
“Does the boy mean anything to you?”
Jonghyun’s head jerked up. “What do you mean?”
“Don’t play dumb. The boy. The one you’ve been sneaking out to see.” Onew snapped his fingers in Minho’s direction, making him look up curiously. “What’s his name?”
“Taemin,” Kibum answered, stepping into the room. He took a moment to make sure the door closed properly behind him. Key held up a sheet of wrinkled paper. “Family name ‘Lee.’ Student at the university near here. Studying history. He works Monday through Wednesday and then Saturday at the local dance school. Fridays he works at the café down the street as a barista. He spends most Thursdays and Sundays at the school library, until about 9 PM when he goes back to his apartment on twenty-sixth. He takes the bus from--”
“Enough!” Jonghyun snapped. He stood and jerked the paper out of Kibum’s grip, but there was only a large smiley face drawn on it in Kibum’s familiar hand. Jonghyun crumpled it and flung it to the ground. “What does Taemin have to do with anything?”
“You know the rules, Jonghyun,” Onew said. “Have you been talking to him?”
“Of course I’ve been talking to him. If you’re asking me if I’ve been telling him that I work for the mob, the answer is no. I’m not going to get him in trouble.”
“People have seen you with him.”
“Who?”
“You know who. The police have already questioned him, but other families are eyeing him, too. A couple have already tried to approach him, but he’s not stupid.”
Jonghyun slung his jacket over his shoulders to cover his tattoos. “I’ve got to go find him.”
Onew grabbed his forearm as he tried to pass. “And what are you going to do with him when you find him?”
Jonghyun looked up into his leader’s eyes, weighing what he saw there against what he knew of Onew, and he knew quite a lot about Onew. Possibly more than anyone alive, except for the other two men in the room. “Bring him back here.”
“You do that and he doesn’t leave here alive. You follow the same rules as everyone else.”
“I’m willing to take my chances here. Where I can protect him.”
He heard Onew sigh and knew he’d won, not that he had any doubt in the first place. If anyone could convince Onew to do something, it would be Jonghyun.
“Key,” Onew said. Kibum didn’t need the rest of the order. He hopped off the table and, with a brief pat to Minho’s head, followed Jonghyun out the door.
It was only a couple of minutes’ drive to the coffee shop where Taemin spent the majority of his Fridays working. That was where they met. The hotel rooms, no matter how luxurious, got stifling. He’d been walking with folder tucked beneath his arm, scuffing his feet through the snow, and Taemin was just stepping into the coffee shop to start his shift. He’d smiled and said Jonghyun looked as though he needed warming up. From there, it was a few weeks of flirting, and then Taemin spent more time drinking coffee than making it while Jonghyun was there.
Kibum whistled, drawing Jonghyun’s attention to the dark green coffee shop door. Jonghyun should have recognized the man that stepped quickly inside, but he couldn’t summon a name to the face. That was Minho’s job. The driver caught Kibum’s whistle and brought the car to a sudden halt.
“Wait here,” Kibum ordered, already pulling the door open and following Jonghyun onto the street, “and be ready to go.”
The coffee shop was empty except for three men standing a little too close to the cash register and Taemin, his eyes wide and only a little intimidated. Jonghyun couldn’t help but be proud of the way the boy handled himself, until he recognized the man in the center.
“Siwon, back off,” Jonghyun said.
Siwon and his two companions turned slowly, slow enough that Jonghyun knew they weren’t surprised by their entrance. It wasn’t like they were trying to be that sneaky anyway.
“Jjong. Key.”
“Taemin,” Jonghyun called, holding out a hand. “Come here, please.”
Taemin gave him a confused look, but stepped out from behind the counter, taking his outstretched hand. In an abnormal show of submission, he let Jonghyun guide him around behind so both he and Kibum were between Taemin and the other three men.
“This isn’t your territory,” Kibum said. His voice was the quiet, dangerous drawl that still gave Jonghyun chills when he heard it. After all the years in Seoul, his accent had faded, but it always came out at times like these.
“Oh, don’t worry. Jjongie’s ‘territory’ isn’t my type.”
There was really no point pretending they all hadn’t been friends once. They’d grown up together, the way all children in the area did. Then they’d chosen their colors, so to speak, and any childhood loyalty was gone in a haze of gunpowder and blood. Jonghyun had killed his best friend from childhood, but to be fair, he’d pointed the gun at Jonghyun first.
None of that meant Jonghyun took any kinder to anyone encroaching on his ‘territory.’ He took a threatening step forward and the room filled with the sound of clicking guns. Taemin squeaked softly, his hand tightening on Jonghyun’s free one. Jonghyun spared a moment to run his thumb soothingly along Taemin’s hand, but didn’t otherwise react.
There were two guns pointing at Jonghyun, and the third at Kibum. Jonghyun wasn’t all that worried. Key could get off two shots to their one, and everyone knew that. Onew didn’t send Kibum with Jonghyun just because he was pretty, although that had worked in their favor in the past. Regardless, if someone shot first, this was going to be a bloody affair, and none of them could afford that.
“The police have already talked to him. He’s useless to you, now.”
“He’s not useless. Not to me,” Jonghyun said. “You’re going to leave and you’re going to keep your hands off my ‘territory’ or we’re going to have a repeat of last April, and I don’t think your bosses are going to like that.”
The recognition flashed across Siwon’s face. He eyed Jonghyun for just a second as though deciding whether or not he really meant the threat, but eventually he nodded, the gun easing back beneath his jacket. Two more guns followed, and then Jonghyun and Kibum slid theirs away as well. Key’s went in the band of his jeans, the bottom hem of his shirt flipping casually over it. Jonghyun slid his back into the holster on his side, a ‘gift’ from a policeman he once knew. Emphasis on past tense.
They head for the door and Jonghyun nodded to Kibum. “Make sure they go.”
Key grinned and Jonghyun knew he wanted nothing more than an excuse to take Siwon down. They all did, but their hands were tied. Figuratively. And literally, if they made one move outside the agreement.
“Are you okay?” Jonghyun asked, turning back to Taemin.
The boy hardly had a chance to answer before Jonghyun heard a familiar cry. He glanced out the window and saw Kibum drop, a hand clenching around the hilt of a knife buried deep in his bicep.
“Stay out of sight,” Jonghyun said. He was out the door, his gun drawn and pointed directly at Siwon’s head before Taemin had a chance to say anything. Siwon had to have known that if he didn’t deal with this carefully, this was going to be the last thing he ever did. Jonghyun didn’t miss, especially at this distance.
“What’s this about, Siwon?”
“We just want the boy. He’s a danger to all of us now. If he’s not in the family—any family—he needs to be controlled. Kibum,” Siwon’s gun snapped briefly toward where Kibum had been trying to rise, “disagreed.”
“So you’re going to shoot me now?” Jonghyun asked. “We’re in one of those ‘respectable’ neighborhoods. People see things like this going down, they call the cops.”
Right on cue, they hear the bright rise and fall of a siren and Siwon’s head lifted. Jonghyun smiled. Saved. Sort of. Unless they didn’t get out of there in time, in which case Jonghyun was looking at some serious trouble.
“You willing to go to jail over this, Siwonnie?” Jonghyun asked, his voice mocking. “I’m willing to go for him, but then again… I haven’t stabbed anybody today.”
“Technically, that wasn’t me,” Siwon said, but they were edging toward their car. The first one was inside already. The second was leaning down when Kibum sat forward, flinging the knife from his arm toward them. He missed by more than far enough, but the second one still ducked into the car with a surprised sound. Siwon followed a second later and they tore off.
“Fucking Kyuhyun!” Kibum growled, the heel of his hand pressing hard to his shoulder.
“Right! That’s who he was.”
Kibum gave him a look. “Are you serious? Help me up. We need to go.”
The driver had already come around the car and opened the back door. He helped Key into the backseat while Jonghyun went to collect Taemin. The boy stared at him as though he’d never seen him before.
“Taemin? You okay?”
“Yeah,” Taemin said. He was resting his hands on the counter, his lips tight. “Jonghyun, who are you?”
“I’ll tell you everything, but we need to go. I’m sorry to ask you this, but Siwon was just the first. More people will be coming.”
Taemin glanced around the coffee shop. It was still, unsurprisingly, empty. “I’ll get fired if I just leave.”
“Taemin, please. Worse things are going to happen if you stay here.”
“Sir, if we don’t go now, we don’t go at all,” their driver called from the door.
Taemin wavered for only a second before nodding. He paused only long enough to lock the door and slip the keys in the mail slot and then followed Jonghyun to the car.
“Front seat,” Jonghyun said. “I need to take care of Kibum.”
Jonghyun barely noticed the car doors closing or that they began moving. When he shrugged his jacket off, he did hear the soft hiss of breath through Taemin’s teeth. He had to have been guessing before, but the sight of the tattoos had to have confirmed it.
“Kibum, I need you to sit forward for me.”
Key’s face was grey with pain and blood loss. He reached out with his good arm to pull himself forward, letting Jonghyun tug the bloodied shirt over his head. He made a pained whimper when the motion jostled his arm, but otherwise remained silent.
“This is going to hurt,” Jonghyun warned. “A lot.”
Kibum nodded, closing his eyes and leaning back against the seat. Jonghyun pressed his jacket to the wound and Kibum let out a sound that was half scream and half curse. Jonghyun put his arm halfway around Kibum, trying his best to comfort him. He pulled out his cell phone and dialed the number he knew by heart.
“We need a doctor,” he said as soon as he heard the click and inhalation that signified Onew was on the line.
“What happened?”
Kibum must have heard because he said, “Kyu-fucking-hyun is what happened. Whoever let him touch a knife when he was a child must have been insane!”
“Good to know Kibum’s okay,” Onew said. “I’ll get a doctor here.”
True to his word, a doctor was waiting when the car pulled up. He pulled a pale-faced, cursing Kibum from the car and through one of the back doors. Jonghyun and Taemin strolled casually in through the front.
The people at the hotel were familiar enough with them that they didn’t even look twice at Jonghyun with his tattoos bared for the world to see. Taemin gained a little bit of interest, but as soon as they saw Jonghyun’s arm around his waist, they all quickly looked another direction.
Rather than heading toward the suite where Onew and Minho would doubtless be waiting for an explanation about why Kibum had a stab wound on what was supposed to just be a quick pickup, he went instead to his private room. It was small, but he was hardly ever there anyway.
He let Taemin in and then locked the door behind them, mentally willing Onew to have a little bit of patience. Taemin sank down on the bed and looked up at Jonghyun expectantly.
“Are you okay?” Jonghyun asked.
Taemin nodded slowly as though he weren’t quite sure of the answer himself. “Who are you?” he asked, repeating the question he’d asked before Jonghyun had essentially kidnapped him from the coffee shop.
Rather than sitting at his side, which is what he normally would have done, Jonghyun took the little chair at the desk, turning until he was facing Taemin. The room wasn’t large enough to give them much more space than they would have had if he had sat on the bed as well.
“Taeminnie, I really am the person you know. I’m just…”
“Working for the mafia?”
Jonghyun shrugged as though the sharpness of his voice wasn’t of any consequence to him. “Yeah.”
Taemin reached out hesitantly, fingers tracing the panther that crawled down Jonghyun’s right arm, then skipped to the three parallel lines running horizontal across his bicep. He pressed his palm to the dragon curling around the lines.
“So this is why I’ve never seen you without a jacket,” he murmured.
“Is it bad?” Jonghyun wasn’t ashamed of the tattoos. He was proud of what he’d done to earn them, working his way up until he answered only to Onew. There were others above them, but in their tight-knit group, it was only Onew and Jonghyun at the top.
“Unusual. You don’t seem the type.”
Jonghyun reached up to take Taemin’s hand, waiting for him to pull away, but he didn’t, letting Jonghyun guide his hand down from the tattoos and onto their almost-touching knees.
“I’m not going to lie to you and tell you that I’m not the type, ‘cause I am. I worked hard to earn these. I’ve killed people, and I will do it again if I need to.”
“Will I be one of those people?”
“No.”
“Even if they tell you to?”
“If anyone tells me to kill you, it will be the last thing they do.”
Taemin let out a soft laugh, his head bowing. “So when… Siwon,” he looked up to make sure he had the right name, “said I need to be controlled…”
“We have rules. We may all fight over territory and money and… services… but there are a few rules we do not break. I broke one. Well, technically, I didn’t. But it’s assumed that when one of us starts spending too much time outside the family that we’re either talking with the police or spilling secrets we shouldn’t be. I wasn’t doing either, but that’s what it looks like. If Siwon had been doing it, or even Kibum, we’d have moved in hard and put a stop to it. I wasn’t careful enough with you. I… got distracted.”
To his credit, Taemin didn’t ask any questions about the ‘services’ to which Jonghyun was referring.
“Am I a prisoner here?”
Jonghyun hesitated. “No.”
“Can I leave, then?”
He hesitated again. “Not by yourself.”
“So I am.”
“It’s not like that. This is for your safety. We need to convince Onew you’re not a threat, and he trusts me so that shouldn’t be too much of a problem, and then he needs to convince everyone else. That could be harder.”
“So what about my parents?”
“We’ve got people watching them. They’ll be fine.” Jonghyun waited for the next question, but it never came. At last he squeezed Taemin’s fingers gently. “Do you trust me?”
“Of course.”
Jonghyun leaned forward and kissed the corner of Taemin’s lips. “Then trust me. Onew’s got pull. It may take a little while, but we’ll get everything figured out. You’ll be able to go back to school and work—maybe not at the coffee shop, but you hated it there—like nothing happened.”
“Except everyone will know I’m dating a gangster.”
“Is that a problem?”
Taemin grinned up at him, something dangerous flashing in his eyes. “Not at all. Actually, it’s a little hot.”
Jonghyun groaned. “You’re gonna get yourself in trouble.”
Somehow, a few seconds later, Taemin had gotten Jonghyun’s shirt off and maneuvered him backwards onto the bed. His hands trailed up Jonghyun’s stomach, his lips and tongue pausing over each one of Jonghyun’s dozens of tattoos.
Taemin had made it to the eagle spread across Jonghyun’s chest when Jonghyun caught Taemin’s wrists and pulled his arms out from under him, sending him tumbling flat onto Jonghyun. He flipped them over, nipping at the soft skin of Taemin’s throat. He made a soft noise, tipping his head back and giving Jonghyun better access.
“I told you you were going to get into trouble,” Jonghyun murmured.
Taemin laughed, his fingers winding into Jonghyun’s hair. “I think you’ll find I can take care of myself.”
“Please tell me that’s a challenge.”
“Yeah, that’s a challenge.”