Page 21 of Damian & Jun, Episodes 1-4 (The Residency Boys #6)

“I know you hit the panic button, Mr. Su.” Damian said softly.

He held up his phone, showing an actively streaming video.

“What are you going to arrest me for? Intimidation of a judge? I’m not intimidating you.

I’m telling you every legal step I’m going to take to stop a crime should you refuse to fulfill your duty and safeguard the people in your care. ”

Shouts came from below. Damian kept his eyes fixed on Mr. Su. The man’s breath evened out, still shaky and raspy.

“You…you’re out of line.”

“No. I’m refusing to buy into your delusion. You may think that whatever you sacrificed had to be given up. But I don’t live in that world. And neither does Jun. Or the rest of the talented, hardworking, wonderful people I know here.”

“If I find him, you’ll keep this quiet. This video…won’t…”

“Four hours.” Damian checked his cuffs. “You have four hours to find him and free him.”

“And then this will stop.”

“Find him untouched and unharmed, and I’ll ask him what he wants.”

* * *

Jun

Everything smelled like alcohol. Jun knelt in it.

There was a cut in his hand from the bottle he’d broken across the man in black’s face.

There was a friction burn on his finger from flinging the table.

Blood dripped from his nose and lip, joining the vermillion in his hand, turning the alcohol pink.

His ribs and belly pulsed where the police chief had kicked him.

Any moment now, someone would come in to find out what the noise was.

Any moment and either one of the men on the floor could return to their senses.

Unless he’d actually killed one. He dragged his eyes from the pooling alcohol and surveyed the police chief’s body.

His limbs were sprawled around him. The table had hit him in the chest and the face.

Wood lay in multiple pieces around his body. There was blood.

“It’s always the quiet ones?—”

Jun whirled on his knees, hands reaching for another weapon. He found long metal chopsticks.

A blond man, hair caught up in a ponytail behind his head, soft gray suit hanging from his shoulders, stood in the door, fingers curled into his pockets.

He could have been anywhere from Jun’s own age to forty.

“The ones raised like dogs. Timid to the hand that broke them; demon to any new master. Bak made one mistake with you.”

“What was that?” Jun didn’t recognize his own voice. It sounded like an angry ghost, rough, guttural.

“He didn’t teach you to submit to just anyone.

He just made you afraid of him. But something was already in you.

Your mother, maybe.” The blond man leaned his shoulder against the door, eyes taking in the room.

“There are those who break; those who make you kill them because they will never bend the knee even as a lie; and there are those who break you if you try to break them.”

What did this lunatic even mean?

The blond man drew his hands out of his pockets and held them up, showing Jun his empty palms. “I don’t normally make house calls.

But I was the closest. You, Mr. Gang, are too hot to keep.

Now this”—the blond man looked across the room—“is a mess. But a smaller mess than what your lover is about to make. I see you’ve made erudite points. ”

“I don’t understand.”

“Damian Sathers finds you more valuable than all the money his company makes in this region. In the last few hours, he’s already cost the city thousands of dollars in policing expenses and agency overtime hours.

And he’s communicated to some people, who communicated to those I work for, just how much farther he is ready to go.

He’s also proven he’s capable. My job was to come here and tell the police chief to get his rocks off elsewhere and let you go. Obviously, you let yourself go.”

“There’s still an entire household of people.”

“Five, actually. The food service staff left already. So now we do have a problem.”

Jun narrowed his eyes. “What, exactly?” They were running out of time. People didn’t stay unconscious forever.

“I’m not supposed to be here. You should have never seen me.

” The blond man crouched down just beyond the bloodstained puddle.

He wore white gloves. “The police chief should have arranged to send you back in some deniable fashion after I ordered him to. Perhaps even staged a police rescue, claiming that you were snatched by a rich, overzealous fan other than himself. But he left his meeting early just to get here, and I got here late. What you don’t have yet is any kind of evidence other than your own word. You should move.”

“What?”

The blond man took out a lighter. “I really don’t want to kill you, especially as I do think your champion will burn down the world for you, but there’s way too much going on here.” He flicked on the lighter.

Jun scrambled to his feet. The cloak was heavy with liquid. He pulled it off, leaving it in the mess. The blond man dropped the flame into the alcohol. It flashed, and flames three feet high rose between them.

“Vodka burns so well.”

“It was soju.”

“And vodka.” The blond man nodded toward an overturned bottle a few feet away.

“The fire alarm will ring any moment. I suppose the foot soldiers will save them.” The blond man spun away on his heel and headed toward the far door, the one that went to the bedroom with the restraints on the bed.

Jun ran after him. Cold wind hit him at the outer door.

He ripped a soft wool blanket from the bed and wrapped it around himself.

“Keys.” The blond man offered Jun a set. “It belongs to one of the SUVs.”

“I don’t know how to drive.”

The blond man blinked for a moment. “Ah. Well, that rather puts a wrench in things.”

“Are you American?”

“I’m whatever I need to be. Ask less questions. We have–” he checked his watch– “forty-five more minutes to get you to Damian Sathers, and we are over two and a half hours away. Any ideas?”

“Let me call him? Video call him?”

“He’d be a fool to completely believe you.”

Safe words .

“I have ways.”

“And yet we don’t have a phone.”

“Steal one from the house?” Jun looked back. Someone had run into the burning room now. He rounded the corner and pulled the blanket in tighter. The last thing he needed was to be seen. There was screaming.

The blond man bit back a curse and jerked his head. Jun ran after him, cursing his bare feet in the snow.

“I’ll drive you somewhere. And drop you off. If anyone asks, say one of the police officers had a change of heart and helped you.”

“Okay.”

“You’re going to get me killed.” The blond man rolled his eyes and opened a door to one of the SUVs. “Get in.”

Whoever the blond man was, he could drive in snow if driving like a madman counted as driving.

Jun gripped the door and braced himself on the dash as they hurled down the road at many times the recommended speed for the weather.

They spun into a driveway. Up ahead, far down a long gravel stretch, was a house with a light.

The blond man turned to Jun. “I’m told you’re a good man, so I’m going to trust you to do whatever you can to contact your dog and call him off in the next”—he checked his watch—“twenty-seven minutes.”

“I will.”

“Good. And tell Collin his dad says good job.”

“What?”

The blond man’s lips tightened into a line. “Don’t ask questions, just go.”

Jun tumbled out of the SUV. It backed up at once, spun around, flinging gravel across Jun, and roared off.

There was nothing ideal about this. He gripped the blanket tight and hobbled up the drive on his bare feet, trying to step on patches of foliage and snow instead of the hard nubs of gravel. The door of the house was old and worn, and the walls were weathered wood, the kind that was never painted.

Dogs barked inside, and someone hiccuped and groaned.

Footsteps. Jun whispered a wish to whatever kind spirit might listen.

The lock clicked over, and the door opened.

An ancient-looking man with a pipe in his mouth peered at him.

He was shorter than Jun by several inches and wore a padded, quilted coat.

“Who’s there?”

“You don’t know me, sir. I’ve…I’ve gotten in trouble. I need to call my friends.”

The man sighed. “Don’t know if I should let you in, but…are you bleeding, young man?”

“Maybe.” Jun dabbed at his face.

“If you need medical help, it’s better to go to them than wait for them to come to you.”

“Can you drive?”

“I drive. Got a truck.” The man squinted at him. “I’ll take you down to town. We have a fire station.”

“Please. I need to make a call within twenty minutes.”

“It’s fifteen minutes drive. Cell service is spotty right now. Give me a moment.”

Jun shivered and closed his eyes, trying to keep himself from chattering. “Please hurry.”

It took the old man almost five minutes to make it back out and show Jun around to his truck.

And once they started driving, it was so slow.

Jun pulled his feet up on the seat and held them in his hands trying to warm them.

His belly ached where he’d been kicked, and the only thing he could feel from his lower legs was pain. The rest was just numb.

“Fire station.” The old man pointed ahead to a small garage and office complex just off the road. He pulled in.

Jun forced himself to scramble out of the truck and hobbled to the door. He pounded hard. A few seconds later, a man in a firefighter uniform opened the door.

Jun started speaking before the man could greet him. “Phone now. I have about one minute to make a call or something bad happens.”

The man blinked, but he walked backward into the office and picked up the receiver from a landline. Jun had to take a double look at it. “How do I dial?”

The firefighter pushed a flattish box the size of a small pad toward him. There were numbers on the top in hospital pink, green, and gray. Jun went to type in Damian’s phone number.