Page 82 of Damian & Jun, Episodes 13-16

Jamal stuck his head into the room. “You okay?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Jun waved his hand. “Just…lost in my head. How long did Mi Hi say we should wait?”

Jamal didn’t answer. He rose up on his toes, propelled from behind. His eyes rolled back in his head, and he fell into the room, body crashing prostrate to the floor.

Jun stood, smashing the panic button in his pocket. When the sessions were going, someone was watching the cameras and listening, but Jamal had been his personal security for the event. There weren’t any sessions scheduled in the room until the next set of raffle winners came back.

A Korean man in tinted glasses stepped over Jamal’s body, dropping a hard metal tool on Jamal’s back.

He pointed a gun at Jun. A hand gun. Small, black. There was a silencer attached. He pulled off the glasses and reached into the collar of his button-down shirt. The skin of his throat wrinkled as he grabbed at it and pulled.

It was a mask. A full head mask. Professional grade. The kind only seen on film sets with large budgets.

Bak Sahyuk stared triumphantly at Jun over the barrel of the weapon.

And just like that, nothing mattered. Jun was done. Deep in his bones. Tired. Angry. Not just done, beyond done. Past ready to be over all of it, every last shred of it.

Sahyuk pushed Jamal’s feet into the room and shut the door. He knelt, keeping Jun in his sights and touched his fingers to Jamal’s pulse point. Jun looked towards the object Sahyuk had dropped. It looked like a portal razor. Maybe a zapper.

Sahyuk pulled a capped syringe from his pocket and flicked the end off with his thumb.

“Don’t,” Jun said.

Sahyuk looked at Jun. “So, you’ve probably heard by now, Gyeong is dead.”

Jun shrugged. At least, he felt like his body shrugged. His sense of self was standing very still in the core of his consciousness, watching Sahyuk like prey.

“This is a sedative,” Sahyuk held it up. “Just so we can have a talk.”

He stabbed it into Jamal without moving his gun, or even looking from Jun. “So now that that’s out of the way, and we’re here”—Sahyuk smirked—“Sing for me. That’s all you’ll be doing, from now on out, anyway.”

Jun reached for the switchboard with one hand. “Is that so, Father? Won’t the Merchari still have something to say about that?”

Sahyuk smirked. “That’s being handled. They’ll fall in line if they know what’s good for them. Now sing.”

Jun wrapped his fingers around the microphone, one digit at a time. “You’re so sure.” Either Sahyuk had a hell of a lot of backup, or he didn’t know the security trap he’d walked into. Getting one bodyguard out of the way wasn’t going to be enough. Though he was clearly practiced at it.

But how would he know? The Merchari hadn’t known. All the clients and operatives already arrested hadn’t seen through the facade. Sahyuk thought he was on his own turf, swanning about masked in a party like he had a thousand times before, spending money made from Jun’s labor.

Sahyuk had walked into a trap. Of his own volition.

Jun selected a song from the set list. The lyrics in English, Korean, Japanese, and Chinese would show on the screen behind him.

Sahyuk dropped into a chair, facing Jun. “Go on, boy. Prove to me that Gyeong was all that stood between you and me getting things back to how they should be. Sing.”

“Sure.” Jun pressed play, the opening lines of one of the first songs he’d written on the new album started to stream out of the speakers. He stared at Sahyuk and lifted the microphone to his face for the first verse.

Hate all the way down

Shadow so callow

Few words between us

each one a blade

Standing epitaph of sin

Father I call you