Page 23 of Damian & Jun, Episodes 5-8 (The Residency Boys #7)

Damian laughed. “émeric is a stealth dom, sometimes. Then his sadism catches you unawares. I understand what you’re saying about Collin.

That is what he is in the family. We’re his refuge.

In The Residency, his role is to submit and be protected.

Even though I’m not his dom, I respect his role.

As a member of The Residency and a dominant, he falls under my protection by default.

He’s not soft. There’s a Russian operative in prison somewhere who will never look the same, not after Collin finished with him. ”

“Collin can fight?”

“Collin does fight. When his people are on the line.”

Jun’s lips twitched in a smile. “Good.”

“The submission Collin offers Richard and émeric takes a strong man to give. Never mistake him for weak.”

“Soft is not weak.” Jun relaxed into the mattress, lying on his back. “Do you have any idea how much strength it takes to look soft while dancing?”

They talked into the small hours of the morning, going down Damian’s list, until Jun was yawning and Damian was making mistakes typing in their answers.

Damian forced back a yawn of his own and turned his head to tell Jun they would finish later. Jun was already asleep, his hands tucked under his chin, his body curled against Damian’s side, head pillowed on Damian’s upper arm.

Even in sleep, he looked like he was carrying the world. Damian pushed a stray lock of hair off his cheek and tucked it behind Jun’s ear.

Jun

Friday morning, Jun’s phone rang before he’d even finished making coffee for everyone.

Mi Hi was flipping pancakes at the stove, and Jaewoong and Su-jin were taking sleepy selfies and answering fan comments.

Geun lay on the center island with his feet hanging off the end, snoring.

Whatever had kept him up the night before, he hadn’t said.

Yohei was setting out plates and toppings.

Jun answered, switching to speakerphone when he saw that it was Yun, their lawyer.

“Just got a tip-off,” Yun said, not bothering with a greeting. “Someone filed to transfer ownership of SP4700Y this morning in a local commercial court. Guess who the selling owner is?”

“My father? Bak?”

“You.”

Jun blinked. “Come again?”

“You. I had it checked. You’re the legal owner of SP4700Y. And someone was trying to sell it, ostensibly on your behalf.” He rattled off a couple of names.

“I don’t know any of those people.”

“As your representative, I’ve already prepared a contestation.”

“Good.” Jun’s hand trembled. “What do you mean, I own a company? How can I own a company I don’t even know I own?”

“If someone set it up in your name and had full control of all your information, it can be done. Someone like a parent or a guardian.”

Jun’s stomach churned and tightened. “Bak says that SP4700Y owns 5N. That’s why he can’t give out contracts.”

“Correct.”

“But I own SP4700Y, according to this filing.”

“Yes.”

“Then I own us. We own ourselves.”

“Logically, yes. It’s possible there’s more going on, other binding contracts.”

“I want to know everything.”

“I’ll keep shaking branches. For now, we have to stop the sale.”

Jun nodded decisively. “That first.”

Yun hung up.

Jun stared at his phone for a long moment, then raised his eyes to meet those of Mi Hi and the others. “Well, fuck.”

An hour later, Yun called back. Stopping the sale wasn’t as simple as just saying no.

Now there was an investigation. Officials wanted to speak to Jun.

Requests had been put in for paperwork. Jun gritted his teeth and answered what he could, Yun staying with him on the line. When Yun let him go, Damian called.

“Your father’s in custody. They arrested him for identity fraud at customs, coming back from the Caribbean.”

Jun braced himself with his hand on the nearest wall. “He’s arrested.” He needed to say it out loud to make it feel real. But it didn’t. It wasn’t. His head buzzed, and his limbs felt like they belonged to someone else.

“They found his South Korean papers on him when he was stopped. Pearsen gave them everything they needed. So now it’s being investigated.”

Jun closed his eyes. “Is this good news or bad news?”

“It’s good. It means we’re one step closer to reclaiming your identity and figuring out what he did with it.”

Everything was happening all at once.

“Isn’t it suspicious, the attempted sale and my father getting arrested all at once?”

“Not really. It seems they spooked and started making moves. We were just one step ahead of them. When crooks try to cover their tracks, that’s when they often get caught.”

Jun steadied himself with a breath. Damian made sense.

He was going to have to trust that. He did trust it.

It was just a lot. How had they gotten to this point, when what felt like only days ago, there had been attempts to arrest him for murder?

Or perhaps that was still a thing working its way through the system.

“I want to be with you.”

“I can have someone drive you back. Right now.”

Jun shivered. “Yes. That. I want that.”

His father had been this mirage for so long, a shadow over his life, something not quite real, a promise never kept.

Even researching with Alice, it had all been static, historical artifacts on a screen.

Nothing present, nothing he had to deal with personally, at least not then.

Now it felt frighteningly real. He was that nine-year-old boy again, watching his life being torn up in this strange adult's hands.

He pressed his forehead against the wall, trying to catch his breath.

Jun

Jun went up to his window seat on the third floor and wrote lyrics, thinking about the night before.

When he couldn’t write anymore, he went searching for his computer and typed in his mother’s name on a whim.

There wasn’t much to find. Records of her as a grad student came up, some of her US publications.

He saved them to his files and copied a picture of her, his hand on the Buddha hanging in the pouch on his neck.

Everything he could find about her ended the same month she had taken him to South Korea.

Searching Chinese sites brought up little.

Where did you go, Mama?

He stared at the picture of her from her university days. She looked exactly how he remembered her. Long black hair pulled up behind her head in a French twist, light-maroon lipstick, and green eyeshadow on an oval-shaped face. Her eyes were laughing.

Would you have still left if you had known?

Using childhood memories, he tried to use the online maps to find their apartment the way Alice had taught him.

He remembered the grocery store and his school.

Piecing together memories, he drew a rough map on the back side of one of his pages of lyrics.

His elementary school, their apartment, the park, the bus stop, the dance school, the theater where he’d first had an acting part, singing and dancing in a musical.

Some things he remembered, like the name of his dance studio; other things he couldn’t recall, like the name of the theater, but he did know the name of the play he’d been in and the name of the director.

Collin appeared above him. “What are you doing?”

“Piecing together what I remember from before, when I lived in Seattle with my mom.”

Collin crouched down, studying Jun’s rough map. “You have a good memory.”

“Afterwards, when I was with Bak and felt alone, I’d try to remember everything. When I still thought my mom might come back for me. I didn’t want to forget so that I could make everything go back to how it used to be.”

“Nothing goes back to the way it was before.” Collin’s fingers caressed the paper. “But these look like good memories.”

Jun nodded. “They are.”

“You should send this to Pearsen and Alice.”

Jun scrutinized the map. Drawing it had been only a moment of nostalgia and longing, a desire to bend time and reach back for something lost.

“They can use it, can’t they?”

“They’re going to need to prove that you’re who you say you are, for your US identity.”

Jun sighed and pulled out his phone, taking pictures. He sent them off to Damian, Alice, and Pearsen before he could think twice about it. Even his fond memories were now weapons in a war he wanted to burn down.

If screaming and punching could fix things, he could have ended it all long before, but that wasn’t the war they were fighting.

Collin joined Jun on the drive back to the city. Artemis came with them, paws pressed against the window, mile after mile. Business hours were long past finished for the week in Seoul. Jun’s phone stayed quiet until Damien called when they were about an hour out.

“The Diplomatic Security Service is sending an officer to meet with you. I can put them off, but if you can, we should meet with them today. I’ve already called your criminal defense lawyer to be present. She can make it.”

Jun exchanged looks with Collin.

“Who’s the Diplomatic Security Service?”

“The part of the government that investigates passport and visa fraud.”

“That’s fast,” Collin said.

“Jun is a high-profile case.”

Jun closed his eyes, willing his hands to stay steady. “Let’s do it.”

“Want me to come with?” Collin asked.

Jun nodded. Collin offered his hand. Jun squeezed it, just once, and let go. It felt odd being touchy with someone he’d only known for a couple of weeks, but the support was welcome.

Damian met them at the reception of his office. “Everyone else is already here.”

Jun looked down at his black tracksuit and sneakers. Collin at least had on slacks and a leather jacket. “Am I dressed right?”

“They’re the ones who called the meeting now. I told them you diverted straight here.”

The DSS officer was a tall, blonde woman who looked straight out of Scandinavia. Jun held out his hand as he entered.

Damian made introductions. “Officer Eriksson, Gang Junseo.”

“Thank you for making it here. I understand you had another case developing this morning.”