Page 25 of Fallen Starboy

Chapter

Twenty

JUN

I stared down at my daughter—our daughter—as the police finished with Arista.

I could tell by the uncomfortable look on the detective’s face that he didn’t like what he was hearing.

Yejin seemed otherwise occupied with my phone, so I tilted my head and tried to listen in, though I knew it was wrong.

“So you say you didn’t recognize the person with the gun?” The detective scribbled on a notepad, his eyes never leaving Arista. “But you know who sent him?”

“That’s right.” She made no move to elaborate, frustrating the cop.

“How do you know where he’s from but not who he is?”

She pursed her lips, frowning so hard her brows creased her face.

“He’s from SeoulSOUL Entertainment.” She hesitated, her eyes drifting across the living room to find mine.

When she found me staring, she didn’t look away, but a sadness and regret welled up within their depths.

“They’re here for Jun, and they’re not afraid to kill anyone who gets in their way. ”

“Surely he wouldn’t work for the company who killed his daughter?”

“They won’t kill her now. But they’ve tried before.

” She turned her arm over, showing the cop her wrist. “They caused a car accident meant to take my life while I was pregnant. They chased me across two continents, trying to force me to get rid of the baby that posed a threat to their income.” Only then did she break our locked gazes, her eyes drifting back down to the floor.

“As long as I was out of the picture, he’d keep working for them.

They didn’t care how or at what cost their desired results came to be. ”

“And you think this man?—”

“I know this man is working for them. He admitted it himself.” Her sigh was heavy and laden with regret and pain and sorrow.

“Listen, it’s been a long day, so if you have any more questions, I’d be happy to answer them—first thing tomorrow, with a lawyer present. Right now, I think I’m done talking.”

The detective presented his card and shook her hand, then followed his colleagues out of the house. Almost immediately, she pulled her tablet off the side table and got to work, scrolling and furiously typing away.

Two minutes later, I learned why.

“We’re not staying here. I booked us a suite of rooms at the Egress, our local luxury hotel.

” Her eyes traveled to Pujin, who stood in the corner of the room, watching like a hawk.

“Pujin, can you assemble a traveling team to provide security there? I can have backup sent from the company, should you need it.”

His nod was curt. “I can handle that, ma’am.”

“Good. I’m not sure how long we’ll be there.” Her brows nearly touched now. “The company wants to make sure the Kims are well protected.”

The Kims. She just as well as admitted to that cop that she was the target here, and yet they were worried about our safety, not hers.

What a joke.

“Who gives a fuck about us? They were after you.” I marched over and grabbed her by the shoulders, shaking her as if by doing so, I could bring her common sense back. “How are you so calm right now?”

She shrugged, her eyes a bit unfocused as she refused to meet my gaze. “I’m used to running liaison for artists in some precarious positions. This is what I did to get where I am now.”

I reached out to her, my hand falling short as she pulled away and curled in on herself. “But you’ve never been the target, have you?”

“I was the target seven years ago,” she pointed out, her tone dry and emotionless. “I survived that, I’ll survive this. But they’re not only after me now. So let me do what I do best, and stay out of my way.”

There it was. The old her peeked through as she deflected attention like she’d always done when she wanted you to look anywhere but at her. Ari, at her core, had always been horrible at accepting concern and care from others.

Some things never changed.

I put my hands up and backed away slowly, ceding the victory to her for now.

“Fine. You don’t wanna talk, that’s cool.

Do whatever it is you’re going to do.” I turned and marched out of the kitchen, determined to pack our bags in as little time as possible.

I itched to be back with Yejin, but she was safe next door, with Grant, who was being debriefed, and the rest of our security team, who Pujin trusted implicitly.

His trust was the one thing I’d never had cause to question, so I didn’t. I didn’t want Yejin to see our new house with a puddle of blood on the floor where she played. I didn’t want her to ask questions about the police tape.

It took me twenty minutes to pack up her special sleeping stuffie, some clothes, and a few other odds and ends to keep her busy in a small hotel room. When I came back downstairs, Ari was nowhere to be found.

Of course, that caused panic to rise in me that made absolutely no sense.

Or did it?

I had to be honest with myself. When I saw her wrestling with that asshole for the gun, my heart fell through the floor.

I imagined a world without her in it, and time stopped.

Everything in me screamed to let a professional help, but I disregarded Pujin’s warnings to stay out of the house.

Even after Yejin and Grant were clear of the damn place, I ran back in, knowing Arista was in there somewhere, at the hands of an evil piece of shit who threatened her safety and her life.

I didn’t hesitate to launch myself into the fray when the tussle broke out.

All I could think was how to keep her safe, how to save a woman I’d been trying so long to erase, to move on from, who I’d never managed to hate as much as I deluded myself into thinking I did.

Because at the root of it all, I’d never hated her. I hated that she left.

Because if I couldn’t have her, what point was having the family we’d both wanted so badly?

Because I was scared that I couldn’t do this shit without her.

I’d let myself hate her for seven years to mask my own fears of inadequacy.

My fear of failure. Any time we’d fallen in our debut days, Ari had been there with a smile and sweets, ready to remind us that we couldn’t get better if we didn’t fail.

To shore up our egos and point out all the amazing things we were good at.

Ari was a rock, and we all leaned on her. Me more than the others. And when that support morphed into something new, did I once bother to stop and see what she needed from me?

No.

I continued to let her support me in my dreams. I let her take the weight off my shoulders. I used her for relief when I should have been worshiping her.

And when she got pregnant, I never once stopped to ask her whether this was something she wanted or not.

She kept the baby because I had always wanted a family. Because of my dreams. And she gave me that child, even though it put her own life in danger, because she knew how much it meant to me.

I couldn’t imagine giving up Yejin for anything. But she did, for me, because to not have her would have been crushing for me. It would have broken me.

Even leaving was a calculated, selfless act. If she kept the baby, it would have ruined my career, because I would have spent my whole life searching for her. If she kept Yejin, the label might’ve caught up to her and killed them both.

Giving her to me kept her safe. The label wouldn’t have put her in danger if it would ruin their chances with me.

Hiding her in plain sight was the most brilliant move, and I’d been so blinded by anger and betrayal and sadness that I hadn’t seen it until it was too late.

Much too late.

It didn’t take a genius to see how badly I’d screwed up. And because of my selfish desires, because I couldn’t just let her go when fate brought us back together, she was in the crosshairs again.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered to the kitchen as I paced aimlessly back and forth, dialing her number, only to delete it again, then dial it all over again, staring at the screen while my thumb hovered over the call button.

Fuck, where did I even begin?

I’m sorry I was an asshole. I’m sorry I ever believed you would do this to hurt me. I’m sorry I let myself hate you when you didn’t deserve it.

A lot of things to be sorry for. And she was nowhere to be found to express it all.

Pujin wandered back into the kitchen with his own go bag, a frown on his lips as he talked into his earpiece.

“Yes, we’re headed there now. I’ll secure the rooms and escort the Kims upstairs myself.

Hotel staff has already prepared the underground parking garage for VIP access, and security is in place.

” His eyes fell on me, then to the bag in my hand. “Yes, understood. I’ll let them know.”

He tapped his ear and smiled, the disarming grin leaving a bad taste in my mouth as I saw it for what it was: fake.

“She left, didn’t she?” I asked quietly, my eyes searching over his shoulder, down the hallway, a trace of hope and desperation tinting the words I muttered.

“I sent her with an escort, sir,” Pujin replied smoothly, refusing to tell me more.

Maybe he couldn’t. Maybe he didn’t know. Or maybe she’d sworn him to secrecy, wanting to make a clean break before I asked her to explain.

But I didn’t need an explanation. I’d worked it all out while I reduced our lives to a few bags of necessities. While I prepared to leave my own house because a crazed man tainted the halls where I walked, lived, ate, slept.

“Where did she go?”

Pujin shook his head forlornly. “I’m not at liberty to say, sir?—”

I lashed out, angry and afraid and emotionally wrecked. My hands gripped his collar and dragged him to me, our noses practically touching. “Where, Pujin?”

“She asked me not to say.” His eyes fell to the floor, shame rippling across their surface. “Sir?—”

“Whose man are you?” I spat, jealousy at his loyalty shift eating me from the inside out. “Where do you get off doing her bidding now? Did you forget who brought you to this country?”

I didn’t care if I was being irrational. The very real fear that she’d never come back again, the worry that while she was out there alone, they’d snatch her away and make good on their promises to kill her, boiled in my veins. It made me mad with worry, turned me into someone I wasn’t.

“You, sir,” Pujin replied, clearing his throat. “I follow you.”

“Then tell me where she went.”

Just then, one of his subordinates walked in holding a set of keys. “Sir, the car’s ready,” he reported, his tone inflectionless as he handed them over to his boss. “Should we move Miss Kim and her instructor now?”

“The tutor will be in the rooms across the hall from the Kims. Please see to it that he gets settled immediately.” He looked to me, his eyes sad and sympathetic, swimming with emotions I never wanted to see from my fucking bodyguard.

“I’ll bring the Kims along post haste. We have another stop to make before we check in. ”

I released his collar and dusted him off, suddenly ashamed of myself. “Sorry, ole boy,” I muttered, feeling very much like the child who’d been silently scolded for acting out. “Should I take this to the car?”

Pujin reached out and took the bag from me with a shake of his head. “I’ll handle the bags, Jun. You just figure out what the hell you’re going to say to her to bring her back with you.”