“No one deserves to be slaughtered in their own home.”
He laughs, the sound sharp and dismissive. “Oh, but yes they do. Jung-hoon deserved it. He was one of us—a trusted associate of the Hyeonmudan. We were brothers-in-arms, bound by blood and the oath we took. Or so I thought.”
“He… betrayed you?”
“He more than betrayed us,” he spits, throwing a glare in my direction from over his shoulder. I go still, pretending Ihaven’t been fussing with the rope at my wrists. “He sold information to our worst enemy. The Baekho Pa.”
My brows jump slightly, though I quickly recover from the surprising revelation. That’s part of the story I didn’t know.
Dok-su hadn’t mentioned anything about the Baekho Pa being involved…
“He sold us out for their protection. He saved his own hide while he participated in our extinction,” Myeong-su explains, his eyes darkening. He turns back to the wardrobe. “The Baekho Pa used that information to slaughter us. They came in the night and killed everyone they could find.”
My stomach twists into tiny knots as I can’t help wondering if Jin was aware of that detail. But he’s never indicated his family had anything to do with the Baekho Pa. Does he even know about his dad’s supposed betrayal?
“They killed members of the Hyeonmudan,” says Myeong-su. “But they also killed some of our families. Including my brother. Including my wife. She was pregnant with our first child.”
Another tremor of shock rocks through me, so sudden I’m once again forgetting about the rope binding my wrists. My fingers go still, and I process the fact that there’s more to the story than I ever imagined.
I think about the time I was in Mr. Noh’s office after the mugging and I’d seen the photo on his desk. It was of a much younger him and his pregnant wife. I’d thought it was just a sweet throwback photo he kept over the years. I didn’t know it was probably one of the last they took together…
“Yes,” he chuckles darkly, glancing at me again. “They murdered innocent women and children in cold blood. So, as you can see, the good guys weren’t so good after all, were they?”
“Jin had no part in it! He… he was just a child.”
“His father did!” he roars back. “His father caused untold devastation! He needed to pay for what he did to us. He thought he could hide behind the Baekho for protection like the coward he was. But I found him.
“I tracked him down, and I made him watch as I took everything from him. He kneeled on the floor and watched me slit his wife’s throat as she sobbed for mercy. Then I killed his mother. Then his brother and uncle. I killed them all and let them bleed out on this very floor. Everyone he loved, dead at his feet before I finally ran him through too.”
I swallow hard, sick at the grim barbarity of it all. “But you missed one, didn’t you?”
“The boy,” he answers with a begrudging nod. “I didn’t know he was hiding in that wardrobe. This very wardrobe.”
For a second, Myeong-su gestures to the wardrobe he’s propped open, and we both stare at it as if expecting the piece of furniture to offer further insights into the past.
The knots in my stomach have only tightened, so sickened by thoughts of Jin hiding inside that tiny box for days while his family decayed on the floor.
“For many years I had no idea what happened to him,” Myeong-su muses. “He was sent to an orphanage somewhere. The location was never disclosed. And that friend of his family—she fled to Taiwan to avoid leading me to him. My revenge was left incomplete.
“But then I learned some very important news. It’s been many years since the Hyeonmudan was destroyed and I ran in criminal circles, but I’ve always kept my ear to the streets. I’ve always made sure to keep up with its developments,” he explains. He pulls out a pile of linens and sets them down on the floor with a heavy thud. “Imagine my surprise when I learned Kim Jae-hyun, Baekho-je of the Baekho Pa, had died. That another had taken his place.”
“Seo Jin-tae,” I supply with a shiver racking down my spine. “You recognized the name.”
“See, I knew you were smart after all, Miss Ross. Jin-tae was finally within reach. How could I pass up my opportunity to finish what I started thirty years ago?”
“So you came after me,” I say, forcing myself to stay calm. I’m still picking at the knot on my rope, doing my best to loosen it. “You couldn’t just fight Jin directly, so you went after me instead.”
“Ah, not quite. First I did my research.” He’s started pulling folded towels out of the wardrobe, setting them down in a stack on the floor next to the linen. “I learned that the great Baekho-je, the feared Silent Hunter of Busan, had a weakness. A sweet, trusting American teacher I could use to control him.”
He pauses again long enough for a glance at me. His eerie smile returns with a fond quality about it.
“It was pathetically easy to create my backstory. A fake resume and some forged references from criminal associates, and I was hired as the new administrator at your school,” he says. “All I had to do from there was get close to you. All I had to do was be kind to you. You were so grateful for the attention, so touched that someone cared about your pregnancy and your wellbeing.”
“The mugging,” I manage. “That was you too?”
“I paid that strung-out degenerate a hundred thousand won to attack you in that alley,” he answers, chuckling. He’s set down the last stack of old household towels, straightening up. “Then I swooped in to save the day and earned your trust forever. After that, I had you exactly where I wanted you.”
“The baby shower,” I whisper. “The going away party. You suggested them?”
