Fear is most effective when it has a face.
Park Min-gyu moves beside me, his bulky frame surprisingly agile as we navigate the maze of back alleys. Behind us, Choi Woo-sik and a dozen other hubaes follow in tight formation, their footsteps thudding against the cracked pavement.
We find the Bulgeomhoe exactly where our intelligence said they’d be.
Six of them, clustered near the loading dock of an abandoned warehouse. They’re armed but relaxed, clearly not expecting trouble. Cigarettes glow orange in the darkness as they laugh and joke among themselves, oblivious to the danger closing in around them.
My men swarm all at once.
Within seconds, we have them surrounded. Guns materialize from under jackets, the metallic clicks of safeties disengaging suddenly the loudest sound in the night air.
The Bulgeomhoe’s laughter dies at the same time, replaced by the stunned silence of men who have just realized they’re outmatched.
“On your knees,” Min-gyu barks.
Most of them comply immediately, dropping to the ground with hands raised. But one—a man in his thirties with heavily tattooed arms and spiky gelled hair—remains standing, his jaw clenched with defiance.
I recognize him as Yeo Dong-chul, one of the Bulgeomhoe’s newer captains.
Exactly the man I was hoping to find.
Min-gyu and Woo-sik seize him by the arms andforce him to his knees. He struggles briefly, a snarl twisting his features, but goes still when I step forward into the dim light.
“Seo Jin-tae,” he spits with loathing.
“Dong-chul,” I reply, regarding him with cold detachment. “We’ve been patient with your organization. Perhaps too patient. You’ve been encroaching on Baekho territory for months now. Harassing businesses under our protection. Testing boundaries you have no right to test.”
His lips curl into a sneer. “This is contested ground. Always has been.”
“Itwascontested,” I correct him. “Now it belongs to us. Which means you’ve run out of chances to learn that lesson peacefully.”
Some of his men shift nervously, exchanging glances with sweat beading on their foreheads despite the cool night air.
“Do you know what happens,” I ask calmly, “when the Baekho runs out of patience?”
Dong-chul thinks he’s defiant refusing to answer. But I don’t need him to play along. He has no control, no say in the matter.
What’s done is already done, and their fate has already been decided.
I glance at one of the hubaes standing nearby—a young man with a steady hand and cold eyes—and give a single nod.
The gunshot is quick to follow, ringing out through the industrial neighborhood’s empty streets.
One of the kneeling Bulgeomhoe men crumples sideways, a hole torn through his skull, blood dribbling onto the dirty concrete beneath him. The others flinch, one of them letting out a strangled sob.
Dong-chul’s defiance wavers. Fear flickers across his face as his bravado crumbles and reality sets in.
I produce my knife—a sleek blade I’ve carried since my days as a street enforcer—and approach him slowly. His facereflects in the steel as I bring the knife up and taunt him, trailing it down the bridge of his nose. Across the width of his jawline.
Then finally against the pulse point of his throat.
“When territory lines aren’t respected,” I say coolly, “I’m forced to make an example.”
His breath comes in shallow bursts, his Adam’s apple bobbing against the blade. He rasps, “You’ll start a war.”
“Yes,” I answer, then I lean closer. “A war I’llwin.”
The knife slashes in a single, fluid arc.
