“Or what? You’ll disfigure me more?” He spreads his arms wide, the pillow falling away to reveal his pale, sagging body. “Go ahead. Use your blade. Make me a true monster. It’s not as if I have much left to lose.”
His defiance admittedly gets under my skin. He’s always had a knack for that.
Which is why I disfigured him as badly as I did so many years ago. It seems that hasn’t changed.
Before I can think better of it, I lash out—a quick, fluid slash of my blade cuts open his cheek from ear to jaw.
Blood beads from the wound, dribbling down his swollenface and dripping onto his bare chest. Seung-ho laughs even louder, coughing phlegm as he does.
“There he is!” he rasps. “The real Seo Jin-tae. Not so composed after all.”
I force myself to stillness, reining in the impulse that drove me to strike.
This is not how I operate. I am calculated.Controlled.
I don’t let weak men like this get under my skin.
“The boxing match,” I repeat, my tone flat. “Answer the question.”
“I’m a gambler, you stupid fuck. I go to most of the underground matches on the peninsula. It’s one of the few pleasures I have left,” he slurs, wiping blood from his cheek. He gestures at the squalid room around us. “Look at me. I have eighty thousand won to my name. I could barely pay for the whore you just chased off. Do I still hate you? Yes, and I will ’til the day I die. But I am not the man you seek.”
It’s the truth, no matter how bitter of a pill it is to swallow in the moment.
He’s being honest. I can see it in his eyes and pick it up in his voice. That’s not considering basic reasoning, which points toward his pitiful existence as a gambling drunkard. He could never strike so decisively against me.
Goh Seung-ho is many things—bitter, broken, pathetic—but he’s not the Black Shell. He doesn’t have the resources or the cunning. He’s merely a washed-up drunk clinging to the remnants of a life I destroyed years ago.
This trip has been a waste.
But that doesn’t mean he isn’t a bastard deserving of more retribution.
I step forward and drive my elbow down into his face. Cartilage crunches under me, blood spraying from his shattered nose like a faucet.
Seung-ho howls, his hands flying up to clutch at the damage, but I’m already turning away.
“We’re done here,” I say simply.
Min-gyu follows me out the door without a word.
When we step outside, the morning is still gray and chilly, smelling stale and wet. It seems the sun will be refusing to come out today.
We cross the cratered parking lot to the sleek black car waiting for us. I slide into the passenger seat, more tense and frustrated than when this field trip began.
Min-gyu backs us out of the parking lot and turns onto the street.
“Weeks,” I say. “We’ve spent weeks chasing this lead. This is what you bring me? A drunken wreck with a limp cock and a lisp?”
Min-gyu’s knuckles whiten on the steering wheel. “Baekho-je, I?—”
“It’s unacceptable. It’sincompetent.” I stare straight ahead, my fury barely contained. “If I ever thought you were ready for a promotion to Ho-gwi, that’s no longer the case.”
“I understand,” he says. “I’ll do better. I will continue to search for leads.”
His promises are met with silence. They mean nothing with no results to back them up.
We make it onto the highway and begin the long drive back to Busan. I check the time on my phone, calculating our drive time and how close it’ll be to Monroe’s appointment.
It’s going to be close, but if traffic cooperates, I should make it with a few minutes to spare.
