Genre: Mafia!au , Slowburn, Angst, Hurt, smut, TW (it is a mafia!AU, after all)
Pairing: Mafia!Jungkook x reader
Synopsis : In a world governed by clans and blood debts, nothing ever burns by accident; fading embers are nurtured carefully, mistaken for mercy and the gentle promise of warmth through the night. But fire answers to no one, and it has never spared whatâor whoâwas foolish enough to keep it close.
Wordcount : 120k
Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3
Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6
Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9
Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12
Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15
Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18
Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21
Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24
Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27
Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30
Chapter 31 Chapter 32 Chapter 33
Chapter 34. Chapter 35 Chapter 36
Chapter 37 Chapter 38 Chapter 39
Chapter 40 Chapter 41
Teaser Book 2
Book 2
(in progress)
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21 (coming soon)
Between the Li(n)es
Genre: Idol!au, mega mega Angst, mega mega Hurt, eventual mega Smut.
Pairing: Ex!Jungkook x reader (+featuring the one and only Mr. Harry Styles in honor of 2026 marking the comeback of all our husbands)
Series Genre: Mafia!au , Slowburn, Angst, Hurt, Smut, TW (it is a mafia!AU, after all)
Pairing: Mafia!Jungkook x reader
Wordcount: 4.7k
Masterlist
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The first wagon had left before dawn.
It moved without lights through the industrial outskirts of the city, past shuttered factories and service roads drowned in the last of the night rain. The vehicle itself looked unremarkable from the outside, the kind used to transport construction equipment or cheap furniture across districts no one cared to police too closely. Its tires cut through puddles with a low hiss. In the back, beneath a canvas tarp stiff with damp, ten men sat in silence among crates of weapons, stolen clerical garments, forged identification badges, and three sealed cases bearing the Kang insignia scratched crudely into the side.
Jungkook sat closest to the doors, one boot braced against the metal floor, rifle resting across his knees.
Nobody spoke to him.
That had been true for most of the past two days. Not because there was nothing to say. There was too much, if anything. Too many plans, too many names, too many maps spread across tables in rooms that smelled of cigarettes and damp concrete. Too many men arguing over entry points, casualty estimates, sewer access, bell towers, snipersâ nests, Lee security rotations, Park evacuation patterns, guest lists, etc.
Too many ways to say the same thing politely: they were about to walk into a cathedral and end a dynasty.
Namjoon had stood at the head of the planning table with both hands folded over the carved handle of his cane, face half-lit by a hanging bulb, and explained the operation with the calm, precise cruelty of a man who had spent the past month deciding exactly how much mercy remained in him and found the answer wanting.
The House of Lee had tried to erase the Tigers at the Summit. Therefore, the House of Lee would be erased in turn.
Not weakened. Not humbled. Not sent a message. Erased. Dismantled. Brick by brick, account by account, heir by heir, until nothing remained but legal debris, scattered servants, and frightened men pretending they had never worn ivory.
The Kangs had liked that.
Of course they had. Rats understood extermination. They did not speak of honor, purity, legacy, or rightful order. They spoke of corners, tunnels, drains, locked doors, forgotten basements. They spoke of what happened when snakes grew arrogant enough to forget that rats lived inside the walls.
The Lees and Parks had built the new order after the Summit under the assumption that the Tigers were broken, the Chois too distant, and the Kangs too low, too crude, too disorganized to matter. That had been their first miscalculation.
âBig mistake,â one of them had said during the first meeting, chewing tobacco with his back teeth and grinning around the dark wad of it. âEveryone always remembers to look up for birds. Out for dogs. Down for snakes. Nobody checks under the floorboards until itâs too late.â
Jungkook had not liked them.
None of the Tigers had.
The feeling had been fairly mutual. The Kangs were vulgar, practical, obscene in their efficiency, men who made fortunes from appetites the other clans pretended not to have while profiting from them quietly through third parties and offshore accounts.
Pimps, organ brokers, smugglers of bodies and pills and debts. They wore cheap leather jackets over expensive watches and laughed at things that made even Yoongiâs expression sharpen.
Their loyalty was not to blood or banners but to opportunity, grievance, and the exquisite pleasure of watching the old families choke on their own superiority.
But Namjoon had been right.
The Kim Tigers, or what was left of them, needed the Kang Rats.
The alliance had come together faster than expected.
The planning that followed, however, had not.
For nearly a week, safehouses and warehouses across the country had become war rooms. Maps spread across tables. Schedules. Floorplans. Guest lists. Routes in and routes out.
Names.
Many names.
The Kangs approached the whole thing with unnerving enthusiasm.
Not because they hated the Lees particularly.
Hatred implied emotion.
The Kangs simply understood business.
And business, as several of them had cheerfully explained over drinks one evening, required thoroughness.
Jungkook remembered sitting through one such meeting while a Kang man twice his age casually discussed the logistical difficulties of disposing of several hundred bodies.
The conversation had revolved around transportation capacity.
Nothing else.
No outrage.
No moral hesitation.
Not even a shameful, downturned glance.
Just arithmetic.
At some point, Jungkook had realized the man was being entirely serious.
The Kangs trafficked people.
Sold organs.
Ran enough vice operations to keep half the peninsula's politicians awake at night.
Sentimentality had long since been carved out of them.
One Kang woman â a plump lady with gold teeth and a fondness for opium oilâ had merely shrugged when the subject of surviving family members arose.
"You leave one angry little orphan alive," she'd said, "and twenty years later he's got you at gunpoint, explaining his tragic little backstory."
Several people had laughed.
The discussion moved on.
Jungkook hadn't.
Because the truly unsettling part wasn't the Kangs.
It was Namjoon.
Namjoon had not laughed.
He had not smiled.
But he had not objected either.
Instead he had simply looked down at the plans spread across the table:
âThen weâre agreed,â heâd said, "No survivors."
The room had gone quiet.
The House of the Snake would be erased.
Every son.
Every daughter.
Every uncle, nephew, grandchild and cousin eight times removed carrying Lee blood.
The entire rotten tree uprooted. Namjoon wouldnât give the snake the opportunity to grow a new head.
Jungkook remembered watching the room afterward.
Watching Taehyung look away.
Watching Yoongi say absolutely nothing.
Watching everyone silently understand that arguing would accomplish very little.
Because Namjoon had come back from the dead carrying something darker with him.
Perhaps it had arrived along with the bullet lodged near his spine.
Perhaps it had always been there.
Either way, it sat behind his eyes now.
Cold.
Patient.
Merciless.
The Lees had taken his clan.
His fortune.
His home.
His brother.
His future.
And for several months, they had taken his life too.
Now he intended to return the favor.
As for the Parks...
Jungkook looked out the truck window.
That subject proved far less controversial.
The Tigers' appetite for Park blood remained healthy.
No clan had forgotten whose signatures appeared on the agreements.
Whose soldiers had helped secure the Summit backstabbing.
Whose banners had flown alongside the Lees while Tiger blood soaked the marble floors.
The fact that Y/N happened to be a Park complicated matters for Jungkook.
For absolutely nobody else.
By the third night, the Kangs had already produced cathedral floor plans older than most governments, bribed two maintenance workers, bought a Lee driverâs gambling debt, identified the priestâs nephew as an addict, and located a disused service corridor beneath the sacristy that had not appeared on any official map since the 1970s.
Their intelligence was filthy, intimate, horrifyingly useful. They knew which cousin slept with whose wife, which uncle required blood-pressure medication, which Lee guards had mistresses in Kang territory, which Ravens on outer perimeter duty had enough debts to be persuadable and which ones needed killing instead.
Jungkook had listened to all of it with his jaw locked and his hands clenched beneath the table.
Then one of the Kangs suggested blowing up the cathedral.
Not dramatically. Not with malice. Almost lazily, as though proposing they take a shorter route through traffic.
âWhy waste the manpower?â he had said, tapping ash into an empty teacup. âRig the foundations, blow the whole thing up, collapse the nave during the vows. Lees, Parks, guests, priests, flowers, everybody dead instantly. Clean enough. No survivors to come back and bite us in the ass with a tragic little origin story ten years from now. Who cares ifââ
Jungkook had crossed the room before anyone could stop him.
The first punch broke the manâs nose. The second cracked something in his jaw. By the third, the chair had gone over backward and two Tigers were hauling Jungkook off by the shoulders while three Kangs drew guns and Namjoonâs cane came down against the table hard enough to split the wood.
Nobody spoke for several seconds after that.
Blood dripped steadily from the Kangâs face onto his shirt. Jungkook stood breathing like an animal, chest heaving, eyes black with the kind of rage that did not burn so much as freeze everything it touched.
Namjoon had looked at him for a long moment.
Then at the Kang.
âNo explosives,â he said.
The Kang had spat blood onto the floor and laughed through his ruined mouth. âTouchy one, your brother.â
âNo explosives,â Namjoon repeated, and this time the room understood that the matter had closed. âThey deserve to feel every second of it. To watch the walls close in. To spend their final minutes begging for a way out. And then, when they finally realize there isnât one, I want them to witness their house falling beam by beam, knowing there is nowhere left to run.â
Jungkook felt a sort of relief wash over him.
Later, when the others had dispersed, Jungkook found him alone beside the maps, one hand braced against the table, his cane resting against his thigh. For a while neither of them spoke. Jungkook expected reprimand for his lack of self-control. Warning. Something about discipline, timing, not letting emotion compromise the mission.
Namjoon gave him none of that. Only silence.
âThank you,â Jungkook said.
âShe saved my life, too,â Namjoon replied at last, eyes still on the floor plans. âI donât forget my debts.â
Jungkook swallowed.
The words should have comforted him.
They didnât.
They sat inside him with everything else he now knew: the ring, the corpse, the bullet, the deal, the wedding. Y/N alone among the dead, placing Namjoonâs signet on another manâs hand and firing into a face so no one would know the difference. Y/N kneeling beside Jungkook in the snow, bargaining her life away while he bled beneath her hands and mistook her for an Angel of Death.
He had spent months hating her for surviving.
Only to discover she had spent that same night ensuring he did.
The wagon hit a pothole, jolting him back to the present. Across from him, one of the Kang men swore under his breath and shifted a crate with his boot. Beside Jungkook, Taehyung checked the magazine in his pistol for the fourth time, though they both knew it was full. Yoongi sat with his eyes closed, head tipped back against the metal wall, looking for all the world as though he might be sleeping. He wasnât. Jimin crouched near the rear window, peering through a narrow tear in the canvas every few minutes as the city thinned and the roads widened.
Beyond them, sealed in the dark with weapons and men who had already accepted the shape of the day, Jungkook thought of Orpheus.
It was absurd, really. He had never been much of a reader. Books had always seemed to him like another language spoken by people who had time to sit still.
But there had been books in Y/Nâs childhood bedroom outside the Raven base. He had looked at them once out of boredom, then again out of curiosity, then again because every object in that room had felt like a clue to a woman he had failed to understand while she was standing right in front of him.
Books on shelves, books stacked on the desk, books with torn paper marking pages, books abandoned open-faced. One. Ovidâs Metamorphoses. There were plenty of stories.
Orpheus had gone down into the underworld for the woman he loved.
Jungkook remembered that much.
He remembered thinking the story was stupid. Walk out. Donât look back. How hard could that be? One instruction. One road. One chance. Men had ruined themselves for less, he supposed, but even then the tragedy had annoyed him.
Now, watching the black outline of the cathedral rise slowly beyond the rain-streaked glass, Jungkook understood the story differently.
Hell was not fire or darkness, or some imaginary place.
Hell was sitting in the back of a wagon with a rifle across your knees, approaching a wedding you were seconds from being too late to stop, knowing the woman inside had already made peace with a sacrifice you would rather tear the world apart than allow.
Jungkook had not prayed in years.
He did not pray now.
But as the cathedral bells began tolling somewhere ahead, deep and sonorous through the thinning morning, Jungkook lowered his gaze to the rifle in his hands and felt something colder than hope settle into place.
Certainty.
He had crawled this far.
Through smoke. Through blood. Through the ruins of everything he had once believed unbreakable. Through the Raven base and the Lee estate and every miserable day that had taught him how much damage a person could endure without dying.
He had crawled all the way to the bottom of Hell for her.
And unlike Orpheus, Jeon Jungkook had absolutely no intention of walking out alone.
The wagon slowed a couple blocks from the cathedral.
No one had to tell them they were close. The air itself had changed, thinning into that strange ceremonial quiet that gathered around disasters before they happened. Beyond the narrow slit in the canvas, Jungkook caught glimpses of polished black cars lining the curb, private security posted beneath stone archways, guests in dark coats and pale dresses hurrying out of the rain beneath umbrellas held by men paid not to look at them directly.
It was a rainy morning.
A storm in the air.
Still, the city had folded itself around the event. Streets rerouted, cameras redirected, police made politely blind. It would have looked like any other wedding to anyone stupid enough to believe in surface appearances.
Jimin shifted first, rolling his shoulders as though waking his body from stillness. Taehyung tucked his pistol beneath his jacket and checked the small earpiece hidden beneath his hair. Across from them, the Kang men began fastening clerical collars around their throats with the ease of men who had worn far worse disguises for far worse reasons. They had brought cassocks, delivery manifests, floral invoices, security badges, even a sealed crate of communion wine with the Lee crest stamped on the side.
Yoongi opened his eyes.
The movement was small, but the wagon seemed to register it. Men who had been muttering under their breath went quiet.
This was what had always unsettled Jungkook about war. Not the blood. Not the screaming. The preparation. The way men could approach killing with the same attention one might give to repairing a machine, each gesture practical, each object assigned a purpose. Gloves. Silencers. Blades. Radios. Names crossed off guest lists in red ink.
The first team exited through the front.
The second waited thirty seconds before following.
Jungkook remained where he was until Yoongi touched two fingers to his knee. Only then did he rise, ducking beneath the low roof of the wagon, rifle case in hand. The morning rain had softened to a mist, hanging over the narrow service alley behind the cathedral like breath. Stone walls rose on either side, old and blackened by decades of weather, their carved saints made eyeless by soot. Somewhere beyond them, muffled organ music trembled faintly through the walls.
The sound turned Jungkookâs stomach.
It was beginning.
A Kang in a priestâs coat opened the side entrance with a stolen keycard and a smile that suggested he had never once in his life doubted that even God could be bribed. The guard inside barely looked up from his phone before Jimin stepped behind him and ended the matter with one hand over his mouth and a blade drawn neatly across his throat. He lowered the body with care, almost tenderness, easing it behind a stack of folded altar linens. Blood soaked silently into white cloth.
âWasteful,â one of the Kangs muttered, eyeing the linens.
Yoongi looked at him.
The man shut up.
They moved through the cathedralâs underbelly without speaking. Narrow corridors. Storage rooms. A staff kitchen smelling faintly of coffee and wilted herbs. A stairwell where the damp had crept into the stone until the walls sweated beneath their palms. The building was older from the inside, less immaculate than the polished nave above. Here the cathedral showed its bones: pipes, wires, cracked plaster, service doors painted the same dull grey as the floor. A sacred place, Jungkook thought, was still only a man-made thing if you entered it from the wrong door.
At the first landing, a Lee guard stepped out of a corridor with a cigarette tucked behind his ear and enough time to look surprised.
Taehyung shot him twice in the chest with a suppressed pistol.
The sound was soft. Insultingly so. Two flat coughs swallowed by stone and distance. The man struck the wall before sliding down it, leaving a dark smear behind his shoulder. Taehyung caught the body by the collar before it could hit the floor too loudly, face utterly blank in a way Jungkook knew meant he was angry enough to be useful.
They kept climbing.
The higher they rose, the clearer the music became. Organ notes swelled through the walls in grand, holy waves, rising above the faint murmur of guests and the creak of the old building settling around them.
With each flight, Jungkook felt the distance between himself and Y/N shrinking into something unbearable.
He had spent months with hardly any distance but emotional distance, no barrier but ignorance and pride and every vile thing other people had done to keep them apart. Now there was only stone, security, timing, and the thin mechanical delay between breath and gunshot.
It should have felt easier.
It didnât.
By the time they reached the gallery level, his hands were damp inside his gloves.
A Kang technician crouched beside an access panel, coaxing open the wiring. Another man watched the corridor. Jimin stood with his back to the wall, gun low, eyes half-lidded and cruelly alert. In the dimness, with his blond hair tucked behind his ears and his Raven training buried beneath years of Tiger loyalty, he looked like the exact sort of mistake every clan had made at least once: someone they had failed to kill because they had failed to understand what he might become.
The technician gave a soft click of his tongue.
The security feed looped.
The gallery door opened.
Warmth struck them first.
Not sunlight. Not yet. The warmth of bodies gathered in expensive clothes, perfume, candles, flowers arranged in such abundance their sweetness had begun to turn. Jungkook stepped through the narrow door into the shadowed upper gallery and stopped.
Below him, the cathedral opened like a wound dressed for celebration.
White marble stretched from entrance to altar, veined faintly grey beneath carpets laid in ceremonial lines. Orchids spilled from columns and railings, too many of them, their pale heads bending beneath their own weight.
Guests filled the pews in disciplined symmetry: Parks in black along one side, Lees in white and ivory along the other, each clan arranged like two sides of a chessboard when seen from above.
The vaulted ceiling disappeared into shadow and candlelight. High windows filtered the dull morning into muted color, saints gazing down from fractured blues and reds and golds, serene above the old violence of men pretending this was anything other than a transaction.
Jungkookâs eyes went straight to the aisle.
She had not arrived yet.
For one dangerous second, relief weakened him.
Then a Kang voice crackled low in his earpiece. âPosition.â
Jungkook forced himself to move.
The sniper nest had been chosen two nights earlier from photographs and plans, an upper maintenance balcony half-concealed behind a row of carved stone angels along the eastern wall. From there, he would have a clean line to the altar.
He knelt behind the stone balustrade and opened the rifle case.
His hands knew what to do. That was the mercy of training. The body continued even when the mind began its treachery. Scope. Magazine. Suppressor. Bolt checked once, then again. He fitted the pieces together with a calm he did not feel, every motion precise enough that anyone watching might have mistaken him for steady.
He was not steady.
Down below, the organ shifted.
The doors at the rear of the nave began to open.
Jungkookâs breath stopped.
At first there was only light widening along the aisle, a cold glow spilling over white stone. Then the veil appeared, a pale spill of fabric catching candlelight as it moved. For half a second his mind rejected what he was seeing.
Y/N walked alone.
No father. No brotherâs arm. No escort delivering her like property.
Alone.
The sight should have made him proud. It did, distantly, beneath the horror. Even now, dressed by enemies, surrounded by men who had priced her life against treaties and territory, she had found some small way to refuse the shape they tried to force upon her. Her spine was straight. Her chin lifted. The veil trailed behind her in a measured river of white silk, and the bouquet in her hands looked almost too delicate against the blood he imagined, against the things he knew those hands had done.
She looked thinner. That alone made him sick.
She was still beautiful, though.
The thought hit him with such violence that for a moment he hated himself.
Beautiful was too small a word, too soft, too useless for the ache that opened beneath his ribs.
He kept his eyes on her.
Halfway offered to the altar, not because she had been conquered, but because she had understood long ago that her body was the only currency this world ever accepted from her.
His finger hovered near the trigger guard.
Not yet.
Lee Taeyong waited at the altar, face composed, hands folded before him as though attending a negotiation rather than his own wedding. Jungkook had no particular hatred for him before that morning. Dislike, perhaps. Contempt. The vague disgust reserved for men willing to benefit from cages they claimed not to have built. But as Y/N reached him and turned toward the priest, that changed with startling ease.
Hatred did not require much, it turned out.
Only proximity.
Only the sight of another man standing where Jungkook had no right to stand, beside a woman who had never belonged to any of them and yet kept being claimed in the language of clans.
The priest began to speak.
Jungkook heard none of it at first. His scope found Taeyongâs face, then lost it as Y/Nâs veil shifted in the foreground. Too close. Fuck. The angle was worse than it had looked on the plans. Taeyong stood half a step nearer to her than expected, his shoulder nearly aligned with hers whenever he turned to listen.
Jungkookâs jaw tightened as he adjusted.
Breathed out.
Waited.
The priestâs voice rolled upward, warm and practiced. Legacy. Union. Strength. Stability. Jungkook watched Taeyongâs mouth move in response, watched Y/N stand perfectly still beside him. She did not look frightened. Somehow that was worse. Fear would have meant she still believed something might happen. That she expected rescue, disaster, reprieve. Instead she looked calm.
âHurry up,â someone whispered in his earpiece.
One of the Kangs.
Jungkook did not answer.
The voice came again, lower this time, annoyed. âThe second she says it, sheâs a Lee. You understand what that means, right?â
Jungkookâs eye remained fixed to the scope.
âShe becomes one of them.â
Still he did not answer.
Not because he failed to understand.
Because he understood perfectly.
That was what sickened him.
Once the vows were complete, she would no longer be collateral. She would be part of the household marked for extinction. A name absorbed into the enemy ledger. Another white-clad body in a cathedral full of them.
Namjoon had been clear. No survivors from the house of the Snake.
Jungkookâs palm tightened around the rifle.
Below, Taeyong began speaking his vows.
Loyalty. Protection. Respect.
Jungkook nearly laughed.
Instead he steadied his breathing.
The shot was there and not there. Each time Taeyongâs head turned, each time Y/N shifted half an inch, the world rearranged itself into impossible fractions. Jungkook had killed men at worse distances. Moving targets. Dark rooms. Rain. Cars. He had shot through glass, smoke, panic. But never like this. Never with the one person he could not miss standing close enough that a mistake would not merely haunt him.
It would end him.
The priest turned to Y/N.
Jungkookâs heartbeat changed.
It did not quicken. It sank, heavy and sick, each beat a hard, deliberate blow against his ribs.
âMiss Park?â
Through the scope, he saw her blink.
For the first time since she had entered the nave, something in her seemed to return from far away. Her eyes lifted toward the pews, past Taeyong, past the priest, scanning the room. Jungkook watched her gaze pass over the Lees, the Parks, the rows of pale and dark features.
He wondered if her eyes were looking for his in the crowd. Or if some part of her already knew he was there. If she had felt the weight of his gaze. Felt it settle on her shoulders like a hand.
The thought was stupid.
Self-indulgent
Impossible.
Still, his breath caught when her gaze paused, just faintly, somewhere beneath his balcony.
Then the priest repeated the question.
The cathedral seemed to narrow around her.
Jungkook placed the crosshairs at the exact point where Taeyongâs skull separated cleanly from the space Y/N occupied. His finger settled against the trigger. The whole world entered the space between pressure and release.
Y/N lifted her chin.
Her mouth opened.
âI dââ
Jungkook fired before she could finish.
From the gallery, pressed against stone with the rifle braced hard into his shoulder, Jungkook felt the violence of the shot in his own bones more than he heard it.
The suppressor swallowed the worst of the sound, reducing the act itself to something small and perverse, a flat metallic crack that disappeared almost immediately. For one sickening instant, nothing appeared to happen at all.
The bullet struck cleanly.
Well.
As cleanly as a bullet to the head can strike.
Jungkook had aimed true.
Through the scope, Jungkook saw a spray of blood hit the side of Y/Nâs face, her veil, the white silk near her shoulder. He saw her blink once, not yet frightened, not even horrified, merely interrupted. Her hand lifted slowly to her cheek with the unthinking confusion of someone brushing away rain. Only then did she look up to her betrothed.
Jungkook stopped breathing.
Taeyongâs body remained upright for one impossible heartbeat, then fell to the floor.
Jungkook shifted the rifle.
Below, Y/N lifted her head.
Her gaze moved toward the pews.
Jungkook followed her gaze and found Lee Jooshil.
Even without the scope, Jungkook would have known the sound that followed belonged to a mother.
It began before sound fully emerged from her throat, visible first in the way her body jerked up from the pew, one hand clawing against the pearls at her neck. Her face had gone an astonishing shade of purple beneath the powder, veins standing out along her temple, eyes fixed first on the ruin of her son and then snapping upward, searching for blame with the speed of instinct. When those eyes landed on Y/N, something old and animal tore through the cathedral.
The scream ripped out of her.
And then the spell broke.
The cathedral erupted into chaos.
â
Okayyyy got ourselves Jungkookâs pov for the ceremony, are you looking forward to see what happens next? Will orpheus walk out alone?
Series Genre: Mafia!au , Slowburn, Angst, Hurt, smut, TW (it is a mafia!AU, after all)
Pairing: Mafia!Jungkook x reader
Wordcount: 6.9k
Masterlist
â
The room smelled like orchids.
Too many of them.
White blooms that crowded every surface of the bridal suite â the dressing table, the marble mantel, the windowsills â pale petals opening wide beneath gold light.
Y/N stood very still by the windows. Her gaze travelling everywhere but the mirror with superstitious zeal.
The gown weighed against her ribs. Hand-stitched silk layered over brutal internal structure, the corset pulling her spine straight enough to ache. Lace climbed delicately along her throat and collarbones in patterns resembling frost spreading across glass. The veil spilled behind her in impossible lengths of white organza, swallowing the hardwood floor whole.
It was beautiful.
Correct.
Every detail had been chosen with suffocating precision until she resembled exactly what the Lees wanted the country to see beside their son: elegance without scandal. Grace without visible blood beneath it.
She hated it instantly.
Earlier, the seamstresses had circled her in reverent little swarms, adjusting hems and sleeves with trembling excitement. One had actually teared up fastening the final buttons.
So radiant.
So lovely.
A perfect bride.
Y/N had breathed in when required. Tilted her chin when instructed. Allowed herself to be arranged like an offering.
Now they were gone.
Now the room sat in oppressive silence broken only by the soft hiss of the wind outside. A storm brewing.
Her gaze drifted unwillingly toward the edge of the mirror.
White silk.
Dark hair beneath the veil.
She looked away immediately.
Turned her attention to the flower arrangements.
The orchids had already begun decaying.
No one else would notice it. The rot remained subtle â browning edges hidden beneath fuller blooms, water clouding faintly inside crystal vases, petals beginning to curl inward.
Beautiful things spoiled quickly indoors.
Trapped and arranged when they were meant to blossom freely in the wild.
Something ugly twisted suddenly beneath her ribs.
Before she consciously decided to move, Y/N crossed the room, grabbed the nearest orchid arrangement, and ripped one of the flowers violently from its stem.
The sound startled her.
White petals scattered across polished wood.
She stared at them.
Then reached for another.
And another.
By the time the knock came at the door, half the arrangement had been dismantled, pale flowers littering the floor around the hem of her gown.
Y/N froze.
The knock came again.
âCome in.â
The door opened quietly.
She was surprised to see Chan stepping inside.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
He closed the door behind him. His eyes moved once over the suite â the overturned vase, the torn flowers, the white petals scattered on the floor â before landing on her.
The dress.
The veil.
Something in his face changed.
Not enough for anyone else to name. Chan had learned the same lessons she had about masks and timing and the usefulness of a blank expression. But Y/N had known him before he became so good at hiding things. She saw the smallest break in him, the slight stillness in his shoulders, the way his gaze caught for half a second at her hand and then dragged itself back to her face.
âDid they send you to make sure I didnât climb out the window?â she asked.
Her voice came out dry enough to almost sound like herself.
Chanâs mouth twitched.
âSomething like that.â
She glanced toward the balcony doors, where thin light slipped through the gap in the curtains.
âBit insulting, really. Theyâre bolted.â
âI guess they know enough not to underestimate you.â
A breath escaped her then. Not quite a laugh.
He stood a few feet inside the room, hands at his sides, dressed in Raven black that looked severe against all the bridal white.
Y/N was still surprised by how tall heâd grown after sheâd been sent away. Or perhaps heâd grown broader. Or perhaps she had simply preserved him in memory at the age they had both been when everything seemed smaller and simpler. His shoulders had filled out. His hair was shorter now, cut close enough to sharpen his face. There was a faint scar near his jaw she did not remember, pale against his skin.
But his eyes were the same.
Still steady. Still annoyingly gentle in the exact way he tried so hard not to be. Still looking at her as though beneath the dress and the diamonds and the approaching disaster, she remained the same girl who had once sat on a frozen training wall beside him at twelve and pretended not to shiver because Ravens did not shiver where others could see.
He looked down at the destroyed flowers again.
âShould I ask?â
âNo.â
âGood.â
Silence settled.
Y/N turned slightly away from the mirrors.
Chan noticed that too.
Of course he did.
Back then, he had noticed everything.
She had pretended not to notice his crush for a while back then, not because it was subtle, but because naming it would have required doing something about it. Chan had been good at hiding devotion. It only ever lived in all the small things: the warmer gloves he wordlessly passed her before night patrols, the way he took the worse position whenever they had to split cover, the reports he let her present first because he knew the older men would interrupt less if she spoke before they had time to prepare their condescension.
The other Ravens had hated her in the beginning, or at least hated the idea of her.
The bossâs daughter.
Too young.
Too delicate.
Too protected, they assumed, though none of them had seen what Park Sanghoon called protection behind closed doors.
Chan never treated her like she was ornamental. He never once made the mistake of thinking her fatherâs name made her soft. When senior operatives side-eyed her for being a girl on routes they thought should belong to sons, Chan simply took position beside her and matched her pace.
He had always been faithful like that.
âYou lookâŠâ he began.
âDonât.â
The order came out gentle.
Chan let the compliment die immediately.
A tiny muscle worked in his jaw, but he nodded, accepting the boundary the way he always had. Too easily, perhaps. That had always been one of the dangerous things about him.
He could never quite refuse her anything.
Once, years ago, she had tested that.
She had been sixteen and restless in a way she had not yet known how to diagnose. The night had been wet and cold, snow hammering against the windows of the guard tower. She had gone there after an unexpected discovery, with blood beneath her nails and no desire to return to her room, where every object seemed to belong to a girl she no longer was.
It had not been romantic in the way silly books insisted such things should be.
There had been no grand confession.
No candlelight.
No music.
She had simply looked at him and decided she wanted to know.
What it felt like.
What all the fuss was about.
Whether the thing women were told to guard like treasure truly changed them once given away.
Chan had understood what she was asking without her even saying a word.
Still he had asked, very quietly, if she was sure.
She had nodded yes.
Afterward, he had not looked triumphant.
Not smug.
He had simply let her rest her forehead against his chest, one hand resting lightly between her shoulder blades. He hadnât said a word. Hadnât asked why. Hadnât asked her to stay when she suddenly got up and casually put her clothes back on.
Y/N had loved him a little for that.
Not enough.
Never in the way he deserved.
But enough to remember.
And today, standing in a bridal suite full of rotting orchids, he looked at her exactly the same way he had then.
âEveryoneâs already seated,â he said at last.
She hummed in response.
âThe Lees seem impatient.â
âThe Lees can choke.â
His mouth twitched again, but the almost-smile faded quickly. He stepped closer, and the air between them shifted. Close enough now that she could smell the faint clean soap Raven barracks always stocked in bulk. Familiar things. Anchoring things.
âTheyâre listening,â he murmured.
She did not react.
Of course they were.
The Lees would not leave her be. The bridal suite had been set up with no more than the illusion of privacy. There were ears in the walls, probably in the flowers too, perhaps some poor idiot stationed behind the paneling pretending not to breathe.
Chan lifted a hand as though adjusting the fall of her veil.
The gesture would look harmless to anyone watching.
His fingers brushed her shoulder as he leaned in, mouth close to her ear.
âSay the word,â he breathed, so quietly even the walls would have struggled to catch it. âAnd we go.â
Her throat tightened.
She had expected many things from today.
Cruelty from her brother.
Ceremony from her future mother-in-law.
Awkwardness from the groom.
She had not expected rescue.
Not from Chan.
Not now.
Not after she had already trained herself not to want it.
For one forbidden second, the offer opened inside her like a window.
She saw it with humiliating clarity: the two of them leaving through some servantsâ corridor he had undoubtedly already mapped, her veil torn off and shoved into a dumpster, white silk gathered in both hands as they ran. She saw a stolen car. A border crossing. A port city with cheap hotels and no clan insignia carved into the walls.
She saw herself sleeping somewhere without a knife under the pillow.
Waking up and not knowing what to do with an ordinary morning.
Running with someone.
That was the part that almost broke her.
Not running alone.
Not surviving alone.
With someone. She had considered the idea once before. Though the person in question did not carry Chanâs face.
The image lasted less than a breath.
Then she killed it.
Y/N pulled back just enough to meet his gaze in the mirror.
âA deal is a deal,â she said softly.
The words sounded exhausted.
Not brave or noble.
Just exhausted.
Chanâs eyes darkened.
âYou donât owe them your life.â
âNo,â she said. âI owe someone elseâs.â
The understanding moved across Chanâs face like pain he had no right to show and could not fully hide. It would have been easier if he hated Jungkook. Perhaps he did, a little. Men were allowed ugliness in private. But Chan had always been too honest with himself to mistake his jealousy for anything righteous.
That perhaps, if he had held her back years ago, if he had asked her to stay that night in the guard tower, if he had been selfish enough to ask this of her, the world might have bent differently. Her father would not have found her in that training room with murder already half-formed in her bones. She might not have killed mighty Park Sanghoon. She might not have been sent away. She might have stayed.
And who knows what else mightâve happened after that night? If only theyâd been given the years they deserved.
He might have learned eventually how to ask for things.
She might have rejected him.
She probably would have.
But perhaps that would have been enough.
To live a life unburdened by an endless string of what-ifs.
Chan looked away first.
He had never argued with her when it mattered.
Maybe that really had always been the problem.
A silence settled.
There was a question she wanted to ask him.
It rose so suddenly she nearly spoke it aloud.
Have you heard anything?
Is he alive?
She knew Jungkook had run. Jaebeom had delivered the news with a smile on his face just over a week prior. She hadnât heard anything since.
The questions pressed painfully against the back of her teeth.
But she swallowed them down.
To ask Chan about Jungkook today would have been cruel in ways even she could recognize. It would mean taking this strange aching loyalty he had carried for her all these years and kicking it to the ground.
So instead she asked the other question.
The practical one.
The one she was allowed.
âDid you bring it?â
Chan went still.
Only for a second.
Then he sighed softly and reached into the inside pocket of his coat.
When his hand emerged again, he was holding a tiny glass vial no longer than her pinky finger.
At the bottom of it lay an inch of fine blue powder.
Y/N stared at it quietly.
The faded bruised blue of dried petals ground carefully between patient hands.
Chan rolled the vial once between his fingers before handing it over.
âSomething blue,â he said quietly.
A faint laugh nearly escaped her at the irony.
She closed her fingers around the glass instead.
âYou know,â he said dryly, âmost brides have a different idea of what constitutes a wedding gift.â
A faint almost-smile touched her mouth despite herself.
âIâve never been one to dream of kitchen appliances.â
For a moment she simply looked down at the vial.
At the crushed remains of something that had once been alive.
Once soft.
Once growing stubbornly through melting snow high in the northern forests.
The same flower Chan had picked years ago. She had been fourteen and bleeding lightly through her gloves from cracked knuckles when he had offered it to her.
Y/N had laughed at him.
Called him sentimental, or stupid, or some other cruelty that she could come up with.
Dropped the flower to the ground before anyone could notice and start teasing.
Then retrieved it when no one was looking.
The dried bloom had lived ever since pressed carefully between the pages of one of her journals.
Had she kept it because Chan had given it to her?
Or was it because she had later discovered, buried halfway through one of those botanical textbook she kept around, that once dried and ground finely enough, the petals of that specific northern bloom produced a remarkably efficient poison?
Perhaps it was both.
Perhaps neither.
The ambiguity remained even to her now.
Chan watched her expression carefully.
âYou kept it,â he said quietly.
Y/N turned the vial once, watching the powder slide softly against glass.
âYou sound surprised.â
âIt was a long time ago.â
âAnd?â
âAnd you called it pathetic.â
âIt was pathetic.â
That earned a laugh from him. Brief and low.
Then his eyes drifted toward the vial again.
The amusement faded.
Outside, somewhere far below the suite, cathedral bells began tolling the quarter hour.
Time moving forward regardless.
Chan lowered his voice slightly.
âSo, I assume the groomâs not making it to the honeymoon.â
Y/Nâs fingers tightened faintly around the glass.
âI promised them a wedding,â she murmured.
Not a marriage.
Chan heard the distinction immediately.
His jaw shifted once.
âAnd⊠yourself?â
The question hung heavily between them. She knew exactly what he meant. What he feared she might do with her something blue.
Y/N looked down at the blue powder.
For a moment she genuinely did not know the answer.
That was perhaps the most frightening part of all.
Finally she slipped the vial carefully into the hidden fold within her sleeve.
âI like contingency plans,â she said quietly.
It did not reassure him.
If anything, it made something dark flicker briefly across his face.
Chan closed his eyes briefly, then reached once more into his coat pocket.
âI brought you a replacement,â he said quietly.
Her brow lifted slightly.
From his hand emerged a single small blue flower.
âThe last if the snow melted this morning,â Chan said softly, looking toward the window. âSpring doesnât wait for anyone.â
Y/N stared at the flower.
The last time she had seen those blue petals fresh and open, she had been fourteen and far crueler than she knew how to measure. She had thought throwing it away meant winning something. Proving something. She had not yet understood that some kindnesses, ought to be cherished.
She reached out carefully and took the flower from him.
Their fingers brushed briefly.
And she finally said what she shouldâve said all those years ago, when he had first offered it to her.
âThank you, Channie,â she said, the old nickname slipping out instinctively
And this time he understood she meant it for much more than the flower.
Because she knew exactly what he was trying to do.
Remind her there were still things in the world capable of surviving winter.
Remind her that spring returned whether people deserved it or not.
That it was worth living to witness another season.
Y/N wasnât entirely convinced.
Still, Chan watched her tuck it into her bouquet among the white blooms. The blue disappeared almost completely unless one knew to look for it. Like a secret bruise she had to bear.
He knew.
She knew.
That was enough.
âIâm not staying,â he said after a long silence.
Y/N nodded.
âI figured.â
âI donât want to watch.â
The honesty of it hurt more than accusation would have.
âI understand,â she said.
He looked at her for a long time then. As if trying to memorize her.
Another knock sounded sharply at the door.
The bridal attendants this time, or Lee security, or whichever executioner had been assigned to escort her downstairs.
Chan moved toward the exit.
At the door, he paused.
âY/N.â
She looked up at him and felt, with sudden terrible clarity, that this might be the last time.
He did not say goodbye.
That would have been too much.
Instead he said, âfor what itâs worthâŠâ
The sentence remained unfinished. After all this time, words that couldnât be spoken aloud. They didnât need to be.
She nodded. It was better that way.
âI know,â she breathed out.
He finally opened the door and slipped out into the corridor without looking back, leaving the suite cold behind him.
â
When the time finally came, YN approached the doors to the nave only to find her brother waiting before them.
Leaning lazily against one of the marble columns as though he had all the time in the world.
He wore black.
Not mourning black. Raven black, with silver glinting faintly at his cuffs and the pin on his collar beneath the warm cathedral light. The effect should have looked severe.
Instead it merely made him appear exactly what he had always been: Park Sanghoon reincarnate.
When his eyes landed on her, his mouth curved immediately.
âAh,â he said lightly. âHere comes the bride.â
Y/N did not answer.
His gaze traveled over her slowly. Not leering. Not even particularly cruel at first. Simply attentive in a way that made her feel abruptly overexposed.
âYou clean up well,â he remarked.
âWhat are you doing here?â
âMy dear sister,â he replied with exaggerated patience, âyou are moments away from marrying into the Lee dynasty. Iâd say familial attendance is expected.â
His gaze drifted downward then.
To the bouquet in her hands.
To the small blue flower tucked almost invisibly among the orchids.
If he noticed it, he gave no indication.
Instead he pushed himself away from the column and stepped closer.
âBesides,â he said, âitâs tradition.â
A faint smile.
âIâm sure Father wouldâve walked you down the aisle.â
A pause.
Then, almost conversationally:
âHad he not been, you know⊠dead.â
The words slipped neatly beneath her ribs exactly where he intended them to.
Not grief, exactly, but rather the grotesque contradiction of occasionally missing the man they had both called father. The man whose throat she had sliced open. Missing fragments of him anyway. The rare vague memories of a person she wasnât fully sure had ever truly existed.
Jaebeom continued to watch her carefully.
His gaze dropped toward the heavy Lee diamond resting against her finger.
âYouâll do well here,â he said conversationally. âYouâve always understood how to play the long game.â
âHave I?â
âOf course.â His tone softened almost imperceptibly. âYou played it beautifully the night of the Summit.â
Y/N said nothing.
Jaebeom leaned slightly closer, lowering his voice though no one stood near enough to overhear.
âDo you ever regret it?â he asked quietly.
Her jaw locked. Once again she chose not to reply.
His smile widened faintly.
âHeâs not here, by the way.â
Y/Nâs expression did not move.
âdidnât even RSVP.â
âI donât know who youâre referring to.â
âMm.â Jaebeom tilted his head thoughtfully. âThose Tigers and their manners. I still canât believe he actually took off.â His gaze sharpened slightly. âI suppose I mustâve overestimated hisâdevotion.â
Her fingers twitched once against the bouquet.
Tiny.
Almost invisible.
Jaebeom noticed anyway.
He always noticed.
âYouâre quiet,â he murmured. âI hope youâre not having second thoughts. The flower arrangements cost a pretty buck.â
Her patience was wearing thin.
âWould you mind shutting up for once in your life.â
He hummed thoughtfully at that.
For a moment it was blissfully quiet. Like the calm before a storm.
Then, after a beat:
âYou know,â he said, âyou really do look like her.â He paused. âToday more than ever.â
Y/N went still.
Of everything he could have said, that was the one thing she had not wanted spoken aloud.
Because it was true.
It was hideously, unmistakably true.
That was why she had refused to look at her reflection all morning. Why every mirror in the suite had begun to feel threatening, like polished windows into something she did not wish to see.
For a second something almost strange entered Jaebeomâs expression. Not softness exactly. Her brother did not possess softness in any recognizable human form.
But there was something there. A memory
Y/N wondered suddenly whether Jaebeom had spent years, like her, trying not to remember their mother at all, only to walk into this cathedral today and find her standing alive again in another body.
Eomma.
Yes.
Their mother had looked exactly like this on her wedding day.
The image lived in Y/Nâs memory: that single grainy wedding photograph hidden for years inside her motherâs copy of Ovidâs Metamorphoses, tucked carefully between Book V and VI.
The story of Persephone and Hades.
The irony had been lost on Y/N when she first found the photograph at eleven years old.
Ji-eun standing beside Park Sanghoon in layers of white silk, one hand resting lightly over the beginning swell of a pregnancy not yet visible to strangers.
Seventeen years old.
A child, really.
Y/N remembered sitting cross-legged on the floor of her motherâs abandoned rooms for hours staring at that photograph while rain battered the windows.
She had traced the outlines of Ji-eunâs veil with her fingertip wondering whether her mother had known, even then, how badly it would all end.
Whether she had looked at the doors of the chapel and briefly considered running.
Now here she stood in another white dress, another marriage, another transaction.
For one ugly irrational second, Y/N hated her mother for it. Not fairly or logically.
But with the helpless resentment daughters sometimes carried toward women who failed before them.
âI suppose,â Jaebeom said quietly, âhistory does have a tendency to repeat itself with insulting precision.â
This time his voice carried none of the earlier mockery.
Because this â this right here â was the cruelest thing about Jaebeom.
Not the violence.
Not the manipulation.
Not the sick little habit he had of pressing against bruises just to see how much pain people could tolerate before they broke.
But the fact that every so often, without warning, you caught sight of the boy he had once been before this family hollowed him out too.
The little boy who had kissed Y/Nâs eyelashes reverently when she was born and whispered solemn promises against their motherâs shoulder that he would protect his little sister forever.
Or years later, the gangly teenager who had clung to Y/Nâs small hand through their motherâs memorial service so tightly her fingers hurt for a week afterward.
The young man he couldâve become.
It never lasted more than a second or two. This time was no exception.
Then his gaze drifted once more over the gown.
Over the diamonds.
Over the veil.
And whatever softness had appeared vanished completely.
âThe tragedy,â he said mildly, âis that Mother walked into this naĂŻvely.â His eyes returned to hers. âYouâre doing it fully informed.â
A faint shrug.
âTo think you spent your whole life trying not to become her.â
His mouth curved slightly.
âAnd now here we are.â
The cathedral bells began tolling somewhere above them.
Once.
Twice.
A deep sound vibrating through marble and bone alike.
Showtime.
Jaebeom extended his arm toward her.
âShall we?â
Y/N looked at the offered arm.
Then at him.
Then beyond him toward the towering doors leading to the nave.
The threshold.
Once crossed, the machinery of the day would begin moving too quickly to stop.
Vows.
Witnesses.
Signatures.
A life narrowing permanently into one irreversible direction.
The tiny glass vial hidden within her sleeve pressed coldly against her wrist.
Insurance.
Contingency.
Choice, however ugly.
Y/N stepped forward.
For one brief second Jaebeom genuinely seemed to think she intended to take his arm.
Instead she walked past him completely.
âTradition,â she said coldly over her shoulder, âcan go fuck itself.â
Something flashed across Jaebeomâs face then.
Not anger.
Amusement.
âFunny.â His mouth curved slightly. âFor a second there I actually thought youâd gone soft.â
She didnât reply.
âPoor Lees.â He went on. âThey really have no idea whatâs waiting for âem.â
The cathedral doors began opening slowly before them.
Cold light spilled outward first, followed by organ music swelling through the widening gap.
Y/N inhaled once.
The orchids in her bouquet smelled faintly rotten now.
Good, she thought.
Let them.
Let the petals brown at the edges and collapse inward. Let the sweetness curdle into something sour. Let every beautiful white thing in this cathedral decay exactly the way it deserved to.
And when the rot finally reached the roots, let it take everything with it.
She tightened her grip around the stems and walked forward alone. Head held high.
The marble beneath her heels gleamed so brightly it almost resembled water.
For one absurd fleeting moment Y/N thought of ice lakes in the northern forests beyond the Raven territories â the kind that looked perfectly solid until they cracked beneath your weight without warning.
Alluring surfaces had always been the most dangerous ones to trust.
The space unfolded before her in impossible scale.
White stone rose in vaulted arches overhead, disappearing into ceilings painted with saints who, to Y/N, looked vaguely horrified to be witnessing any of this. Hundreds of white flower arrangements in symmetrical rows along the nave.
And people.
So many people.
The arrangement was deliberate.
On the left sat the Parks in black. Faces cut from stone. They watched her with the grim stillness of soldiers attending an execution ordered by their commanding officer â obedient, silent, quietly aware there was no way around it.
On the right sat the Lees in alabaster and silver and all shades of ivory.
Black on one side, white in the other. A stark contrast for an event meant to seal the permanent union of two houses.
The organ swelled louder around her.
Y/N did not search the crowd.
That required effort.
Because some humiliating buried part of her still wanted to.
Wanted to glance toward the back rows and find dark eyes watching her from the shadows. Wanted one impossible confirmation thatâthat he was alive, that he had come, that she had not traded everything for a ghost.
But hope was a dangerous thing. Hope distracted. Hope made people sloppy seconds before impact.
So instead she kept her gaze fixed ahead and counted her steps silently as the veil whispered softly behind her.
The diamonds at her throat felt heavier now. A collar disguised as jewelry.
At the altar, Lee Taeyong waited. Posture perfectly straight, hands loosely clasped before him. He looked less like a groom awaiting his bride than a statesman preparing to sign a treaty.
Perhaps that was exactly what this was.
When she finally reached the altar, Taeyong inclined his head slightly.
Y/N still wasnât entirely sure what to make of him.
That in itself was unusual. Y/N prided herself on understanding people quickly. Everyone eventually revealed the same things beneath the polish: hunger, fear, vanity, cruelty. Most men were disappointingly transparent once she watched them long enough.
Taeyong remained⊠difficult.
Not because he concealed himself particularly well. Strangely, it was almost the opposite.
He was simply⊠elsewhere.
She had not spent much time with him since the night of the Summit. He kept mostly to his own quarters in the estate, appearing at dinners and meetings punctually before disappearing again like someone mindlessly fulfilling obligations. When he and Y/N spoke, he was courteous. Never touching her unnecessarily. Never cornering her alone. Never once asking whether she regretted the arrangement.
He turned out to be far more complex than sheâd expected.
Which, in its own way, made him stand out than the rest of his family.
See, Y/N had come to find that the Lees, despite the image they projected to the world, were not subtle people.
Taeyongâs older brother, Taejun, had spent the last months watching Y/N the way starving men watched banquet tables. Even seated beside his own wife â elegant, exhausted, perpetually pregnant-looking despite having birthed no sons â his gaze lingered too long on Y/Nâs mouth, her throat, the shape of her hips. His two daughters, Jooshil, fourth of her name, and little Hyeori, were always dressed beautifully in some failing attempt to compensate for the fact they had failed him simply by being born with two chromosomes X.
Y/N had seen the two little girls earlier that morning when they were sent to her suite carrying baskets of flower petals for the ceremony.
Little Hyeori had gushed. Telling Y/N she was the most beautiful woman in the world. And how she couldnât wait for her own wedding day. Of course, Y/N hadnât had it in her to tell the little girl the truth. Sheâd only told her sheâd get everything she deserved and more. Jooshil IV stared silently at Y/Nâs diamonds while her sister stole sugared almonds from the tray beside the dressing table whenever attendants looked away.
The child had hidden the candy inside her sleeves with the efficiency of someone already accustomed to scarcity despite living in obscene wealth.
No one corrected her.
No one really noticed.
Because daughters in the Lee household existed in a strange limbo between ornament and disappointment.
That was certainly a statement Lee Arin would agree with.
Yes.
Taeyongâs only sister.
Forgotten Arin.
Technically not forgotten at all, Y/N supposed. More⊠discarded in plain sight.
Arin drifted through the estate in silk slips and half-buttoned cardigans, smelling faintly of expensive perfume and vodka at all hours of the day. Her wrists resembled snapped branches and her teeth were sharp like those of some carnivorous beast, which was ironic considering Y/N had never seen the girl swallow anything solid other than the occasional olive swimming at the bottom of a martini glass.
She was mostly ignored by the rest of the family. Although Y/N did note that the Lee Matriarch had a habit of discussing her daughterâs body around the dinner table. Too fat and skeletal at once, somehow.
Arin usually responded by staring at her untouched plate, taking another pill, and chasing it with white wine before anyone could comment further.
And no one ever did.
Arin wasnât necessarily to pity, though. She was notoriously capricious, entitled, rude to the help, and she never made any effort toward Y/N either. No curiosity. No hostility. Barely acknowledgment. As though Y/Nâs arrival merely represented another expensive object entering a house already overcrowded with them.
Then there was Minseok.
The third and youngest son.
Weakling was cruel word.
But not inaccurate in his case.
He possessed the translucent fragility of old aristocratic blood folded too many times into itself. Pale skin stretched too thin over delicate bones, dark crescents permanently bruising the skin beneath his eyes.
Y/N had caught herself once wondering whether centuries of the Lees marrying strategically within the same closed circle had finally begun collecting payment from their bloodline.
The poor boy laughed too quickly at jokes that werenât funny and coughed blood discreetly into embroidered handkerchiefs and shaky hands. Jooshil watched him with the exhausted disappointment of someone staring at a horse born lame.
But she still loved him. The way she loved all four of her children: fiercely, possessively, as extensions of herself destined to outlive her. They were not merely heirs. They were her legacy.
Yes.
Y/N had spent months slowly learning the ecosystem she was about to marry into.
And presiding over all of it sat Lee Jooshil, the third of her name.
Matriarch.
Widow.
Snake queen.
She ruled the family with terrifying softness. Never raising her voice. Never visibly threatening anyone. Yet entire rooms shifted themselves instinctively around her moods.
Y/N had spent endless afternoons trapped beside Jooshil as she spoke endlessly about her children with almost religious conviction.
And despite it all, Lee Taeyong had remaimed impossible to pin down.
Sometimes Y/N caught things.
Small things.
The almost imperceptible tightening of his jaw whenever his older brother made some crude remark about marriage. The studied indifference with which he endured endless conversations about heirs and bloodlines and future sons. The fact that he never once looked at Y/N the way the other men in his family did.
Not because he was respectful.
Because he simply⊠didnât want her that way.
The realization had arrived quietly one evening during a suffocating family dinner while Jooshil discussed grandchildren over untouched sea bass. Taeyong had been listening politely enough, but his attention had drifted briefly toward one of the bodyguards standing beside the wall.
Only for a second.
A glance too quick for most people to notice.
But Y/N noticed things professionally.
And suddenly so many pieces rearranged themselves neatly into place.
His distance.
His courtesy.
The strange absence of ambition and hunger in a family of predators.
The exhaustion beneath it all.
Ah.
That.
Oddly enough, it made her pity him slightly.
Not because he was trapped into marrying her. They were both trapped. But because unlike her, Taeyong had been born into a family where survival depended entirely upon performing masculinity correctly. Producing heirs. Continuing bloodlines. Wanting the right people in the right ways.
And Y/N suspected Taeyong had spent most of his life understanding, with growing horror, that he did not. The wedding night ought to be as uncomfortable for him as it would be for her.
Beside her now beneath cathedral light, he stood perfectly composed. Beautiful in the cold careful way marble statues were.
Y/N looked at him properly then.
It seemed the young man may have been just like her after all.
Not monstrous.
Not innocent either.
Y/N took her place beside him and turned toward the priest, who began speaking immediately.
Words drifted through the cathedral.
Union.
Legacy.
Stability.
Strength.
Families joined beneath God.
Y/N listened without listening.
Her thoughts wandered elsewhere against her will.
Back to snow.
Always snow.
Snow falling silently over her motherâs corpse while hot tears burned tracks down Y/Nâs raw red cheeks.
Snow up to her knees as she limped back from her initiation into the clan. Lungs on fire, iron on her tongue.
Snow collecting silently in the maze while Jungkook bled into it beneath her feverish hands. Snow turning pink around her knees while Lee Joosil waited calmly for her answer.
Snow burying everything in sight except for one single, delicate little blue flower clinging stubbornly to life.
Still,
A deal is a deal.
Beside her, Taeyong repeated his vows steadily.
His voice was low. He promised loyalty. Protection. Respect. The usual stuff.
Y/N lowered her gaze briefly toward the bouquet in her hands.
Toward the hidden blue flower tucked quietly among the orchids.
Spring doesnât wait for anyone.
Chanâs voice echoed faintly through her brain.
Yes.
Life had the audacity to continue regardless of grief. Regardless of blood. Regardless of the people left buried beneath both.
âMiss Park?â
The priestâs voice cut gently through her thoughts.
Y/N blinked.
The cathedral swam back into focus around her.
She had drifted farther than intended.
âSorry,â she said automatically.
A faint ripple moved through the crowd.
The priest smiled politely enough to conceal irritation.
Then repeated the question.
âDo you take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband?â
Silence descended.
Hundreds of people holding themselves very still waiting for history to move.
Y/N looked at Taeyong.
Beyond him, the cathedral blurred faintly at the edges.
Jaebeom stood near the front pews with his hands clasped behind his back, his expression stern, though Y/N couldâve sworn there was melancholy there, too. Or maybe she was sentimental. A fatal flaw she shared with her mother despite her best efforts.
A deal is a deal.
The thought arrived again.
Not conviction this time.
Resignation.
Y/N inhaled slowly.
Then raised her chin back toward the priest.
âI dââ
But a sound split through the cathedral.
Sharp and metallic. A strange compact popping sound that took her brain one fatal second too long to recognize.
Something warm and wet instantly hit the side of her face.
The human mind, Y/N would later discover, did strange things in the face of catastrophe. It took the next second of her life and stretched it obscenely thin, unraveling it into separate unbearable fragments that memory would replay for years afterward. In reality, what followed could not have lasted more than a heartbeat. But inside her mind, it stretched endless.
Y/N blinked and lifted one hand automatically to wipe her cheek.
Only her fingertips came away red. Crimson.
The music had stopped.
Or perhaps it hadnât.
Perhaps her hearing had simply narrowed violently inward.
Beside her came a sound.
Not a scream.
A soft, wet, choking exhale.
Y/N turned her head.
Slowly.
And for one endless, terrible second her brain still refused to understand what her eyes were seeing.
Taeyong remained standing.
Still exactly where he had been a heartbeat earlier beneath cathedral light.
Onlyâ
Something was wrong with his face.
No.
Not wrong.
Missing.
The left side of his head.
It had collapsed inward grotesquely above the jaw, bone and blood and something pale sprayed across white marble behind him. His right eye remained open in stunned blankness while the other side simply longer resembled anything human, obliterated by what could only have been a bullet.
Y/N couldnât breathe.
Time stretched obscenely thin.
She saw part of Taeyongâs wedding collar slowly darkening crimson near the shoulder.
Saw the tiny involuntary twitch of one hand at his side.
There was remarkably little noise afterward.
Only the wet ruin of damaged breathing.
Then gravity remembered him.
Taeyong swayed once.
A strange almost graceful motion, like exhaustion finally catching up to him.
His remaining eye flicked toward her.
Then his body folded.
Dead weight collapsing forward onto polished marble with a sound Y/N knew would follow her for the rest of her life.
The bouquet slipped out of her grip and fell to the floor next to him.
She did not move.
She couldnât.
She pressed her lips together instinctively, only to find that she could suddenly taste blood.
Taeyongâs blood.
Blown across her face seconds earlier in the wake of the shot, now warm and metallic against her tongue like some grotesque parody of communion wine.
Her pulse had become enormous. Deafening. She could feel every beat separately inside her throat.
Then, very slowly, she lifted her head.
And looked out toward the pews.
The faces staring back at her did not look real.
Hundreds of people frozen. Mouths slightly parted. Eyes widened but not yet screaming. A roomful of powerful people still trying to convince themselves they had not just witnessed a manâs skull opened beside the altar.
The Lees in white.
The Parks in black.
Motionless.
Like figures trapped inside a painting.
And thenâ
Y/Nâs gaze landed on Lee Jooshil.
The Matriarch had gone an astonishing shade of purple.
Horror surged visibly upward beneath powdered skin so violently it transformed her entire face.
The old woman had half-risen from her chair already. For one stretched impossible second, her eyes were stuck to what remained of her son on the cathedral floor.
As though her mind physically could not force the image into coherence.
Then her eyes snapped upward.
Already hunting for blame.
They landed on Y/N.
The blood vessels in her eyes a perfect mirror to the crimson pattern on Y/Nâs wedding dress.
She stood motionless beside the corpse.
And something inside the Matriarch finally broke.
The scream that tore out of her did not sound human.
The kind of sound dragged upward from somewhere older than language. A mother-animal sound. Pure rage wrapped around devastation.
It ripped through the cathedral with such force that several people physically flinched.
It was as though the spell suddenly shattered.
And the cathedral erupted into chaos.
â
â
Chapter 20
Omggggggg we are reaching our climax what did you think????? I struggled a lot with that one. Kept going back and forth on what to include and what to cut. I hope you all liked it though! Feedback is always appreciated
you are mother in writing storiesâŠhope you are doing goodâŠDaily i used to check whether u hv updated next chapter đ Come back soon we miss u nd ur story đ much invested ln ur story đ
Your message was so so sweet thank you đ«¶
Iâm back nowwwww I hope youâre enjoying the new chapters, thereâs more to come very soooooon
what do i feel like their interaction at the gallery was lowk her trying to hint what was coming đ¶âđ«ïž
Itâs actually soooooo interesting that you point that out because for the LONGEST time I kept going back and forth on whether she knew or not. Originally I did toy with the idea that the Troilus and Cressida metaphor was her trying to pass Jungkook a warning without openly saying anything that would put her in hot water. I even had an earlier version where, as Taeyong escorted her away, Jungkook called out:
âYou never told me what became of Troilus.â
She looked over her shoulder.
âHe shouldâve run,â she finally answered, something grave in her tone, âwhile there still was time.â
But eventually I decided she genuinely didnât know about the deal with the Lees/the attack on the Tigers, because realistically thereâs just no universe where she wouldâve let that unfold untouched if she had known. Our girl wouldâve done something.
So the gallery scene became something much crueler to me: tragic irony as she unknowingly foreshadows their fate (and with a painting that hangs in the house of her future betrothed no lessđ„Č)
Super long post ahead, but youâve got me THEORIZINGđ„Ž (Iâm sorryđ)
I reread Writings on the Wall the other day to look for things that I missed and to see if I could hint at anything for Various Storms and Saints. Things that I finally noticed:
1. Hobi getting the Hanged Man card at the fortune teller and looking at her like he KNEW something was gonna happen wrecked me đ
2. It seems like Namjoon, Jungkook, Hoseok, and Taehyung were the only ones at the Summit. Where was everyone else?? Where IS everyone else now??(know there wonât be spoilers butđ)
3. Y/N seemed shocked when the tiger head was revealed under the platter, but she also mentioned that she was planning on running the second the fighting happened. I think Jaebeom left her in the dark about some of the plans for the night of the Summit, but I also donât think she was completely oblivious to the possibility of Jaebeom double-crossing the Tigers. And after reading the new chapter of Book 2, Iâm SO excited to learn about what went down that night and how much she knew, cause poor Jungkook needs some clarity (and a good therapistđ„Ž)
4. Did Jimin ever make it back to the South after volunteering himself to drop Y/N off to the Ravens?? Iâm also trying to figure out WHY he would volunteer himself knowing heâs been on the run forever. I hope this is revealed in book 2đ
5. The Chois are mentioned, but are the only clan that didnât have a lot of interaction in book 1. Iâm excited to what role they play (and whose side they decide to provide service to) in book 2 if they have oneđ
My predictions/thoughts on Book 2:
1. Namjoon made it out thanks to the Tigers who werenât at the party and is waiting for the perfect time to strike back. (or maybe this is just what Iâm saying as they ship me off to the loony binđ„Ž)
2. I feel like everything is gonna pop off at Y/Nâs wedding, and Iâm so ready for itđ€
3. Iâm glad Chan (literally) knocked a little bit of sense into Jungkook, cause boy has had me STRESSED all of book 2đ. But I also donât want JK to talk to Jaebeom about the night of the Summit. Brother has emotionally manipulated him enoughđ„Ž
SUPER long story short, Iâm IN LOVE with your writing, and I feel itâs the been a while since Iâve gotten to read a fanfic that is THIS intricate and thought out. I hope your page continues to grow and gain followers, because you are seriously one of the best authors on this app!â€ïž
Girllllll I am finally replying to your message (btw THANK YOU for sending this to me!!!) I just ADORE reading theories and reactions from readers, and while I sometimes cannot reply immediately without risking spoiling stuff Iâm always highly entertained by your feedback đ
I hope you got all the answers you were looking for in the most recent chapters (Iâm sure you were glad to see our Namjoon is ALIVEEEEEEEE, you called ittttt)
I am so giddy at the level of attention in your reading (you catching the Hangman card foreshadowing when itâs a seed I planted AGES AGO is sooooooooo gratifying you have no idea)
As you pointed out, things will for SURE pop off at the wedding đ
Thank you again for all the praise, it means the world. Do message me again!!
Series Genre: Mafia!au , Slowburn, Angst, Hurt, smut, TW (it is a mafia!AU, after all)
Pairing: Mafia!Jungkook x reader
Wordcount: 5.1k
Masterlist
â
The rifle fell first.
It slid from Jungkookâs grip as though his fingers had simply forgotten their purpose, struck the concrete at an angle, and clattered once against a spilled magazine before going still. The sound should have startled him. It didnât. Nothing reached him properly anymore. Not the fluorescent hum above. Not Soyeonâs sigh. Not Jimin muttering something low behind him.
Only Namjoon.
Namjoon-hyung.
Standing in the doorway with one shoulder braced lightly against the frame, his coat folded over his arm, one hand resting on the head of a cane.
A cane?
That detail registered late.
Jungkook stared at it as if the object might explain the impossibility before him. Dark polished wood, silver handle. Namjoon carried it with the same infuriating composure with which he had always carried himself.
Jungkook took one step.
Then his knees gave out.
The collapse was instant. Brutal. He hit the concrete hard enough for pain to shoot up both legs, but he barely felt it. His hands caught nothing. For a second he simply knelt there in the middle of the armory, staring at his dead brother breathing.
Jungkook tried to speak.
Nothing came out.
His throat had closed around months of grief.
He had mourned him.
Not neatly. Not publicly. Not in any noble, picturesque way.
He had mourned Namjoon like an animal caught in a trap, violently and privately and with a hatred so large it had needed somewhere to go. He had woken for months with Jooshilâs voice in his ears and Namjoonâs ring spinning across marble in his mind. He had carried the guilt like shrapnel beneath the skin: the last order disobeyed, the corridor abandoned, the brother left behind while he chased Jaebeom through the estate.
And nowâ
Namjoon stood in front of him, alive.
Alive.
âNo,â he rasped, and it was not denial so much as panic, like a man waking drowning. âWhâNoââ
Namjoon didnât rush him. Namjoon never rushed anything.
Jungkookâs vision blurred. Something hot flooded his throat, bitter and humiliating. He did not wipe his face. He couldnât have moved if he wanted to.
âHyungâŠâ The word broke apart on the way out.
Namjoonâs expression softened.
Only slightly.
âCheer up,â he said, âYou look like youâve seen a ghost.â
Namjoon pushed away from the doorframe and stepped into the armory. The movement was smooth until it wasnât. There was a hitch halfway through, so small most people might have missed it, but Jungkook saw. The slight delay of weight moving through the left side, the cane accepting what Namjoonâs body could no longer quite bear on its own.
A second wound opened beneath the first miracle.
âYouâre injured,â Jungkook said stupidly.
Namjoon glanced down at himself with faint theatrical consideration. âI was.â
Jungkookâs breath came in once, shallow and broken.
âHâHow did youââ
ââŠmake it out of the summit alive?â Namjoon finished the question. âItâs a long story.â
Jungkook could not stand yet. His legs still refused the idea of it. He stayed on his knees, hands curled uselessly against his thighs, staring upward like a child waiting for the adult world to return itself to sense.
Namjoon noticed. His expression sobered.
âI did take a bullet,â he said. âClean enough not to kill me, messy enough to make walking irritatingly dramatic for the foreseeable future.â
Nobody laughed.
Namjoon sighed faintly, as though disappointed in the roomâs manners, then took another step forward.
The cane clicked against concrete.
That was when the small thing hanging from it caught the light.
A flash of silver.
Jungkookâs gaze dropped.
The world tilted again.
It dangled from a fine chain looped just below the caneâs handle, small enough that he might have missed it if not for the way the fluorescent light struck its edge. A bird, wings tucked close, worked in old silver darkened slightly by age.
Jungkook knew the shape. He had seen it once before.
That night.
Around her throat. Beneath Summit chandeliers, a black ribbon against skin, a tiny raven resting where her pulse beat.
Y/Nâs pendant. The one that had once belonged to her mother.
The sight of it hit him like an electric current straight through the chest. And all at once it was as though the miracle of his dead brother returning could wait.
Jungkookâs voice changed before he could stop it.
âWhere did you get that?â
Everyone in the room seemed to go still.
Namjoon looked down at the pendant as if remembering it was there, then brushed it once with his thumb.
âThat?â he said casually. âA lucky barter.â
Jungkook pushed himself up from his knees too quickly. Jimin moved as if to help him, but Jungkook jerked away before contact could happen. His body was suddenly all sharp edges again, shock mutating into alarm.
âHâWhy do you have it?â
Namjoonâs eyes lifted to his.
There was no amusement in them now.
âYouâll find,â he said, âthat it actually has everything to do with your previous question.â
Jungkookâs chest tightened.
âWhat do you mean?â he asked.
Silence.
Jungkook looked around.
Taehyungâs eyes were on the floor.
Yoongiâs jaw worked once.
Soyeon had gone very still beside the door, seemingly far less eager to speak than she had been five minutes prior. Even Jimin would not quite meet his gaze.
Jungkook understood then, with a cold crawling certainty, that everyone in the room already knew.
Everyone except him.
And it seemed there was still more for him to find out about what had transpired the night of the Summit.
All they had told him about that night was that Namjoon had gotten shot by one of the Lee sons a little while after Jungkook had run off, and that the few Tiger survivors had eventually scrambled out of the place as best they could after that.
âA lucky escape,â was the version most of them had relied on. Like some rehearsed story regurgitated.
Namjoon stepped further inside, each click of the cane precise against concrete.
For a moment, the bunker disappeared. The armory dissolved into smoke and snow and white marble. Somewhere in memory, a ring spun across frozen stone.
***
Smoke had already begun creeping along the ceilings in thin grey ribbons and Namjoon barely remembered how they reached that corridor.
One moment there had been shouting near the central gallery, Taehyung dragging him upright while blood poured hot down the back of his leg, Yoongi firing behind them with frightening calm despite the narrowing exits. The next they were stumbling through one of the interior halls half-blind from pain and adrenaline while the estate cannibalized itself around them.
His leg no longer properly obeyed him.
That frightened him more than the crismon bleeding through the makeshift bandage.
Every step arrived half a second too slowly, his body lagging behind its own commands while agony climbed steadily upward from the bullet lodged too close to his spine. Taehyung had one arm locked hard around his waist to keep him upright. Jimin moved ahead of them checking corners, swearing viciously under his breath while reloading.
Hobi was dead.
Jungkook gone.
Nobody said either thing aloud.
Then someone stepped into the corridor ahead of them.
All four weapons came up instantly.
Taehyung reacted first.
The muzzle snapped up, aimed toward the chest with lethal precision before the figure had even fully emerged from the smoke-filled intersection. Yoongiâs gun followed a heartbeat later, steadier.
For one suspended second nobody moved.
It was Y/N.
Taehyungâs face twisted instantly with fury.
âYou.â
The word landed like a gunshot.
âIâm unarmed,â she stated.
Y/Nâs gaze swept over them once, twice, like she was mentally taking inventory. Then her composure slipped for half a heartbeat.
âWhereâsââ She cut herself off sharply, something flickering across her face before it vanished. âWhere are the others?â
It came too fast.
Namjoon saw the truth of it before anyone else did.
Taehyung certainly didnât.
His expression turned murderous.
âYou donât get to ask questions.â
Y/N ignored the gun still pointed at her. âWhere are they?â
âHobiâs dead,â Taehyung snapped. His eyes were red and wild.
Something changed in Y/Nâs face. The color drained visibly from her skin.
She swallowed.
âWhat aboutââ
âHe went chasing after your psycho brother,â Yoongi answered before she could even ask.
The silence afterward lasted less than a second.
But Namjoon remembered it anyway.
Because for one terrible instant Y/N looked afraid.
Then her spine straightened and her expression sealed itself back together.
âWe donât have time for this,â she said.
Taehyung laughed harshly. âNo, we really donât.â His finger tightened slightly against the trigger.
âYou need to move,â she stated sharply.
Taehyung stepped toward her, gun still trained on her chest. âOh, now you want to help?â
âI said yââ
âYou sold us out.â
âI didnât.â
âBullshit.â
Another crash sounded from a nearby hall. The walls trembled faintly beneath it. Dust drifted from the ceiling.
Y/N barely reacted.
âThe east wing is empty,â she said quickly. âMost of the fightingâs concentrated near the south gardens and reception halls. If you move quickly enough you might still make it out before they fully seal the perimeter.â
âListen to her,â Taehyung said incredulously. âJesus Christ.â
Yoongi said nothing. But his gun never wavered from Y/Nâs head.
âYou expect us to trust you?â Taehyung demanded.
âNo,â Y/N said.
The honesty of it startled all of them.
âBut I know if you stay in this wing another five minutes, youâll die.â
Jimin shifted uneasily.
Another burst of gunfire echoed somewhere closer now.
Taehyungâs finger tightened visibly on the trigger. âMaybe we should take our chances.â
Y/Nâs eyes finally snapped toward him hard enough to cut.
âYou think Iâd be standing here unarmed if I wanted you dead?â
The corridor fell quiet again.
Namjoon stared at her.
Blood loss was making his thoughts swim slightly now, but one thing cut through the haze with startling clarity:
if Y/N had truly intended to kill them, they would already be dead.
Y/Nâs eyes flicked instinctively toward the sound before returning to them.
âHurry,â she said. âThe east wing staircase still connects to the old service tunnels. I checked them out earlier.â
âAnd why,â Yoongi asked quietly for the first time, âwould you tell us that?â
âYeah,â Taehyung pressed, âif you saw the way out, why not just leave? Itâs what you usually do isnât it?â
Her gaze moved to Namjoon then.
Not the others.
Namjoon.
Something unspoken passed across her face so quickly he almost missed it.
And suddenly Namjoon understood.
Not everything.
But enough.
âWhy not just run off, huh?â Taehyung pressed. Y/N said nothing. But Namjoon saw the answer in her eyes.
Park Y/N had found herself a way out of the estate already. She had been poised to vanish into the night the way she always did â swift, silent, surviving first and mourning later.
She had been halfway to freedom already.
Untilâ
something had compelled her to turn around and march right back into the fire.
Yes.
See, Namjoon had known about Jungkookâsâaffliction for a while already, of course. His brother had never been nearly as subtle as he imagined himself to be. Namjoon had seen it in the way Jungkook watched her when she turned away, in the strange volatile gravity that seemed to seize every room they occupied together, in the fact that Y/Nâs very name could drag emotions out of him no one else ever managed to reach.
But Y/Nâ
Well, Park Y/N had always been harder to read. She had always been the more dangerous of the two precisely because nobody could ever tell where performance ended and sincerity began.
Until now.
Until this exact moment in a smoke-filled corridor, where one mention of Jungkook disappearing into the night had cracked something open in her expression before she could stop it.
And suddenly it all became terribly, catastrophically obvious.
Ah, Namjoon thought to himself. Well.
That had the potential to complicate matters enormously in the long run.
But tonight, at least, it had the benefit of rendering everything startlingly clear.
Taehyung opened his mouth again, rage already rebuilding itself.
Namjoon cut across him first.
âWeâll do as she says.â
All heads turned toward him immediately.
âNamjoonââ Taehyung started.
âWeâll go east,â he repeated.
âYou cannot seriouslyââ
âWe will trust her,â Namjoon said, his gaze stuck on her, âfor better or for worse.â
For one brief second relief flickered across Y/Nâs face.
âHurry,â she repeated.
Jimin frowned. âWhat about you?â
A small sigh escaped her.
âIâm not finished here yet,â she said. âNow go.â
Voices sounded somewhere at the far end of the corridor.
Ravens. Or snakes. Coming to finish the job.
Everyone tensed instantly.
Jimin moved first, slipping toward the eastern hallway. Yoongi remained where he was another heartbeat longer, gun still trained on Y/N.
Taehyung adjusted Namjoonâs weight against him. And off they went.
They had almost reached the corner when Y/N called out.
âWait.â
All of them turned sharply.
Y/N was looking directly at Namjoon now.
âYour ring,â she said. âGive it to me.â
The corridor froze.
Even through the pain, Namjoon almost laughed at the absurdity of the request.
Taehyungâs reaction was immediate. âUh, absolutely the fuck not?â
The signet ring gleamed darkly on Namjoonâs blood-covered hand â heavy gold, engraved with a Tiger head, recognizable to every major family in the country.
âGive it to me,â she pressed.
Understanding began dawning slowly across Namjoonâs face.
Taehyungâs expression hardened further. âAnd why would he?â
âI donât have time to explain eveââ Y/N began, rolling her eyes.
âNo,â he went on, âWe are not in the business of getting back-stabbed and robbed on the same night.â
Another wave of gunshots shook the estate harder this time. Smoke thickened visibly overhead now.
Y/N closed her eyes briefly like someone fighting the urge to scream at children.
Then, with sudden sharp movement, she reached up and tore the necklace from around her throat.
The ribbon snapped.
Silver flashed.
She held the pendant out toward them. The raven hanging from her closed fist spun in the firelight.
âHere,â she said tightly. âTit for tat.â
Nobody moved.
Namjoon stared at the pendant.
Then at her face.
Taehyung still looked unconvinced. âYou shouldnâtââ
âQuiet,â Namjoon said.
His fingers closed around the ring.
Everyone turned toward him.
âBoss,â Yoongi warned softly.
âItâs fine.â
âNo,â Taehyung snapped, âactually, I donât think handing over the clan heirloom to a Raven in the middle of a massacre qualifies as fine.â
But Namjoon was already pulling the signet from his hand. The motion hurt more than expected. His finger had swollen around the metal.
Namjoon grabbed the necklace and placed the ring in her palm.
The exchange felt strangely ceremonial. Gold for silver. Tiger for raven.
Her fingers closed around the signet.
Then she turned sharply, already moving awayâ
âonly Namjoon caught her wrist.
Not hard.
He barely had the strength left for hard.
But it stopped her.
Y/N looked down at his hand, then slowly back up at him.
Namjoon studied her for a second.
âIâd have thought,â he said quietly, âyouâd be less inclined to save me after I handed you back to your brother.â
She pulled her wrist free.
âIâm not doing this for your sake.â
The words landed cold at first.
Then her gaze shifted briefly past Namjoon toward the others standing behind him â Taehyung still furious, Yoongi with his gun now at his side, Jimin bleeding from one shoulder and trying not to show it.
Y/Nâs expression tightened almost imperceptibly.
Family.
Not hers. No. Hers was long gone.
âI know what itâs like to outlive everyone worth grievingâ she said, her eyes moving once across the surviving Tigers. Then away. âAnd I wouldnât wish it on anyone.â
Y/N stepped back before anyone could answer.
âGo,â she ordered.
This time they listened.
***
Jungkookâs eyes remained fixed on the pendant swinging from the handle of Namjoonâs cane.
Strange how something so small could suddenly feel heavy enough to drag entire months into a different shape.
Then he looked up sharply.
âWhat did she do with the ring?â
The room quieted again.
Namjoonâs gaze flicked briefly toward Yoongi.
A silent handoff.
Yoongi sighed once through his nose, already looking faintly irritated at being dragged into storytelling.
âI saw it,â he said.
Jungkook frowned. âSaw what?â
Yoongi leaned back against the wall, arms folded loosely across his chest. âI didnât trust her.â
Soyeon snorted softly under her breath like that might be the understatement of the century.
Yoongi ignored her.
âYou have to understand what it looked like from our side,â he said to Jungkook. âThe Summit had just collapsed. Weâd been getting butchered room by room. Hoseok was dead. Youâd disappeared. And suddenly Park Y/N appears out of nowhere offering us an escape route?â
He shook his head once.
âI thought she might be stalling us. Keeping us in one place until the Ravens arrived.â
Jungkook swallowed hard.
Because he would have thought the same thing.
Yoongiâs expression flattened slightly as memory took over.
âSo I followed her.â
***
Yoongi moved silently through the corridor after Y/N, keeping several turns behind her.
His gun remained raised the entire time.
If she made a gesture, if she signaled anyone, if she so much as glanced in the wrong directionâ
He would shoot her before she finished breathing in.
Simple.
Y/N walked quickly through the wreckage of the Summit without looking back once.
The estate looked grotesque now stripped of ceremony. Bullet holes carved through priceless silk panels. Marble floors slick with blood and shattered glass. One enormous floral arrangement burned quietly near the ballroom entrance, smoke curling from white orchids blackening at the edges.
Y/N slowed near the central gallery.
Yoongi slipped partially behind a cracked pillar and aimed carefully down the corridor.
Y/N stood alone in the middle of the destruction.
Then her eyes landed on one of the bodies.
Yoongi frowned slightly.
The corpse wore a black suit jacket darkened almost entirely with blood now, the man collapsed half-facedown near the wall.
Y/N stared at him for one long second.
Yoongiâs grip tightened slightly on the gun.
Y/N walked toward the body.
Calmly.
Y/N crouched beside the corpse with mild reluctance, like somebody approaching roadkill. Blood had pooled thickly beneath the manâs head, already beginning to dry black around the edges.
Even from several feet away Yoongi could recognise the expensive tailoring.
Of course.
The Tigers all used the same tailor for formal events.
Same cuts. Same silhouettes. Like a uniform.
Y/N reached for the dead manâs hand and slid Namjoonâs signet ring onto his finger.
Yoongi stared.
For the first time that night, surprise broke through his suspicion.
Y/N sat back slightly on her heels afterward, eyes scanning the body critically like an artist evaluating unfinished work.
Then she looked around the ruined hall.
Her gaze landed on a discarded handgun near one of the overturned tables.
Then, with obvious distaste, she stood and picked up the gun between two fingers like it offended her personally.
âGod,â she muttered to herself, âI hate guns.â
The sentence would have been almost funny under different circumstances.
Then, with a casual sigh, she aimed directly at the corpseâs head.
Yoongi realized what she intended exactly half a second before she pulled the trigger.
The shot exploded through the gallery.
The body jerked violently.
And the headâ
Jesus fucking Christ.
The bullet tore through bone and flesh at close range with a wet explosive crack that sprayed blood, teeth, and something pale against the marble wall behind him. The face collapsed inward grotesquely, unrecognizable instantly, the kind of damage no one could ever dispute.
Like a watermelon dropped from ten stories up.
Even Yoongi flinched despite himself.
She didnât.
She pulled the trigger one more time for good measure, then lowered the gun slowly, before dropping it beside the body with a bored expression.
Yoongi kept his gun trained on her.
Waiting.
For what, exactly, he wasnât sure anymore.
Then he blinked.
And she was gone.
He straightened instinctively, pulse kicking once hard with genuine surprise.
What the fuckâ
His gaze snapped down both ends of the hallway.
Nothing.
Only overturned furniture, shattered glass, the distant echo of gunfire somewhere deeper in the estate.
For one absurd second he almost wondered whether he had imagined the entire thing altogether. He looked back at the corpse.
The signet ring still gleamed darkly on the faceless corpseâs ruined hand.
Yes.
Kim Namjoon, heir to the Tiger clan, officially dead before dawn.
Only then did Yoongi truly understand what she had truly done.
What she had bought them.
Time.
The single most valuable currency left in times of war.
If the Tiger leader survived the Summit, the Lees would hunt every remaining Tiger to extinction until they dragged him out bleeding into daylight. Every port watched. Every contact tortured. Every hiding place burned through. And they would never stop. Ever.
But a dead leader?
A dead leader ended the war.
It let the other side relax. Celebrate too early. Get sloppy. Stop expecting retaliation.
It gave surviving Tigers room to disappear.
And time to prepare.
***
Jungkook sat very still after Yoongi finished speaking.
The armory hummed faintly around them â but all of it seemed very far away now.
He was speechless again. A recurring affliction, it seemed.
Y/N had not only kept him alive that night.
She had gotten his friends out of the Summit alive. She had protected Namjoon. She had bought them months to disappear and regroup by convincing the entire country their leader was dead.
And she had done it while trapping herself inside the very family that would destroy her if they ever discovered the truth.
And all the while Jungkook had spent his time rotting in his own grief and wrath, imagining betrayal where there had actually been sacrifice so enormous it bordered on suicidal.
The thought hollowed him out.
Then something else surged up beneath it.
Rage.
Jungkook stood so abruptly the ammunition crate screeched across concrete beneath him.
âWhy the fuck,â he said softly, âdid none of you tell me any of this?â
Nobody answered immediately.
That silence only made it worse.
Jungkook laughed once under his breath, disbelieving now, looking from face to face like he no longer recognized any of them properly.
âNo, seriously,â he said. âHow the fuck could you keep something like this from me? for days?â
Taehyung looked away first.
Jimin rubbed tiredly at the back of his neck.
Even Soyeon suddenly seemed less eager to speak than she had five minutes earlier.
Jungkookâs voice sharpened.
âYou let me think my own brother was dead.â
âThatâs not fair,â Jimin said quietly.
Jungkook snapped toward him immediately. âNot fair?â
âJungkookââ
âNo. Donât fucking Jungkook me right now.â The words came faster now, anger finally finding somewhere to land. âNamjoonâs alive. Y/N basically saved all of your asses and everybody decided I was the only one person who should be kept out of the loop?â
âYou werenât exactly making a case for emotional stability,â Soyeon muttered.
Jungkook turned toward her sharply. âExcuse me?â
âOh, come on.â She pushed off the wall with visible irritation. âYouâve been a fucking wreck.â
âSoyeon,â Taehyung warned.
But she was too exhausted to stop now.
âWe all saw it. Youâve been all twitchy and angry at the world. One bad conversation away from marching straight back into Lee territory with a gun.â Her eyes narrowed slightly. âActually, scratch that. You literally just tried to do exactly that fifteen minutes ago.â
Jungkook opened his mouth.
Closed it again.
Because unfortunately that was difficult to argue against while standing in an armory surrounded by spilled ammunition.
Yoongi sighed softly through his nose.
âThe less you knew, the safer everyone stayed,â he said.
Jungkook looked at him incredulously. âSafer?â
âYes.â
âHow exactly does lying to me keep anyone safe?â
Yoongiâs expression remained infuriatingly calm.
âWhat if the Lees caught you.â
The room quieted slightly.
Jungkookâs jaw tightened.
Yoongi continued anyway.
âYouâve been angry. Reckless and impulsive.â He folded his arms. âWhat if you ran off and the snakes got a hold of you?â
Jungkook looked away first.
There it was.
The thing none of them needed to say aloud.
âYou think I wouldâve talked.â
Yoongi watched him carefully.
âYou couldnât reveal Namjoon was alive if you genuinely believed he was dead,â he said quietly.
âAnd that applies for the rest too,â Taehyung added. âFor all we knew you couldâve spilled the beans about our entire plans.â
Jungkook barked out a humorless laugh. âNice to know the confidence around here is thriving.â
âThatâs not what this is.â
âReally?â
Jimin met his gaze evenly. âYou think weâre wrong?â he asked quietly. âYou think they couldnât have gotten something out of you?â
But Jungkook felt them like a knife sliding between ribs.
Because suddenly the conversation was no longer about torture. Or loyalty. Or whether Jungkook could withstand having bones broken in some Lee basement.
It was about Y/N.
About the possibility of the Lees figuring it out.
About Jaebeom smiling that awful smile across an interrogation room while Y/N screamed somewhere behind a locked door.
Jungkookâs jaw tightened violently. He looked down at the concrete floor, pulse still running too fast beneath his skin.
Part of him wanted to stay angry. It was easier.
But another part â the colder, more rational one Namjoon had spent years trying to cultivate in him â understood the logic with brutal clarity.
If the Lees had gotten their hands on him and he had known everythingâ
Jungkook scrubbed a hand harshly over his face.
The rage didnât disappear.
It simply lost some of its certainty.
And in the space left behind, another thought emerged.
âWell,â he said, âyou didnât actually think weâve been sitting doing nothing, did you?â
Jungkook felt guilt sitting in his stomach as his own words echoes back.
âWell, go on then,â he urged, âyou might as well tell me, now.â
Yoongi shrugged, âWe were always going to tell you everything as soon as Namjoon got back.â
Jungkook looked toward his brother fully again.
Alive.
Still somehow orchestrating things from the shadows like death itself had simply been another scheduling inconvenience.
âGot back?â Jungkook asked him, âGot back from where?â
âYes, I must apologize,â Namjoon nodded, adjusting his grip slightly on the cane. âI wouldâve greeted you earlier, but Iâve spent the past month out of town. Negotiating.â He paused. âDaegu is lovely this time of year.â
Jungkook frowned immediately. âDaegu?â
Then understanding hit.
âThe Kangs?â
Namjoon inclined his head slightly. âThe very same.â
âThatâs your plan?â Jungkook asked. âDealing with the fucking rats?â
The Kangs.
Christ.
The Tigers and Rats had never openly associated with one another because the two clans despised one another on principle. The Tigers had built their empire through land ownership, real estate, urban developmentâlegitimate front businesses for money laundering. A standing they thought far more respectable than the Kangsâ, who operated like filthy little scavengers in gambling dens, brothels and trap houses. Ugly corners which respectable families pretended not to touch while quietly profiting from them anyway.
If Namjoon had gone to themâ
Jungkook stared at his brother. âYouâre telling me weâre actually working with those scumbags now?â
Namjoon smiled faintly. âThey prefer the term âentrepreneurâ.â
âThey donât have a code,â Jungkook said sharply. âThe Kangs donât believe in loyalty. Theyâd sell us out the second the Lees offered more.â
Namjoon looked almost amused by that.
âHonor is a luxury for men born comfortable,â he said. âThe Kangs prefer mathematics.â
Jungkook frowned slightly. âMeaning?â
âMeaning,â Namjoon replied, âtheyâre gamblers. And good gamblers only sit at the table if they think they have a shot at winning.â
Jungkook still did not look convinced.
âIâm not asking them to swear blind loyalty to us, Jungkook. Iâm asking them to bet on us.â
He rested both hands atop the cane.
âThe Kangs understand risk better than any clan in this country. They built an empire on probability.â His gaze sharpened slightly. âRight now they think backing the Tigers is the more profitable gamble.â
âStill,â Soyeon muttered, âI reckon these guys would sell their own children for the right price.â
âExactly,â Namjoon replied. âA surprisingly useful quality in wartime.â
Taehyung folded his arms. âAnd what exactly will it cost us?â
Something unreadable flickered across Namjoonâs face.
âWeâll discuss the specifics later.â
Which could only mean one thing:
too much.
Namjoon shifted his weight slightly against the cane.
âWhat matters now,â he continued, âis that we have finally reached an agreement.â
The room had gone completely still now.
âThe Kangs will provide us with the numbers needed.â
Numbers.
Not money.
Not weapons.
Men.
Jungkook felt something electric spark awake low in his chest for the first time since the Summit.
Momentum.
He looked at his older brother carefully. âNumbers? What for?â
Namjoon smiled then.
Small and dangerous.
âI certainly hope you still own a suit, brother,â he declared. âBecause weââ the silver bird swung once beneath the handle of his cane, ââhave a wedding to attend.â
â
â
Chapter 19
Are you on the edge of your seat? As usual feedback is greatly encouraged!!! Stay tuned for moreâŠ
Series Genre: Mafia!au , Slowburn, Angst, Hurt, smut, TW (it is a mafia!AU, after all) This chapter contains non-explicit smut. Minors DNI
Pairing: Mafia!Jungkook x reader
Wordcount: 6.5k
Masterlist
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Jungkook had not agonized.
He had not paced the underground corridors of the secret base for days with shaking hands and a gun tucked into the back of his waistband. He had not argued with the others until dawn or sat bent over the sink in one of the communal washrooms trying to breathe through the nausea clawing at his throat. There had been no dramatic moment of weakness, no collapse, no final surrender to obsession.
Instead, he had simply shaved carefully in the cracked mirror of the bunker bathroom while fluorescent lights buzzed overhead like dying insects. He had buttoned a black shirt with steady fingers. He had even ironed the collar flat himself.
Then he had slid the invitation into the inside pocket of his coat.
Ivory cardstock. Embossed lettering. Heavy enough to feel expensive in the hand.
He remembered Jaebeom pressing it into his palm weeks ago with that infuriatingly civilized smile.
In case reason finds you again.
And somehow, impossibly, it had.
Or perhaps this was not reason at all. Perhaps it was the final stage of whatever madness had taken hold of him months ago.
He told himself he needed to see it with his own eyes. Needed reality to finally become unbearable enough to kill whatever diseased fragment of hope still clung stubbornly to the inside of his ribs. If vows were spoken, if witnesses gathered, if she stood beneath the Lee crest and gave herself willingly to another man, then at least it would die properly. Cleanly. No ambiguity left alive to haunt him afterward.
That was what he told himself while he crossed the country under the first spring rain.
Or maybeâ
Maybe he would stop it.
Find a way to put an end to this.
The cathedral rose from the center of the district. Glass vaulted overhead in immense sweeping arches that caught the light in fractured blues and silvers, making the entire structure resemble a frozen tidal wave moments before collapse. White flowers spilled from every balcony and column in impossible quantities, lilies and roses imported out of season.
The inside was cold. Candles burned in towering arrangements along the aisle, their reflections multiplying endlessly across marble floors so glossy they looked wet. Every detail had been calibrated. Even the choir positioned high above the congregation seemed less religious than theatrical, voices drifting downward in restrained harmony. The grandeur of it all made his feel drowsy.
That unsettled him more than hostility would have.
It was as though the house of the Alabaster Snake had already swallowed the world whole. As though even he had become another expected piece of scenery in their triumph. The stray Tiger. A harmless presence without its streak.
He barely heard when the musicians started playing. When the cathedral doors opened and conversation dissolved instantly, not because etiquette demanded it, but because everyone in the room understood spectacle when it arrived.
Y/N stepped down the aisle.
No colour could describe the dress properly. Ivory implied softness. Cream implied warmth. This gown possessed neither. It was a merciless white, sharp enough to wound the eye beneath cathedral light. The fabric fell in long lines. Diamonds rested against her throat in a shape reminiscent of a collar. The veil obscured nothing.
Jungkook stared at her face.
That was all he cared about in that moment.
Not the dress. Not the awe rippling softly through the cathedral. Not the rows of political vultures watching history reorganize itself before their eyes.
Her face.
He searched for hesitation. For fury. For the smallest fracture somewhere around the mouth or eyes. Something human enough to reassure him that she was still in there.
There was nothing.
She walked down the aisle with perfect composure, one measured step after another, her gaze fixed ahead as though she had rehearsed this path already.
Lee Taeyong waited beneath the altar light in his own white ceremonial robes threaded with silver embroidery. He looked immaculate. Of course he did. Lee men were sculpted carefully from birth; elegance was beaten into them with the same brutality other clans used for combat training.
When he looked at her, something almost gentle crossed his face.
Jungkook wanted to kill him so badly his fingers twitched at his sides.
He could see it with terrifying clarity.
Crossing the aisle in three strides. Pulling the knife from inside his coat. Slitting Taeyongâs throat so deeply the blood would spray hot across the white fabric of Y/Nâs gown. The guests screaming. Security opening fire before Jungkook could even pull the blade free for a second strike.
He, too, would be put down within seconds.
But it would be worth it.
His body did not move.
That became its own kind of horror.
Every instinct inside him screamed to act, to destroy, to interrupt this grotesque performance before vows sealed it into permanence, yet his limbs remained still beneath the tailored black suit. His heartbeat battered itself against bone hard enough to hurt, but externally he looked calm. Another silent witness among many.
The ceremony blurred around him after that.
He remembered fragments only.
Taeyongâs voice, low and controlled.
The exchange of rings glinting briefly beneath cathedral light.
Applause rising afterward in warm rolling waves.
Someone pressing champagne into Jungkookâs hand at some point, though he never drank it.
The reception unfolded across a sprawling hall lined with mirrored walls and suspended chandeliers that resembled dripping constellations. String musicians played somewhere near the balcony overlooking the mountains. Politicians laughed too loudly. Ravens in formal black stood guard beside Lee security forces as though old rivalries had already become irrelevant.
Jungkook drifted through it all like a ghost wearing his own face.
Everywhere he looked he found proof of permanence. Joined crests embroidered onto banners. Toasts celebrating unity. Smiles exchanged over crystal glasses between men who had financed massacres together only months earlier.
This was not a wedding.
It was the public burial of the old order.
Park Jaebeom found him near one of the balconies just after sunset stained the city orange beneath the glass.
âYou came,â he remarked lightly.
Jungkook said nothing.
Jaebeom studied him with open amusement, hands folded neatly behind his back.
âYou see?â he continued softly. âYouâre capable of reason after all.â
The comment slid beneath Jungkookâs skin like a knife.
Still he did not answer.
What was there left to say?
Jaebeomâs gaze drifted toward the far side of the hall where enormous carved double doors stood closed beneath silver relief work.
âAnd now,â he said, almost pleasantly, âtime for the real festivities.â
Jungkook frowned before understanding hit him all at once.
The bedding ritual.
His stomach dropped so suddenly he thought for a moment he might actually black out.
The Lees had revived the tradition generations ago under the excuse of preserving legitimacy among heirs. Witnesses observed the consummation to confirm the union beyond legal dispute. Most modern clans considered it barbaric, grotesque political theater better left buried with older cruelties.
The Lees considered that criticism proof of weakness.
âCome on,â Jaebeom leaned slightly closer, âYou donât want to miss the best seat in the house.â
The double doors opened for them.
The chamber beyond resembled an altar disguised as a bedroom. Candles lined the walls in severe symmetrical rows, their heat thickening the air until it felt difficult to breathe. Heavy white drapery framed the enormous bed positioned deliberately at the center of the room beneath carved ceiling panels depicting entangled snakes.
Witnesses arranged themselves along the perimeter in composed silence.
And there she was.
Y/N.
Standing near the bed.
The veil was gone now. Her hair fell loose around her shoulders in dark waves against the white fabric still clinging to her body, though parts of the ceremonial gown had been removed or altered for ease of movement. She looked pale beneath candlelight but not frightened.
That frightened him more.
Taeyong entered the chambers and approached her slowly.
There was no roughness in him. No cruelty visible enough to justify interruption. He touched her face with reverence, thumb brushing lightly along her jaw while murmuring something too quiet for the room to hear.
Jungkook hated him instantly for the softness of it.
Violence would have been simpler.
Violence could be answered.
But thisâ
This patient intimacy performed before witnesses felt infinitely worse.
Y/N did not recoil when Taeyong kissed her.
Jungkook felt something ugly twist low in his stomach.
She kissed him back.
Not passionately or tenderly, but enough.
Taeyong guided her toward the bed and she went without resistance, candlelight catching along the curve of her shoulder as the remaining ceremonial layers loosened one by one beneath his hands. He undressed her carefully, as though unveiling something sacred before the congregation.
Jungkook could not breathe properly anymore.
Every sound inside the chamber had become magnified. Fabric sliding against skin. The quiet shift of the mattress. The faint wet sound of lips meeting.
His body still refused to move.
He wanted to tear the entire room apart.
He wanted to drag Taeyong off the bed with his bare hands and split his skull open against the marble floor until Y/N was covered in blood and screaming and alive beneath him instead of this.
Instead he stood frozen among the witnesses while Taeyong climbed onto the bed between Y/Nâs bare thighs and touched her like she belonged to him.
Jungkook kept waiting for the moment it would turn ugly.
For her to fight.
To kick and punch and bite. To grow a sharp beak and pluck the groomâs eyes out.
For anger to break through the composure.
For her face to tighten in disgust or pain.
It never came.
That was the true nightmare.
Because slowly, horribly, the atmosphere in the room changed. The movements lost their ceremonial stiffness. Taeyongâs hand slid along her thigh and Y/N inhaled sharplyânot in fear, but surprise. Her fingers tightened briefly in the sheets. Her breathing altered.
Then she moved.
Not away from him.
With him.
Jungkookâs stomach lurched violently.
The sounds became unbearable after that. Flesh against flesh. Breathing growing uneven. The mattress shifting rhythmically beneath them while witnesses maintained their terrible composed silence around the perimeter.
Y/Nâs head tilted back against the white sheets, exposing the line of her throat. A flush spread slowly across her skin beneath candlelight. Taeyong said something low against her breasts that made her exhale in a sound too soft to be pain.
Jungkook felt nausea surge into his throat.
No.
No, no, no.
Thenâ
She shifted. One swift movement and she was on top.
The movement was fluid. Instinctive.
And suddenly the entire room shifted around Jungkook like a bad fever dream because she was not enduring this anymoreâshe was controlling it. He thoughtâhopedâfor a moment she might reach out and strangle Taeyong until he turned blue.
She didnât.
Instead, her hands braced against Taeyongâs chest while she moved above him with measured rhythm at first, then less steadily as composure began slipping from her face piece by piece. Candlelight turned her skin white gold. Her hair spilled down her back like ink across snow.
Jungkookâs body reacted with violent revulsion and something darker he immediately hated himself for.
He thought he might vomit when Taeyongâs hands tightened around her hips hard enough to leave marks. She answered by moving faster, losing the last traces of restraint as pleasure overtook whatever mask she had worn into the room.
Jungkook felt something rupture inside his chest so completely it bordered on physical pain.
The room seemed to narrow around him after that.
Not physically. The witnesses still stood in their silent half-circle beneath the candlelight, the bed still occupied the center of the chamber like some sacrificial altar, the carved snakes still coiled across the ceiling overhead. But Jungkookâs vision had begun tunneling inward until there was nothing left in the world except the movement of her body.
Adaptation had always been her greatest talent. Survival. The ability to enter a room full of predators and learn the rhythm of their breathing before anyone realized she was dangerous too.
Only now she was adapting to this.
To her husband.
To their marital bed.
Taeyong groaned something that did not carry across the room. Jungkook saw the corner of her mouth twitch faintly afterward, not quite a smile, not mockery either, but something intimate enough to make his stomach twist violently.
Then she moved again.
The rhythm changed.
The sound that escaped her this time was lower, roughened around the edges as if dragged unwillingly from somewhere deeper inside her body. Taeyongâs hands slid up her spine, fingers spreading against bare skin while the pace between them lost the careful composure expected of ritual and tipped into something far more animal.
Raven and snake.
That was suddenly all Jungkook could think.
Not simply bride and groom.
A predator winding around another until he could no longer tell where one ended and the other began.
The room smelled different now too. Sweat beneath candle wax. Heated skin. Something sticky and so dizzy that Jungkook felt trapped inside another personâs mouth.
He realized dimly that his fingernails were cutting crescents into his own palms.
Still his body would not move an inch.
Y/Nâs hair clung damply to her throat when she tipped her head back again. Her breathing had lost all steadiness. Jungkook took it all in. The tiny falter of composure. The way her stomach tightened. The involuntary hitch in her hips afterward as though her body had stopped asking permission from the rest of her.
Taeyong noticed too.
Of course he did.
Jungkook hated him for the patience of his hands. For the calmness of him. There was no frantic greed in the way Taeyong touched her, no clumsy urgency. He handled her with irritating confidence.
At some point the witnesses had begun looking away discreetly, eyes lowering toward the floor in the polite choreography of old aristocratic obscenity. Everyone knew what was happening now. The confirmation had already been achieved. Still no one moved to leave.
Jungkookâs pulse hammered so hard it hurt.
No.
Jesus Christ, no.
His jaw locked painfully.
He wanted to stop looking. Every instinct screamed at him to turn around, to leave, to put a bullet through his own skull before witnessing another second of this.
Instead he remained exactly where he was, staring at her with the horrified fixation of a man helplessly watching someone drown beneath ice.
And thatâs when she looked at him.
That was the final blow.
Not because anyone else noticed. Taeyong was bent against her throat then, one hand gripping her hip hard enough to bruise while she moved above him in increasingly broken rhythm.
But her eyes opened suddenly.
And found Jungkookâs.
Across the chamber.
For one suspended instant the entire room disappeared around Jungkook. No witnesses. No candles. No Lees.
Only her face.
Flushed.
Breathless.
Eyes dark and unfocused with pleasure and something else underneath it that he could not decipher fast enough before she exhaled sharply and her expression fractured altogether.
Her eyes were wet. Her brows furrowed.
In spite of herself, her mouth opened on a sound that finally escaped her fully this time.
Jungkook nearly doubled over.
Something hot surged violently into his throat. Shame. Rage. Desire so corrupted by horror he thought it might kill him on the spot. His body responded traitorously to the image before his mind could reject it, and the self-disgust that followed struck with enough force to leave him dizzy.
He hated Taeyong.
He hated her.
He hated himself most of all.
Because somewhere underneath the revulsion and grief lived another terrible truth:
Some shameful part of him wanted her exactly like this.
The realization sickened him so profoundly he bit the inside of his cheek hard enough to taste blood.
On the bed, Taeyongâs restraint finally broke too. His hands tightened harder around her waist, dragging her down against him with force. Y/N caught herself against his shoulders, hair spilling forward.
The room had become unbearable.
Jungkook felt sweat gathering beneath the collar of his shirt despite the ice in his blood. The candlelight seemed too bright now, every inch of exposed skin over-illuminated until he wanted to claw his own eyes out just to stop seeing.
Taeyong murmured something rough against her mouth.
Y/N answered with another broken sound and suddenly the rhythm between them collapsed entirely into something frantic and instinctive. Her hands slid down his chest, nails digging in. Her body shuddered visibly.
Then she came apart.
Jungkook knew the exact second it happened because every muscle in her body seized all at once. Her head tipped back sharply, throat exposed beneath the candlelight while a raw sound tore free from her chest â lower than before, almost wounded in its intensity.
The chamber went perfectly still around it.
Even the witnesses seemed to stop breathing.
Taeyong held her through it, one arm locked hard around her waist while she trembled against him in visible aftershocks, all composure stripped away now.
Jungkook felt hollowed clean out.
He stared at the disordered white sheets beneath them, at the marks already blooming beneath Taeyongâs hands on her skin, at the sweat gleaming along the line of her spine.
Afterward Taeyong drew her back against his chest possessively, his arm draped around her bare waist while her breathing slowly steadied again. Their skin gleamed gold beneath the candles. The bed looked ruined now, sheets tangled and collapsing inward where their bodies had been.
The witnesses finally began shifting toward the exits in composed silence.
The ritual was complete.
Jungkook still could not move.
His body felt distant from him, disconnected somehow, like he had become trapped several feet behind his own skin. The roaring in his ears had grown so loud he barely heard anything anymore.
Then something pale moved across the sheets.
At first Jungkook thought it was fabric slipping loose from the bedding.
Then the shape lifted its head.
White.
Perfectly white.
An alabaster snake slid soundlessly across the ruined sheets, scales gleaming like polished bone beneath the candlelight. Its body moved with horrifying grace, smooth and fluid as milk poured slowly from a silver pitcher.
Y/N stiffened instantly.
For the first time all night, fear crossed her face. Sharp enough to cut through the lingering haze still softening her features.
Jungkookâs heart slammed hard against his ribs.
The snake continued upward.
Across tangled silk.
Over Taeyongâs thigh.
Toward her bare skin.
Y/N tried to pull away.
Taeyongâs arm tightened around her waist immediately.
Not protective.
Restraining.
âNoââ she whispered, breathless.
The word barely reached across the room.
Jungkook lurched forward instinctively.
Nothing happened.
His body refused him again.
The snake coiled higher along her hip, tongue flicking lazily against flushed skin while Y/Nâs breathing turned shallow with panic. She shook her head once toward Taeyong, small and sharp and terrified.
Taeyong only held her tighter, his face stern.
The snake raised its head near the inside of her thigh.
Jungkook found himself screaming silently inside his own skull. Move. MOVE. Jesus fucking Christ moveâ
The snake struck.
Just as Jungkook managed to shut his eyes, a blood-curling screamâher screamâripped through his brain like something being torn apart alive. Raw. Animal. Real enough to shatter every illusion at once.
Jungkook jerked awake with his own breath trapped halfway between his lungs and throat.
For a second he did not understand where he was.
Images clung to him with obscene persistence. Candlelight still burned behind his eyes every time he blinked. He could still hear the wet rhythm of skin against skin somewhere deep in the back of his skull, could still see the violent arch of her throat beneath white sheets, the snake lifting its pale head through folds of silk.
His body had not caught up with reality yet.
He sat upright too fast and pain lanced through his ribs hard enough to leave him dizzy. The warehouse ceiling swam above him in rust-dark beams and exposed piping, replacing cathedral glass in brutal increments. Concrete replaced marble. Emergency lights glowed amber along the bunker walls instead of candlelight, throwing everything into the exhausted half-darkness of a place never meant for long-term habitation.
His shirt clung damply to his spine.
Someone farther down the row of cots snored softly.
The sound grounded him more effectively than anything else could have.
Jungkook dragged a hand over his face and realized belatedly that he was shaking.
A dream, he realised.
Yes. It had all been a dream.
Well, nightmare was more accurate a word to describe the torture his own mind had just put him through.
There had been no cathedral. No bedding chamber. No white snake gliding across ruined sheets while Taeyong held her still.
The wedding had not happened.
Yet.
Five days.
He had been counting.
Five fucking days.
He exhaled sharply through his nose and leaned forward, elbows braced against his knees while he tried to force his heartbeat back under control.
The nightmare should have disgusted him most at the end. The snake. The scream. The helplessness.
Instead his mind kept circling back toward the middle like a tongue pressing compulsively against a broken tooth.
The sounds she had made.
The movement of her body.
The horrible dawning realization that she was not enduring it but answering it.
That was the part still poisoning him.
Because somewhere inside the dream, buried beneath the revulsion and fury and humiliation, there had been another emotion too ugly to examine directly.
Jealousy.
He swallowed hard enough to hurt.
It hadnât been real.
But his body refused the distinction.
His pulse still reacted every time flashes resurfaced. Heat coiled low in his stomach despite the nausea accompanying it, and the contradiction disgusted him so profoundly he nearly laughed.
Jesus fucking Christ.
He pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes until fractured sparks burst behind his eyelids. The underground bunker smelled faintly of detergent, gun oil, and damp concrete. Familiar. Safe, technically. Yet the more days dragged on, the more the place began resembling another kind of tomb.
No windows.
No daylight except what filtered weakly through loading entrances on ground levels.
No exits without permission.
At first the underground base had felt like a safe haven. A welcome change from the Raven base heâd spent the past months in. A hidden wound licking itself closed beneath the city while the Lees celebrated prematurely aboveground. There had been purpose in the confinement then. Recovery. Planning.
Now it felt like slow suffocation.
That was the part killing him.
The waiting.
Days of it now.
Days of hearing fragments about the wedding preparations filtering down through informants and black-market gossip while he remained trapped underground like a rabid animal everyone hoped would calm down eventually.
Across the bunker, someone shifted in their sleep. Pipes groaned faintly somewhere overhead. Water running through the bones of the building.
Jungkook stood abruptly before he could think himself back into the dream again.
The sudden movement made the room tilt for half a second. Lack of sleep was beginning to rot his reflexes. He caught himself against one of the support beams until the dizziness passed, jaw tightening hard.
Enough.
Fuck it.
He shoved a hand through his damp hair and moved quietly between the rows of cots, bare feet silent against concrete. The emergency lights cast long distorted shadows across the floor, turning sleeping bodies into strange half-formed shapes beneath blankets and jackets. Somewhere in the far corner a television played muted static to nobody.
The bunker never truly slept.
Neither did he anymore.
He climbed the short stairwell toward the storage corridors without fully deciding to. Instinct carried him the rest of the way. Past supply rooms. Past the reinforced doors leading toward the upper loading dock. Past two boys on overnight watch who glanced up briefly but did not stop him.
They all knew better than to ask questions lately.
Jungkook reached the armory before he consciously admitted to himself what he was doing.
The heavy metal door groaned softly when he pushed it open. Darkness greeted him inside, cool and familiar and dense with the smell of oil and steel.
For the first time since waking, his breathing eased slightly.
Weapons made sense.
Weapons obeyed.
He did not bother turning on the lights. He knew the layout well enough to navigate blind now. His fingers found shelving automatically, tracing cold steel racks lined with ammunition crates and rifles hanging in disciplined rows along reinforced walls.
He grabbed a black duffel from the lower shelf and unzipped it. Magazines first. Then ammunition boxes. A combat knife. Two sidearms. His hands operated almost independently from thought.
Not rage.
Resolve.
That distinction mattered.
By the time he reached for one of the rifles mounted along the far wall, his heartbeat had settled entirely. The nightmare still lingered somewhere in the back of his mind like poisonous smoke, but action dulled it into something manageable.
Five days.
If they would not move, he would.
He imagined the cathedral again. The witnesses. Taeyongâs hands.
Something cold hardened quietly inside him.
Maybe he would die before reaching the altar.
Fine.
Maybe the Lees would gun him down before he even crossed the outer security perimeter.
Fine.
At least the ending would belong to him instead of to them.
He slung the rifle strap over his shoulder and reached for another box of rounds.
The overhead light snapped on.
Jungkook closed his eyes briefly.
He already knew who it would be.
âWhere do you think youâre going?â
Taehyung stood in the doorway, one hand still resting on the switch. He was barefoot, hair tousled from sleep, a faded shirt hanging loose over his shoulders. But there was nothing soft about the way he was looking at Jungkook.
Jungkook did not turn around immediately. He adjusted the strap of the duffel on his shoulder instead, as though Taehyung had merely commented on the weather.
âOut,â he replied.
Taehyung let the silence stretch.
âWith half the armory?â
Jungkook finally looked at him. âYou wonât do anything about it,â he replied evenly. âSo I decided I would.â
The words werenât shouted. They didnât need to be.
Taehyung stepped fully into the room and shut the door behind him. The click of the latch felt louder than it should have.
âAnd what exactly is âitâ?â he asked.
Jungkookâs jaw flexed.
âYou know what it is.â
âThe wedding.â
Jungkook didnât answer.
Taehyung studied him for a long moment, taking in the sweat still drying on his skin, the wildness in his eyes, the rigid set of his shoulders.
Taehyung rubbed a hand across his face before speaking again.
âYou just woke up.â
âSo?â
âSo you look fucking insane.â
âMaybe I am.â
âThatâs not helping your argument.â
Jungkookâs mouth twitched humorlessly. âIâm not arguing.â
Something ugly flashed across his face before he could stop it. Taehyung noticed immediately; he always did.
âYou think I donât get it?â Taehyung asked. His voice had lowered now, careful in the way one approached injured animals. âYou think I donât see what these past months have done to you?â
Jungkook looked away first.
That alone told Taehyung too much.
The silence stretched between them, dense with days neither of them had properly addressed. Days of Jungkook pacing underground corridors like a ghost unable to rest. Days of half-finished meals left untouched. Sleepless nights. Training sessions that ended with blood on the mats because Jungkook no longer knew where to stop once violence started.
Everyone had noticed.
No one knew what to do with him anymore.
âIâm not asking you to come.â Jungkook shifted the rifle into a firmer grip and stepped toward the door. âNow get out of my way.â
Taehyung didnât move.
âItâll be a fortress,â he said. âYou wonât even make it past the outer ring.â
âThen Iâll die trying.â
âAnd accomplish what?â
Something in Jungkook snapped visibly then. The humiliation of it sat like acid in his throat. He stayed silent for a moment.
Thenâ
âShe saved my life,â he spoke finally.
Taehyungâs expression shifted slightly.
Because they did not talk about that night often. The Summit had become something radioactive among them all â too catastrophic to examine directly for long without reopening wounds nobody had survived cleanly.
Jungkook stared at the rows of rifles mounted along the wall rather than at Taehyung.
âShe traded herself,â he said. âfor me.â
Taehyung rubbed tiredly at his face. âJungkookââ
âNo.â Jungkook finally looked at him again, and something in his expression made Taehyung fall silent immediately. âYou donât get to stop me from paying that debt.â
An eye for an eye. A life for a life.
Taehyung sighed. âThatâs not what this is.â
âThen what is it?â
âYou tell me.â
The question landed with uncomfortable precision.
Because Jungkook no longer knew.
âIâm not sitting here waiting for them to bury the rest of us. To claim victory. To parade her down an aisle like livestock.â
The words echoed harder than shouting would have.
Taehyungâs expression tightened almost imperceptibly. âYou think we need you bursting into the church with a rifle?â he asked. âYou think she does?â
âAt least Iâd be doing something.â
âYouâd be doing exactly what they expect,â Taehyung shot back. âGetting yourself killed.â
Footsteps sounded suddenly in the corridor outside.
The armory door swung open again.
Jimin stepped in first, platinum hair still disheveled from sleep, irritation already forming before he had properly processed the scene.
Behind him came Yoongi and Soyeon.
All three stopped dead.
Their eyes moved across the room in quick succession â the open ammunition crates, the packed duffel, the rifle hanging from Jungkookâs shoulder, Taehyung blocking the exit.
Understanding settled instantly.
Jimin closed his eyes briefly. âTell me this isnât what it looks like.â
âIt is,â Taehyung said flatly.
Soyeon leaned against the doorframe, folding her arms slowly across her chest. Unlike the others, she did not look surprised.
Only tired.
âYouâve officially lost your fucking mind,â she said.
âMaybe,â Jungkook replied. âOr maybe Iâm the only one of us who hasnât.â
Yoongi shut the door behind them with deliberate quiet and stepped forward. His expression gave away almost nothing, but Jungkook knew him well enough to recognize the tension beneath it immediately.
âPut the gun down.â
âNo.â
âThat wasnât a suggestion.â
Jungkookâs gaze flicked toward him.
âYou all said it yourselves,â he said. âThey burned everything. They hunted us down across half the country. They took our money, our houses, our people.â His voice sharpened. âAnd now weâre just going to sit underground and what? Turn the other cheek?â
âItâs called surviving,â Soyeon snapped.
âAnd for what?â
The question cracked through the room.
Jungkook looked between them, anger bleeding steadily through the exhaustion now.
âThereâs nothing left,â he said. âNot for us. Not as long as theyâre out there thinking theyâve won.â
Silence followed.
Jimin dragged a hand through his hair, frustration simmering visibly now. âYou think we donât want revenge?â he demanded. âYou think we donât wake up every night wishing to see that fucking house burn? Seeing those sons of bitches die?â
Jungkook let out a sharp breath through his nose, something brittle hiding underneath it.
âWhatever,â he muttered. He adjusted the rifle strap again and moved toward the door. âIâm done sitting around waiting for this shitshow to happen.â
âYou canât just go,â Taehyung said.
âWatch me.â
âAnd then what?â Jimin demanded. âYou think you can put a bullet in every Lee in that building? You think youâll even make it past security?â
âIâll try.â
âThatâs suicide.â
âMaybe,â he shrugged, âItâs doesnât matter. Iâm on borrowed time, anyway.â
That silenced them.
Jungkook pushed past Taehyung and reached for the door handle.
Then Soyeon spoke.
âOh, for fuckâs sake.â
Her voice cut sharp through the room.
âCould you be anymore pathetic?â
Jungkookâs hand tightened slowly around the handle.
Nobody spoke.
Soyeon pushed herself off the wall and looked him up and down with open contempt now, all patience finally gone.
âStanding here pretending this is about honor. About the clan.â
âYouâre not planning a revenge for our sake. Youâre throwing a tantrum because some other little boy is about to touch something you decided belonged to you. You might as well be fighting over who gets to go on the slide first.â
The room went still.
Jungkook turned slowly.
âSoyeon,â Yoongi warned quietly.
But she kept going.
âYou want to know why this is such a terrible idea?â she asked. âBecause you stop thinking the second that girlâs involved. You stop acting like a soldier and start acting like some horny zoo animal humping the glass.â
Jungkookâs face grew cold.
Soyeon saw it and did not stop.
âItâd almost be funny,â she said harshly, âif it hadnât gotten our people killed already.â
The rifle came up so fast it startled even Taehyung.
Metal clicked.
Soyeon froze with the barrel pointed directly at her chest.
Jimin swore violently under his breath.
Taehyung moved immediately. âJungkookââ
But Jungkook barely seemed to hear him.
His breathing had gone frighteningly quiet.
Not ragged.
Not emotional.
The kind of silence that came right before violence.
Soyeon looked straight at the gun without blinking.
Then, unbelievably, she stepped closer.
âSee?â she said coldly. âExactly my point.â
Jungkookâs finger flexed once against the trigger before he caught himself.
The realization hit him visibly.
For half a second something flickered across his face â horror, maybe, or shame â before rage drowned it again.
âYou donât know what youâre talking about. You werenât there. You donât knowââ
âNo YOU werenât there. YOU donât know what itâs been like for US these past months. So forgive me but I know exactly what Iâm talking about. And youâŠâ Her laugh this time was uglier. âYouâre so obsessed with saving that girl you havenât even stopped to consider she might not need saving.â
Jungkookâs grip on the rifle tightened visibly.
Soyeon pressed harder anyway.
âMaybe she made her choice. Maybe sheâs perfectly content with it, while youâre down here losing your mind, trying to bring us all down with you, and over what? Some dick-measuring contest?â
âShut the fuck up.â
The words came low and dangerous.
She ignored them.
âGod, you should see yourself,â she snapped. âFoaming at the mouth because you canât handle the thought of another guy fuââ
Jungkook lunged.
Taehyung moved first, stepping between them slightly. âOkay. Letâs all calm down.â
âNo,â she shot back. âSomebody needs to say it.â
Jungkook looked like he might genuinely kill her now.
The air around him had changed completely, rage bleeding off him in waves so palpable even Jimin had gone tense beside the door.
And still Soyeon kept going, cruel now in the way only people who cared could be.
âYou think sheâll look at you like some tragic hero if you die up there? Cancel the honeymoon, maybe?â she asked. âGive me a fucking break.â
The rifle jerked back upward instinctively.
Taehyung grabbed the barrel immediately and shoved it aside just as Jungkook lunged forward again.
Jimin caught Jungkook around the shoulders before he could reach Soyeon. The duffel crashed to the floor, magazines spilling across concrete in sharp metallic clatters.
âJesus Christ!â Jimin barked.
Jungkook shoved violently against him anyway, eyes locked on Soyeon.
Yoongi stepped between them now, voice suddenly lethal. âAlright, thatâs enough.â
Silence slammed down instantly afterward.
Heavy breathing.
Jungkook stood rigid in Jiminâs grip, chest rising hard beneath the black shirt, something unraveling visibly behind his eyes.
Then he laughed.
The sound came out exhausted and ugly.
âLook at you all,â he muttered.
Nobody moved.
Jungkook dragged a hand across his face roughly before speaking again, voice quieter now but infinitely worse for it.
âMonths,â he said. âMonths down here and all youâve done is hide.â His eyes moved across them one by one. âNamjoonâs dead. The Tigers are gone. And everybodyâs just sitting around waiting for someone else to tell them what to do,â he snarled, âso I will.â
âThatâs not whatâs been happening. Youâve been here a weekââ Soyeon snapped immediately.
âOh really?â Jungkook shot back. âBecause from where Iâm standing, everybody seems pretty comfortable rotting underground while the Lees carve up whatâs left of us.â
âFor your information,â Soyeon started sharply, âwe havenât been sitting around doing nothingââ
âSoyeon.â
Yoongiâs voice cracked through the room like a whip.
Strict.
Immediate.
âNot now.â He added.
She stopped instantly.
Jungkook caught it at once.
The shift.
The hesitation.
His pulse kicked hard.
âWhat,â he said slowly.
Nobody answered.
Jungkook looked between them.
Taehyung suddenly found the floor very interesting.
Jimin rubbed a hand over the back of his neck.
Yoongi stayed perfectly still. Unreadable.
A terrible sensation began creeping slowly through Jungkookâs chest.
âWhat do you mean ânot nowâ?â he asked again.
Silence.
Loaded this time.
Jungkook scoffed softly, disbelief curdling into anger almost immediately afterward.
âRight,â he muttered. âMore secrets. Great.â
He shoved away from Jimin and bent to grab the rifle from the floor again.
âWell, excuse me if Iâm not interested in sitting around waiting for the next revelation to drop,â he went on. âIâve had my fill of being kept in the dark.â
His grip tightened on the duffel strap.
âThese motherfuckers burned everything we had,â he said, voice sharpening again. âThey hunted us. They butchered our people.â
No one interrupted.
No one could.
âThey took it all,â he went on, his voice dropping, losing volume but gaining something worse. âAnd now weâre supposed to sit here and whatâwait it out? Hope they get bored? Hope they forget about us?â
A faint, humorless breath left him.
âThey wonât.â
Silence pressed in from all sides.
âThey donât forget,â he added. âThey donât leave things unfinished.â His jaw clenched. âAnd neither will I.â
He slung the weapon over his shoulder with sharp jerking movements. âThose arrogant bastards need to be taught a lesson. And if the Snakes are going down, it should be by Tiger hands.â
Suddenlyâ
The door opened and a voice echoed from the corridor.
Deep.
Calm.
Terribly familiar.
âWell,â it said evenly, âI, for one, couldnât agree more.â
Jungkook felt his heart stop mid-beat.
The room froze.
Slowly, impossibly, Jungkook turned toward the doorway.
The corridor light framed the figure standing there â tall, broad-shouldered, coat slung casually over one arm as though he had just returned from a late-night walk rather than the grave.
For one disorienting second Jungkook genuinely thought he was still dreaming.
Because his brain refused to make sense of what he was seeing.
Because the face in the doorway belonged to a dead man.
Yes.
Kim Namjoon stood there, straight and steady, a gentle smile on his face.
âHello, brother.â
â
â
Iâm baaaaaack. Iâm so terribly sorry for how long it took me to update. Iâve been going THROUGH it lately. I will answer all your lovely messages asap. As usual, feedback and remarks alike are greatly encouraged!!! Looking forward to your reactions (that is, if anyone is still out there reading this story haha) Xxx
Genre: Mafia!au , Slowburn, Angst, Hurt, smut, TW (it is a mafia!AU, after all)
Pairing: Mafia!Jungkook x reader
Wordcount: 3.1k
Masterlist
â
ââŠJimin?â
For half a second, nothing moved.
Then the pressure at his temple vanished.
âHoly shitââ the voice breathed.
Metal lowered.
A shadow shifted.
âJungkook-ah?â
The darkness rearranged itself into a face he knew better than his own reflectionâsharper now, leaner, a scar splitting the lip he didnât remember.
They stared at each other like men confronting a ghost.
Then Jimin stepped forward and grabbed him by the shoulders hard enough to rattle his teeth.
âWhat the fuckââ Jiminâs eyes raked over himâblood, torn coat, dried red stiff across fabric. âYouâreââ
âAlive?â Jungkook supplied faintly.
Jimin let out a breath that sounded dangerously close to a laugh.
âBarely.â
There was movement in the shadows behind Jimin.
Footsteps.
Steel shifting.
Someone elseâs voice, wary:
âWho was it, Jimin-ssi?â
Another silhouette emerged from the darkâtaller, broad-shouldered, posture still carrying that lazy grace Jungkook remembered even in crisis.
Taehyung.
Hair longer. Eyes harder.
Behind him, a quieter figureâhands shoved into coat pockets, gaze assessing before it softened just a fraction.
Yoongi.
Jungkook felt something inside him fracture. His knees were weaker than they'd been after hours of running.
He hadnât allowed himself to imagine this.
Hadnât dared.
More figures filtered into the dim space as someone in the back finally flicked on a low generator lamp. The room filled with a weak amber glow that cast long, trembling shadows.
Soyeon.
Seokjin.
Andâ
His breath hitched.
Mrs. Shin.
Older. Thinner. But upright. Alive.
For a long moment no one spoke.
The weight of survival hung between them like something sacred and obscene all at once.
Then Jimin pulled him into a crushing embrace.
âYou idiot,â Jimin muttered into his shoulder. âYou absolute fucking idiot.â
Jungkookâs arms moved on instinct.
He hadnât hugged anyone in months.
It felt like stepping into another life.
When they finally pulled apart, the room seemed smaller than beforeâpacked with ghosts who had, it seemed refused to follow the light.
âHowââ Jungkook began, voice cracking before he steadied it. âHow did youâ?â
âMake it out?â Yoongi said quietly. âNot easily.â
It wasnât an answer.
Jungkookâs eyes moved from face to face.
Some he recognized.
Some he didnât.
All carried the same look.
Tired.
Hunted.
Still standing.
âYouâre supposed to be dead,â Taehyung said at last, a ghost of incredulous humor slipping through.
âYeah,â Jungkook replied. âSo are you.â
A brittle silence followed.
No one laughed.
Jungkook swallowed.
He didnât ask about his brother immediately.
He didnât want to.
He couldnât bare to let himself hope.
But the question clawed its way out anyway.
âWhen theyââ His jaw tightened. âAt the Summit. NamjoonâŠâ
The room shifted subtly.
Not a flinch.
Not a gasp.
Justâ
Glances.
Small.
Fast.
Jiminâs gaze met Soyeonâs.
Yoongiâs jaw ticked.
Taehyungâs gaze slid toward the floor.
Jungkookâs stomach dropped.
âOh,â he said before they could speak.
No one corrected him.
The silence confirmed what he already believed.
Namjoon was dead.
The thought settled like iron in his lungs.
Mrs. Shin stepped forward then.
Her handâcool, steadyâcame to rest briefly on Jungkookâs arm.
âKookie,â she said gently, âYouâre hurt.â
âIâve been worse.â
He didnât want to burden her with tales of his hellish escape.
âThat doesnât mean you should be,â she replied.
It was such a simple, maternal scolding that it nearly undid him.
Soyeon moved closer with a first-aid kit without being asked.
âSit,â she said.
He didnât argue.
They guided him to a crate in the center of the space while the generator hummed faintly overhead.
The underground quarters looked different than he remembered. Dustier. Improvised. Makeshift cots lined the far wall. A folding table in the middle held maps, scattered documents, an old radio.
âI figured Iâd come here,â Jungkook stated automatically. âIt was always off the books.â
A slow nod circled the room.
âThatâs the only reason weâre still breathing,â Yoongi said.
Soyeon peeled back Jungkookâs coat and hissed softly at the sight of his ribs.
âJesus.â
âLater,â he muttered.
âNo,â she said sharply. âNow.â
She pressed gauze into the wound. He didnât react. It seemed the Ravens had, after all, managed to strip him of any reasonable sensitivity to physical pain.
His eyes were on the others.
âWhat happened?â he asked.
It wasnât just about the Summit.
It was about everything.
The fall of an empire.
Jimin exhaled through his teeth.
âThe Summit wasnât the only ambush.â
Jungkook went still.
Taehyung stepped forward, leaning against the edge of the table.
âThey didnât just hit us at the Lee estate,â he said. âThey hit us everywhere.â
âSimultaneously,â Yoongi added.
Jungkookâs jaw tightened.
âThe Kim mansion was breached within an hour,â Taehyung said. âTheyâd already emptied the vaults by the time they were done trashing the place.â
Jungkookâs stomach dropped.
âThe headquarters too,â Soyeon said, her voice even but her hands twisting in the hem of her sleeve. âThey got into the archives. Accounts. Storage. Everything.â
âOffshore?â Jungkook asked.
Yoongi nodded once. âGone.â
âHow?â
No one answered immediately.
âWho the hell knows?â Jimin said grimly.
The word tasted like betrayal.
âInside job?â Jungkook pressed.
âDoes it matter now?â Taehyung replied.
It did.
Or maybe it didnât.
Either way, Jungkook let it go.
âThey didnât just kill,â Yoongi said, voice low. âThey dismantled. Property. Shell companies. Front businesses. Anything with the Kim name attached.â
âThey even hit the secondary locations,â Soyeon added. âSafehouses. Training compounds. Even some of the overseas spots.â
âThey trashed what they couldnât take,â Taehyung said. âBurned what they couldnât use.â
Jiminâs jaw clenched. âIt wasnât chaos. It was coordinated. Lee. Park. And anyone who wanted to earn favor with them.â
The room felt smaller.
âHow many made it out?â Jungkook asked.
Jimin exhaled.
âFrom the Summit? Maybe a dozen. From everywhere else?â He shook his head. âLower ranks sold out immediately. Offered names in exchange for amnesty.â
âCowards,â Taehyung muttered.
âThe rest?â Jungkook asked.
âDead, I reckon,â Yoongi said simply. âOr scattered.â
âSo, how many total?â Jungkook pressed.
This time the answer didnât come right away.
It came from Soyeon.
âFourty.â
The number hung in the air like smoke.
Jungkook blinked.
âFour-zero,â Jimin confirmed.
All that remained of an empire that had once stretched across the country. Thousands of members. Influence in every major city. Political leverage. Financial power.
Reduced to forty people in a basement that wasnât supposed to exist.
âFuck,â Jungkook breathed.
Taehyung ran a hand through his hair.
âWeâve been trying to rebuild,â he said. âQuietly. Carefully. But itâs almost impossible.â
âTheyâre still hunting,â Yoongi added. âLee and Park hired private contractors to clean up whatâs left.â
âBounties,â Soyeon said. âOn any Tiger with a recognizable face or mark.â
âWe canât show ourselves in public,â Jimin finished. âNot without risking a bullet.â
Jungkook looked around again.
Crates instead of offices.
Cots instead of barracks.
Fourty instead of thousands.
âThis is the only base left?â he asked.
Taehyung nodded bitterly. âHome sweet home.â
Jungkook fell quiet for a moment.
Then the anger came back.
Not sharp this time.
Slow.
Boiling.
âSo what?â he said. âWe just sit here?â
No one answered.
âWe let them win?â he pressed. âWe let them burn everything and call it done?â
âWhat do you suggest?â Yoongi asked evenly.
Jungkookâs gaze hardened.
âWe hit them.â
A few brows lifted.
Jungkook hesitated.
âThere's going to be a wedding,â he eventually continued. âI assume youâve heard of it.â
âItâs all over the papers,â Soyeon scoffed, âWhatâs your point?â
âTheyâll all be there. Lee. Park. Everyone. Security will be high, yesâbut predictable. We use that. They may think the Charterâs rules donât apply anymore, but we do. Itâs an eye for an eye.â
Silence.
Taehyungâs expression went flat.
âYou want to storm the wedding of the century,â he said slowly, âwith forty men?â
âForty is enough,â Jungkook shot back.
âTo do what?â Jimin demanded. âPull off a kamikaze mission?â
Jungkook didnât flinch.
âTo gut them.â
His voice dropped lower.
âTo make it hurt.â
He didnât say her name.
He didnât need to.
Yoongiâs gaze sharpened. âYouâre not thinking about the clan.â
Jungkook met his eyes.
âI am.â
âNo,â Yoongi said quietly. âYouâre not.â
The truth of it cut deeper than any blade.
Taehyung stepped forward.
âThings arenât the same now,â he said. âWe donât have the numbers. We donât have the money. We donât even have proper weapons for half the people in this room.â
âWe can get them,â Jungkook insisted.
âWith what money, huh?â Soyeon snapped. âDonât be an idiot.â
Jungkookâs mouth opened, then closed.
âEven if we managed to breach security,â Jimin said, voice tight, âeven if, by some miracle, we got close enoughâwhat then? You think they wonât be waiting for something like that?â
âThey expect retaliation,â Yoongi added. âTheyâre counting on it. Thatâs why the place will be a fortress.â
âAnd we canât risk what little we have left on some suicide mission,â Taehyung finished.
The words landed heavy.
Jungkookâs fists clenched at his sides.
âYou want to hide instead?â he demanded.
âWe want to survive,â Yoongi corrected.
âFor what?â Jungkook shot back, the words leaving his mouth sharper than he intended. âTo wait untilâ they finally track us down? To live a life of looking over our shoulder? To sit here and count down the days until she gets married off?â
The room changed.
It was subtleâjust a shift in posture, a tightening of shoulders, a few exchanged glances that vanished almost as quickly as they appeared. But Jungkook felt it all the same.
They knew.
Of course they knew.
A faint, humorless breath slipped from Soyeonâs nose.
âOh,â she said, tilting her head slightly as she looked at him now with something far less neutral than before. âSo thatâs what this is about.â
Jungkook frowned.
âWhat?â
She folded her arms loosely across her chest, gaze cool and assessing.
âYour little Raven girlfriend.â
The words dropped into the room like a lit match.
Jungkookâs head snapped toward her.
âThis isnâtââ
âIsnât it?â Soyeon cut in, one eyebrow lifting. âFunny timing then. You show up here injured and enraged and the first thing you want to do is storm the wedding of the girl youâve got the hots for.â
âThatâs not what this is about.â
âNo?â she said lightly. âBecause from where Iâm standing it looks a lot like you want the rest of us to die so you can play knight in shining armor for the Park princess.â
The crate scraped violently across the concrete.
Jungkook was on his feet before he even realized heâd moved.
âThis,â he said, voice shaking with something dangerously close to rage, âis about Namjoon.â
The word echoed harsher than it should have in the small underground space.
âAnd Hobi. And everyone else. Itâs about taking back what they stole from us.â
Soyeonâs expression didnât soften.
In fact, if anything, it sharpened.
âWhat they stole from us,â she repeated slowly.
Her gaze flicked over himâhis torn coat, the dried blood stiff across his sleeves, the exhaustion barely held together by stubborn will.
Then she said quietly:
âYou mean what they stole from you.â Her gaze was cold. âForgive me for my lack of enthusiasm. See, the last Lee festivities we attended wasnât such a success was it? Remind me how it ended. Oh rightâhalf of us dead and you, nearly dying over Park Jaebeomâs favorite girl.â
The distance between them vanished in an instant.
Jungkook lunged.
Hands caught him before he made it two steps.
Taehyungâs grip clamped around his arm, solid as iron, while Jimin stepped in front of Soyeon instinctively, blocking the space between them.
âHeyâheyââ Jimin snapped. âEnough.â
Jungkook strained once against the hold, chest heaving, fury flashing white-hot across his vision.
For a moment it looked like he might actually fight them.
Thenâ
âEnough.â
Mrs. Shinâs voice was not loud.
It didnât need to be.
The effect was immediate.
The tension in the room snapped loose like a pulled thread.
Jimin released Jungkookâs arm first. Taehyung followed a moment later, though not without a final steadying pressure against his shoulder as if to remind him to breathe.
Mrs. Shin stepped forward slowly, the soft sound of her shoes on the concrete floor the only movement in the room.
She looked smaller than Jungkook remembered.
Months of captivity had thinned her frame, softened the angles of her face. But there was still something immovable in the way she carried herself, a quiet gravity that had once commanded entire rooms without raising her voice.
Her eyes settled on Jungkook.
Not the way the others had looked at him.
Not as a soldier who had returned.
But as a boy.
A stubborn, reckless boy she had once fed bowls of soup and handfuls of Jeochong Taffy when he trained too late into the night. The same boy she had scolded for tracking mud through the hallway carpets back home.
Home.
She lifted one hand slightly and gestured toward the others.
âThat will be enough for tonight,â she said gently.
No one argued.
She was still their elder, after all.
Soyeon exhaled through her nose and stepped away first. Taehyung followed, dragging a chair back toward the table. Jimin lingered a moment longer, eyes flicking between Jungkook and Mrs. Shin as if debating whether to stay.
Mrs. Shin didnât even look at him.
âGo on,â she said softly.
After a moment, Jimin nodded and turned away.
The generator hummed faintly overhead.
The room felt suddenly too large with everyone gone.
Mrs. Shin stepped closer.
Up close, Jungkook could see the faint tremor in her hands, the fine lines time had carved around her eyes. But when she reached out and rested her palm briefly on both sides of his face, the touch was steady.
She studied his face for a moment longer, the way mothers do when they are deciding what to do with their misbehaving child.
Then she said, with the same calm certainty she had used moments earlier:
âWe will get her back.â
Jungkook felt something tighten painfully behind his ribs.
There was no doubt in her voice.
No hesitation.
Just quiet conviction.
Then she added, almost as an afterthoughtâ
âEventually.â
The word landed harder than any shout could have.
Jungkookâs throat tightened.
âYou donât know that,â he said.
His voice came out rougher than he intended.
Mrs. Shin held his gaze.
âNo,â she agreed gently. âI donât.â
A beat passed.
âBut I know you,â she said quietly. âAnd I know her.â
Silence settled into the space between them.
Not hostile.
Not tense.
Just heavy with things neither of them seemed willingâor ableâto drag into the light.
For a moment Jungkook thought the conversation had ended there.
But then he noticed something.
It was small. So small he might have missed it if he hadnât spent years studying faces for danger, for deception, for weakness.
Something flickered in Mrs. Shinâs eyes.
Not doubt.
Something closer to⊠consideration.
As though she were weighing a thought she had not yet decided to share.
Jungkook frowned faintly.
From what he remembered, Mrs. Shin had never shown any particular fondness toward Y/N. She had never spoken ill of her, eitherâbut there had always been a quiet distance there.
And yetâ
When Jungkook had been at the mansion months ago, confined to the attic and bored half to death with idle Y/N-guarding duty, Mrs Shin had a habit of stopping by with tea.
Not for long.
Never with much conversation.
But she would always ask him the same thing before leaving.
How is she settling in?
The memory stirred uneasily now.
Mrs. Shin noticed his scrutiny. Whatever thought had passed through her expression disappeared just as quickly as it had come.
She reached out then and placed a light hand on his shoulder.
âYou should rest,â she said softly. âYou look like you need it.â
Jungkook huffed faintly.
The corner of her mouth curved just enough to suggest something warmer than the room had felt all night.
âGet some sleep,â she added. âWeâll talk more later.â
She squeezed his shoulder once and stepped away.
By the time Jungkook lifted his head again, she was already walking back toward the far side of the room, her silhouette dissolving slowly into the dim amber glow of the generator light.
He watched her go for a moment.
Then the weight returned.
Jungkook dragged a hand down his face and pushed himself slowly off the crate.
The quarters were quiet now. The others had drifted away in low murmurs or exhausted silence, leaving only the faint hum of the generator and the occasional creak of shifting metal somewhere in the structure above.
He found an empty cot near the far wall.
It was little more than a narrow frame and a thin military mattressâbut it was no worse than what heâd been sleeping on in the Ravensâ barracks.
He shrugged out of his coat slowly, muscles protesting the movement.
All the adrenaline that had kept him upright since the forest drained out of him at once.
Fourty.
The number circled his thoughts like a vulture.
Fourty Tigers left in the country.
Namjoon gone.
An empire reduced to dust and borrowed light bulbs humming faintly in a forgotten basement.
And Y/Nâ
Less than weeks away from standing beside Lee Taeyong in front of half the Korean underworld.
After a moment he reached for his coat to toss it aside.
His fingers brushed something stiff inside the breast pocket.
Jungkook frowned.
He reached in and pulled it free.
A cream-colored envelope.
For a second he simply stared at it, mind struggling to catch up.
Then the memory slid back into place.
Snow.
Blood.
Jaebeom standing calmly in the trees.
In case reason finds you again.
Thatâs what the Raven leader had told him before letting him go.
Jungkook turned the envelope over slowly in his hands.
It was still perfectly clean.
Jaebeom had known.
Known Jungkook would survive the forest.
Known he would make it this far.
A slow chill crept down Jungkookâs spine.
He stared at the envelope a moment longer.
Then, very carefullyâ
he broke the seal.
Inside was a single card.
Heavy ivory stock, the edges beveled clean. Embossed lettering caught the weak generator light as he lifted it.
Elegant.
Immaculate.
Untouched by everything that had happened to get it here.
His eyes scanned the first lines automatically.
âŠ
The most honorable Houses
of Park and Lee
Request the honor of your presence
at the union
of Park Y/N
and Lee Taeyong
âŠ
The date sat beneath it. The location, too.
Some coastal cathedral outside Ulsan.
Of course.
Big enough for spectacle. Isolated enough to control every road leading in and out.
Jungkookâs mouth pulled faintly at one corner.
Jaebeom really had thought of everything.
Beneath the invitation itself was the RSVP.
He turned it between his fingers slowly.
Even that had been prepared with careâtwo neat options embossed beneath the polite line requesting confirmation of attendance.
The absurdity of itâthis delicate little choice, printed for diplomats and crime lords and politicians who would sit in polished chairs applauding a marriage that had been purchased in bloodâhis bloodâmade something in his chest twist.
For a moment he imagined the tables.
Crystal glasses.
White linen.
Security everywhere.
Lee diplomats.
Ravens soldiers.
Every enemy gathered neatly in one place to celebrate the victory.
His hand stilled.
A thought slipped quietly through his mind.
Not loud.
Not dramatic.
Just⊠there.
Jungkook reached for the pen clipped to the small table beside the cot.
The ink scratched softly across the paper.
He didnât check either box.
Instead, beneath themâwhere the pristine layout hadnât intended anything at allâ
He drew a third box, next to which he wrote one single word.
The only thing he was planning to feast on that day.
Snake.
â
Once again. Quite a bit of intel. I hope you liked it and I hope the suspense is KILLING YOU (metaphorically, of course, stay safe besties) Stay tuned for the next chapter and, as usual, send all your reactions and thoughts, Iâm a girl who thrives when given feedback. xxx
Genre: Mafia!au, Slowburn, Angst, Hurt, smut, TW (it is a mafia!AU, after all). This chapter contains some pretty graphic violence; read at your own risk.
Pairing: Mafia!Jungkook x reader
Wordcount: 5.8k
Masterlist
â
Jungkook lasted two days.
Two days of drills he barely remembered completing. Two days of waking with her voice lodged behind his ribs like shrapnel. Two days of pretending the walls of the Raven compound werenât narrowing by the hour.
He tried to do what she had asked.
Tried to stay put.
He went to training. He took the blows. He followed orders. He swallowed whatever curdled inside him when someone mentioned the wedding logistics in passingâsecurity rotations tightening, guest lists expanding, the Lees requesting additional ceremonial guards.
Three weeks.
It echoed in his skull like a countdown.
In three weeks Park Y/N would stand in white beside Lee Taeyong and seal a bargain written in blood.
For him.
The truth he had so desperately sought had not steadied him.
It had hollowed him out.
By the second night, sleep was impossible. Every time he closed his eyes he saw two images overlapping until they were indistinguishable: Y/N on her knees in the hedge maze, hands pressed into his chest, and Y/N standing in the fitting room, suffocating inside ivory satin.
He could not decide which one hurt more.
Around midnight, he gave up pretending.
The barracks were quiet, a low chorus of breathing and shifting metal bunks. Jungkook sat up slowly, careful not to rattle the frame. His knuckles were still healing; the scabs pulled tight when he flexed his fingers.
He dressed without turning on a light.
Boots. Jacket. Gloves.
He didnât pack anything.
There was nothing here he wanted to take with him.
He stepped outside into the cold and it hit him like a slap, sharp and bracing. The compound slept under a thin wash of moonlight. Watchtowers glowed faintly at the perimeter. Beyond them, black forest.
Freedom, in theory.
Death, more likely.
He didnât let himself think about that.
He walked the perimeter once, slow and casual, as if stretching his legs. No one challenged him. He was trusted enough now to move within bounds. A caged animal allowed to pace.
When he reached the east fence, he stopped.
Barbed wire curled along the top like a crown of thorns. Motion sensors ran low along the base, but there were blind spots. Heâd mapped them in his head months ago during drills. Not because heâd planned to escape.
Because part of him always had.
He tested the mesh. Solid. Cold.
His pulse steadied strangely.
This was simple.
Climb.
Drop.
Run.
He grabbed the fence and pulled himself up.
The wire bit through his gloves. He ignored it.
Halfway up, a voice cut through the dark.
âWhat do you think youâre doing?â
Not loud.
Not urgent.
Just⊠there.
Jungkook closed his eyes once.
Of course.
He didnât look down.
âStretching,â he said.
A beat of silence.
Then boots on gravel.
Chan came into view beneath him, hands in his coat pockets, breath fogging faintly in the cold.
âStretching?â Chan echoed mildly. âAre we really doing this again?â
Jungkook swung one leg higher, testing the top.
âGo back inside.â
Chan didnât move.
They stood like that for a long momentâJungkook suspended between compound and forest, Chan grounded beneath him, both of them too tired for theatrics.
âYou know whatâs out there,â Chan said at last.
âYeah.â
âAnd youâre going anyway.â
âYes.â
The honesty surprised even Jungkook.
Chan watched him for another few seconds.
Then something unexpected happened.
He turned away.
Jungkook frowned down at him. âArenât you gonna try to stop me?â
Chan paused, glanced back over his shoulder.
âWould I succeed?â
Jungkook didnât answer.
They both knew the truth.
If Chan pulled him down now, it would end in blood. Maybe his. Maybe Jungkookâs. Maybe both.
Chan stepped toward the gate instead.
The heavy metal latch groaned softly as he worked it loose.
Jungkook stared.
âWhat are you doing?â
âPatrolâs due out inââ Chan glanced down at his watch, the faint glow of the dial catching against his cheekbone, ââten minutes.â
He slid the bolt free.
The gate shifted with a low, reluctant groan.
Cold air threaded through the opening like something alive.
Jungkook stared at him.
For a second he genuinely couldnât process what he was seeing. He had expected resistance. A fight. A lecture. Maybe even a blade drawn between them to make it official.
Not this.
Chan stepped back, giving the gate just enough room to swing.
âIâm just opening for them a little early,â he said, tone infuriatingly neutral. âNo big deal.â
Jungkook climbed down from the fence slowly, boots crunching into the snow. He stood there, inches from the threshold, eyes flicking between the darkness beyond and the man holding it open.
âWhat are you doing?â he asked again, quieter this time.
Chan didnât answer immediately. He kept his gaze on the treeline, listening to the night like he was measuring something only he could hear.
âTen minutes,â he repeated. âMaybe less if someone noticed youâre not in your bunk.â
Jungkook swallowed.
« And what happens to you?â
Chanâs mouth curved faintly, not quite a smile.
âIâll say I heard something at the perimeter. Investigated. Didnât see anything. Iâm not new at this.â
âAnd if they donât buy it?â
Chan shrugged.
âIâve survived worse.â
Jungkook hesitated. The cold pressed against his skin, sharp and real. Beyond the gate, the forest loomedâblack, indifferent, waiting. For a moment he didnât move. Didnât step forward. Didnât step back.
A thought flickered through his mindâunwelcome and impossible to ignore.
What if this was a test?
Jaebeom loved his games. Loved watching people reveal themselves under pressure. It would not be unlike him to plant a knife in the dark and see what Jungkook did when the blade appeared friendly.
Jungkook studied Chanâs profile in the dim light, searching for some sign of itâsome crack in the calm expression, some hint of calculation.
He found none.
Five days ago, Jungkook would not have even considered the possibility of trusting the man standing beside him. Five days ago Chan had simply been another Raven officerâdistant, disciplined, and entirely on the wrong side of the war.
But things had shifted since then.
Something about the conversation on the barracks steps had unsettled the old lines between them. Stripped away the simple categories Jungkook had relied on.
Out there, beyond the gate, things were going to be ugly. Cold. Dangerous.
The words left his mouth before he could fully stop them.
âCome with me.â He heard how reckless it sounded the moment he said it. âWeâll stop it.â
Chan let out a quiet breath that might have been a laugh. He didnât need to ask what Jungkook was referring to.
âYeah?â he said mildly. âUs and whose army?â
Jungkook shrugged, though the movement tugged painfully at the bruises along his ribs.
âWeâll figure something out.â
âWill we?â Chan finally looked at him fully. There was no mockery in his expression. Just exhaustion. âYou think two men and a grudge can take down two whole clans and a wedding already set in stone?â
Jungkook had no answer.
Chan nodded once, as if confirming what he already knew.
âBesides. This is where I belong,â he said. âWhether I like it or not.â
He glanced toward the compound buildings behind them.
âIâll watch over her,â he added. âAlways have. Always will.â
The words werenât dramatic. They werenât possessive. They were simply⊠rooted.
Jungkook felt something tighten in his chest.
He stepped toward the opening.
âChanââ
âDonât thank me,â Chan cut in quietly.
Jungkook stopped.
âNot yet,â Chan said. âYou donât know what this might cost you.â
The wind shifted. Somewhere in the distance, metal clanged faintlyâroutine movement, or maybe the beginning of something else.
Chanâs gaze sharpened.
âUs, Ravens love the hunt,â he said. âAnd you? Youâre not just any prey. They wonât let this go quietly.â
Jungkook nodded.
âI know.â
âNo,â Chan said softly. âYou really donât.â
For a second, something almost like regret flickered across his face.
Then it was gone.
Jungkook stepped toward the opening.
âHold on,â Chan added.
The word wasnât sharp like an order, but it stopped Jungkook all the same.
He turned slightly.
Chan had already moved closer, one hand slipping inside his coat. For a moment Jungkookâs muscles tensed on instinct, ready for the possibility that the generosity ended thereâthat the weapon about to appear would be meant for his ribs instead.
And, in all fairness, Chan did draw out a knife.
Not large. Not ornate.
A narrow piece of Raven steel, blackened along the spine so it wouldnât catch the light, the edge honed thin enough that the moon glinted along it like frost.
Chan flipped it once in his hand, testing the balance, then tossed it lightly toward Jungkook.
Jungkook caught it by reflex.
The weight surprised him.
âThis isnât compound scrap,â Chan said. âRaven issue. The real kind.â
Jungkook turned the blade slightly, feeling the center of gravity settle perfectly between his fingers.
âCall it a souvenir,â Chan added mildly. âYou might need it.â
Jungkook slid the knife into his palm, still studying the balance. He recognised it as the same kind he had pulled out of Hobiâs chest. A small weapon, but lethal all the same.
Jungkook glanced up.
Chan lifted one hand slowly.
Another blade appeared between his fingers.
Jungkook hadnât seen him reach for it.
Chan turned his wrist again.
A second knife slid into his other palm from somewhere.
Then a third, and a fourth from somewhere else.
All in the span of a second. Like some magic trick.
By the time he finished, four blades rested loosely in his hands, their edges glinting faintly in the cold.
Jungkook stared.
âHow did youââ
âExactly.â Chan shrugged faintly. âSee, if youâre going to survive out there, you need to stop thinking like a Tiger.â
One by one he slipped them back where they had come from, the motions so small they barely registered.
âRule one,â he said calmly. âYouâre not some dumb cowboy showing off your gear. Never let anyone know what youâre carrying.â
A blade disappeared into his sleeve.
âRule two: never let them know where youâre carrying it.â
Another slid behind his belt.
âAnd rule threeââ
Another went to his back.
âânever let them know when youâre going to use it.â
The last knife vanished into his boot.
Chan glanced toward the forest beyond the gate.
âRavens donât fight fair,â Chan continued. âWe fight smart. Surprise wins more fights than brute strength ever will.â
Jungkook glanced down at the blade in his hand again.
Chan nodded toward it.
âSmall weapons win ugly fights. Guns jam. Rifles run empty. But steel?â He gave a small shrug. âSteel never fails.â
His eyes flicked briefly to the blade Jungkook held.
âOf course,â he added, almost lightly, âthat only works if you can aim true.â
Jungkook slid the blade into his sleeve, copying the motion he had just seen.
Chan noticed.
A faint, approving glint crossed his expression.
âNot bad,â he murmured. âYou might survive the night after all.â
For a moment the two of them stood there in the cold, the open gate breathing darkness between them.
Then Chan stepped back and cleared the path.
âGo.â
Jungkook didnât hesitate again.
He slipped through the gate and into the trees.
Chan closed it behind him with careful precision, sliding the bolt back into place as though nothing had happened.
For a few minutes, the forest was silent.
Then, faint and distantâ
A horn.
Once.
Twice.
Chan exhaled slowly, eyes still fixed on the darkness where Jungkook had disappeared.
â
The horn sounded againâcloser this time.
Not frantic.
Measured.
A signal.
Jungkook didnât look back.
He ran.
Snow swallowed his steps at first, a thin blessing. He cut through the lower trees instead of following the old logging trail, ducking beneath branches, forcing himself downhill where footing was treacherous but pursuit would be slower.
His lungs burned quickly.
South.
That was all he knew.
Head South.
He might make it to Seoul in 8 or 9 hours if he didnât slow down.
Of course it did not help that he had not slept properly in days. Had barely eaten. His ribs still ached where blades had grazed him during training.
It didnât matter.
The forest opened briefly near a frozen creek bed. He crossed it diagonally, boots skidding on ice, then doubled back upstream through the shallows where the water ran black beneath a thin crust. It soaked through his socks in seconds.
Good.
Let them follow scent and warmth.
Let them guess wrong.
The first Raven found him twenty minutes in.
Jungkook felt him before he saw himâa shift in air, a weight in the trees.
He didnât slow.
The man dropped from a branch ahead of him, blade flashing.
Jungkook pivoted mid-stride. The blade skimmed his shoulder instead of his throat. He stepped inside the manâs reach and slammed his forehead forward. Bone cracked.
The Raven staggered. Jungkook caught his wrist, twisted until it snapped, then drove the broken arm backward and used the momentum to spin him around.
He didnât waste time.
He slit the manâs throat cleanly and stepped away before the body finished folding.
The snow swallowed the blood too easily.
He ran again.
More horns now.
Different directions.
They were spreading out.
They werenât trying to scare him.
They were corralling him.
The second fight was messier.
Two of them this time.
He didnât see the first until it was too late. The blow caught him in the ribs, stealing air from his lungs. He dropped to one knee, rolled under the follow-up strike, and kicked the second Ravenâs ankle hard enough to buckle it.
The first came again, aggressive, overcommitted.
Jungkook let him.
He stepped aside at the last possible second and shoved him into his own partner. Steel met flesh. One of them screamed.
Jungkook grabbed the fallen blade and buried it upward through the screaming manâs jaw.
The other tried to crawl away.
Jungkook didnât allow it.
If there was one thing he had learned in his months in the Raven nest, it was that the Northern Territories did not allow mercy.
So, merciful, he was not.
When it was over, his hands were shaking.
Not from guilt.
From fatigue.
He wiped the blade on his own sleeve and moved on.
The forest grew thinner the farther south he pushed. Less cover. More open ground. He adjusted, sticking to shadows, hugging the uneven terrain.
He lost count of how many he fought.
Three.
Five.
More.
Each one chipped something off him.
A slice along his thigh.
A cut across his palm.
A bruise blooming dark beneath his collarbone.
They werenât amateurs.
Ravens trained for thisâpatient pursuit, coordinated strikes, exhausting prey before closing in.
He could feel the net tightening.
By the time he reached the ridge overlooking the old quarry road, he was breathing in ragged pulls, vision flickering at the edges.
That was when he heard a voice he knew too well.
âHey there, Tiger.â
Jungkook didnât turn.
Changbin stepped out from behind a stand of birch, snow crunching beneath heavy boots. His coat was zipped to the throat, dark eyes calm and assessing.
Jungkook felt something ugly twist in his chest.
âOh, Iâve been waiting for this,â Changbin said, cracking his knuckles.
Jungkook spat blood into the snow.
âMove.â
Changbin sighed once.
âI donât think so,â he replied with a nasty smile, âYou owe me a couple of teeth, remember?â
Jungkook lunged before he finished the sentence.
Changbin was ready.
He caught Jungkookâs wrist and slammed him hard into a tree. Jungkook drove his knee upward. Changbin blocked it with his thigh and shoved him back.
Steel flashed.
Jungkook barely deflected it.
They moved fast nowâtoo fast for words.
Changbin fought like a wallâsolid, relentless, grounded. No wasted motion. No theatrics.
Jungkook fought like fireâunsteady, consuming, burning himself to hurt the other.
They clashed again and again, blades ringing in the cold air.
Changbin clipped him across the ribs. Jungkook hissed and answered with a slash that cut through coat and skin.
Blood darkened the snow between them.
Changbin smiled faintly.
âThatâs better.â
He pressed forward.
Jungkook gave ground, boots slipping near the ridge edge.
Changbin didnât let up.
He feinted high, then drove low, blade angling for Jungkookâs abdomen.
Jungkook caught his wrist with both hands.
For a split second, they were locked together, breath steaming between them.
Jungkookâs vision tunneled.
He twisted.
Hard.
Bone popped in Changbinâs wrist.
The blade dropped.
Changbin snarled and headbutted him, stars exploding across Jungkookâs vision.
They fell together, rolling in snow and gravel.
Changbin was heavier. Stronger in close quarters.
He pinned Jungkookâs arm, reached for a secondary blade at his boot.
Jungkook reacted on instinct.
He sank his teeth into Changbinâs neck.
Hard.
Hard enough that he felt blood pour into his mouth.
Changbin groaned, loosening just enough.
Jungkook grabbed the fallen blade with his free hand and drove it up between Changbinâs ribs.
Once.
Changbin stiffened.
Jungkook didnât stop.
Twice.
Three times.
Hot blood flooded over his hands.
Changbinâs breath hitched.
His eyes met Jungkookâs.
Jungkook shoved him off and staggered to his feet.
Changbin tried to rise.
He didnât make it.
Jungkook stood over him, chest heaving, snow and blood clinging to his boots.
Changbinâs breath rattled wetly.
âF-fuckingââ he managed. Couldnât finish.
Jungkook grabbed the blade with both hands and ended it.
Clean.
Final.
The forest seemed to go still after that.
No horns.
No footsteps.
Just wind through bare branches.
Jungkook swayed slightly where he stood.
He had known Changbin would be good.
He had not expected it to hurt.
He wiped his face with the back of his hand, spat on the floor and left the body where it lay.
He didnât slow.
He couldnât.
He made it maybe a hundred feet before his legs began to tremble in earnest.
Thenâ
a familiar voice drifted through the trees.
âWell,â it said lightly, almost amused, âthat was unfortunate.â
Jungkook froze. His grip tightened around the blade. Snow shifted faintly beneath his boots as he turned, scanning the darkness between the trees.
Nothing.
Only the wind stirring the branches overhead.
A soft chuckle carried through the forest.
âLooking for me?â
Jungkookâs head snapped to the left.
Empty.
âOver here,â the voice said lazily.
He spun the other way.
Still nothing.
The words seemed to come from everywhere at once, slipping through the branches, bouncing off the bare trunks, impossible to place.
A quiet sigh.
âCome now,â the voice continued, mild as ever. âDonât tell me youâve gone deaf already.â
Jungkookâs pulse thudded against his ribs.
The forest felt suddenly too still, too attentive.
âI expected better,â the voice went on, almost fondly. âLittle stray.â
Jungkook pivoted again, breath fogging sharply in the cold air.
And at long lastâ
Jaebeom appeared.
Snow dusted the shoulders of his jacket. His posture was relaxed, hands tucked loosely into his pockets.
His gaze slid past Jungkook almost immediately, drifting toward the direction of Changbinâs body lying somewhere behind him in the trees.
A faint sigh escaped him.
âHe was loyal,â Jaebeom remarked mildly. âI do hate losing good help.â
Only then did his eyes return to Jungkook.
And the faintest hint of a smile touched his mouth.
Jungkookâs fingers tightened around the blood-slick blade in his hand.
Jaebeom tilted his head. He stood as though he had simply taken a wrong turn on a pleasant walk and stumbled across something mildly interesting.
No visible weapon.
No rush in his posture.
No sign that the body cooling behind Jungkook had cost him anything at all.
Snow caught in his dark hair, delicate as ash.
âYou look tired, stray,â Jaebeom repeated, his voice carrying easily through the trees.
Jungkook did not answer.
His lungs burned. His side throbbed where Changbinâs blade had sliced him. Blood had dried stiff along his ribs, tugging at his skin every time he moved. His hands were shaking from the cold and the adrenaline, though he willed them not to.
Jaebeomâs gaze dropped briefly to the blade in Jungkookâs grip. Then to the blood soaking into the snow around his boots.
âProductive evening,â he murmured.
The wind shifted.
Jungkook could smell iron and pine and his own sweat turning cold.
âYouâre enjoying this,â he said finally.
Jaebeomâs brow lifted faintly.
âEnjoying?â He considered the word as if tasting it. âNo. I wouldnât say that. I do appreciate dedication, though. And you, my dear runaway, are nothing if not dedicated.â
Jungkook lunged.
There was no warning this time.
No shouted insult.
He closed the distance in five strides, blade angling for Jaebeomâs throat.
Jaebeom moved at the last possible second.
Not fast.
Precise.
He pivoted, caught Jungkookâs wrist with two fingers and redirected the strike just enough that steel sliced through empty air instead of flesh.
Jungkook turned the motion into another attack, driving his elbow toward Jaebeomâs jaw.
Jaebeom blocked, stepped inside his reach, and pressed two fingers sharply against the cut along Jungkookâs ribs.
Pain exploded white-hot.
Jungkook staggered back with a snarl.
âStill sloppy, I see,â Jaebeom observed, almost kindly.
Jungkook attacked again.
This time he didnât aim cleanly.
He aimed to maim.
To hurt.
To leave something permanent. Anything.
Jaebeom slipped past the first strike, then the second, boots barely disturbing the snow. He caught Jungkookâs forearm and twisted, forcing him down to one knee with humiliating ease.
Jungkook roared and wrenched free, slashing upward blindly.
The blade grazed Jaebeomâs coat, cutting through fabric.
For the first time, Jaebeomâs smile thinned.
âAh,â he said softly. âThere it is.â
Jungkook pressed forward, every movement fueled by exhaustion and fury and the memory of ivory silk stained red.
Jaebeom blocked again, then again, stepping back in a slow arc that guided Jungkook toward a clearing between the trees.
âRemarkable, really,â Jaebeom said conversationally, parrying another blow. âthe lengths men will go to for a scrap of my sisterâs attention.â
âShut up!â
Jungkook drove his knee into Jaebeomâs chest, forcing him back a step.
A step.
It felt like a victory.
Jaebeom let him have it.
âYou see,â Jaebeom continued, voice even as he deflected another strike, âthis is why I hesitated to give you too much freedom. Youâre emotional. Impulsive. A true Tiger.â
Jungkook swung again.
Jaebeom caught his wrist fully this time, fingers clamping down like iron. He twisted sharply.
The blade fell from Jungkookâs hand.
Before Jungkook could react, Jaebeomâs other hand was at his throatânot choking, just holding.
A reminder.
âYou mistake this for rebellion,â Jaebeom said quietly, close enough now that Jungkook could see the faint scar along his jaw. âBut itâs simply movement within parameters I already accounted for.â
Jungkook spat blood at his feet.
Jaebeom released him and stepped back.
Jungkook stumbled, caught himself, and braced for another strike.
None came.
Jaebeom reached into his coat instead.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
Jungkook tensed.
Jaebeom pulled out a cream-colored envelope.
Crisp.
Untouched by snow.
He stepped forward and slid it into Jungkookâs jacket pocket as though adjusting a boutonniĂšre.
âIn case,â Jaebeom said lightly, âyou find reason again.â
Jungkook stared at him.
âYou think this is a joke.â
Jaebeomâs expression didnât change.
âI think,â he replied, âthat you needed to understand something.â
âAnd whatâs that?â
âThat you, running off the board doesnât mean the game is over.â
Snow drifted between them.
Jungkookâs breath came hard and uneven.
Jaebeom tilted his head, studying him.
âYouâre bleeding badly,â he observed. âYouâll slow soon.â
âTry me.â
Jaebeomâs mouth curved faintly.
âOh, I intend to.â
He stepped aside, gesturing down the open path that led deeper into the thinning forest.
âRun.â
Jungkook didnât move.
Jaebeomâs eyes sharpened.
âIâll give you a head start,â he said. âCall it⊠encouragement.â
âAnd if I donât?â
Jaebeomâs gaze flicked toward the trees behind Jungkook.
For the first time, Jungkook heard it.
Movement.
Distant.
Not close enough to engage.
Close enough to remind.
Jaebeom leaned in slightly, voice lowering.
âLetâs just say youâll be dealing with a little more than a broken heart.â
Jungkookâs jaw clenched.
Jaebeom stepped back fully now, hands slipping into his coat pockets.
âGo on, stray,â he murmured. âLetâs see how far you make it without a leash.â
For a heartbeat, Jungkook considered it.
Throwing himself at Jaebeom again.
Fighting until one of them stopped moving.
But exhaustion dragged at his limbs. His vision pulsed faintly at the edges. He had already killed too many tonight.
And Jaebeomâ
Jaebeom was not fighting to win.
He was fighting to teach.
Jungkook bent, snatched up his fallen blade, and ran.
He did not look back.
Branches whipped against his face. Snow broke beneath his boots. His breath tore in and out of his chest like it belonged to someone else.
Behind him, Jaebeom did not follow..
He watched.
Waited until Jungkookâs footsteps were swallowed by distance.
Only then did he turn, eyes drifting toward the direction where Changbin lay cooling beneath the trees.
A faint exhale.
âWhat a shame,â he murmured again.
Then he began walkingâunhurried, preciseâalong a different path entirely.
â
By the time the forest thinned into skeletal trees and low industrial fencing, Jungkookâs legs were moving on memory alone.
The snow gave way firstâpatches of dirty slush clinging stubbornly to the edges of asphalt. Then the trees broke apart into scrub. Then into the long, tired outskirts of Seoul.
Not the glittering skyline.
Not neon.
The suburbs.
Warehouses with peeling signage. Half-abandoned apartment blocks with laundry stiffening in the winter air. Convenience stores with flickering fluorescent lights and plastic banners promising discounts no one fell for.
He slowed for the first time in hours.
Not because he felt safe.
Because instinct told him to.
Out here, the hunt changed shape.
In the forest, they were predators moving through open terrain.
Here, they could be anyone.
A man waiting at a bus stop.
A delivery driver smoking behind a truck.
A couple arguing too loudly on a corner.
Jungkook kept his head down and his pace unremarkable.
The first public restroom he found was behind a shuttered convenience store, its door hanging crooked on rusted hinges.
The smell hit him before he even stepped inside.
Stale piss. Bleach that hadnât quite done its job. Damp concrete and something sour that had been sitting too long in the corners. The overhead light flickered weakly, buzzing with a tired electrical hum that made the entire room feel vaguely hostile.
Jungkook didnât hesitate.
He crossed to the sink and twisted the tap open.
The water came out in a thin, reluctant stream.
He cupped his hands beneath it and splashed his face once, twice, three times. The cold shocked his skin awake, sending a dull ache through his skull. Blood diluted immediately beneath the faucet, pink at first, then deeper red as he scrubbed the dried streaks from his jaw and throat.
He washed his hands next.
The water ran red.
It spiraled down the cracked porcelain basin in slow ribbons, carrying away flakes of dried blood, dirt, and melted snow. The cuts along his knuckles reopened under the friction. The one at his ribs burned when he poured water over it, teeth clenching involuntarily against the sting.
He didnât stop until the stream ran mostly clear.
Only then did he look up.
For a moment he genuinely didnât recognize the man staring back at him.
The mirror was warped and cloudy with age, its edges mottled with black spots where the silver had begun to rot away. But even through the distortion the damage was obvious.
Bloodshot eyes.
A split lip.
Dried streaks of red dragged across his cheekbones like careless war paint.
He looked older. Harder.
Jungkook leaned his weight against the sink, breathing slowly.
The room was warm compared to the outside. The fluorescent light buzzed overhead. A dark corner near the door looked almost inviting in its stillness.
For a brief moment he considered it.
Sitting down.
Closing his eyes.
Sleeping there on the filthy tile until his body decided it was ready to move again.
But the thought didnât last.
Because the second he tried to imagine stopping, another image rose unbidden behind his eyesâ
white silk.
A wedding aisle.
Three weeks.
Jungkook pushed away from the sink.
He didnât bother drying his hands.
And he didnât look at the mirror again before he left.
His coat was stiff with dried blood. The cut along his ribs had soaked through and frozen at the edges. Every step pulled at it. Every breath reminded him he was still alive.
Still breathing.
Because she had wanted it.
The thought hit him again, sudden and destabilizing.
He nearly stumbled.
He forced himself to focus.
He cut down a narrow side street and ducked into the recessed doorway of a closed pharmacy. He leaned back against the metal shutter, allowing himself another moment.
His hands were still shaking.
Not from cold.
From depletion.
He peeled his glove off with his teeth and pressed his fingers to his side. The wound wasnât deep enough to kill him. Just deep enough to weaken him.
âStupid,â he muttered under his breath.
He pushed off the shutter and moved again.
The further south he went, the more familiar the grid of streets became.
He hadnât been back in this neighborhood in years.
Before the clans had torn themselves open in public.
Before Tigers had become ghosts.
He passed a schoolyard enclosed by chain-link fencing. The basketball hoops were bent, nets gone. For a split second he saw it as it had beenâfull, loud, alive.
He tore his gaze away.
You donât get nostalgia, he told himself. Not now.
He took another turn.
Then another.
And there it was.
What heâd been looking for.
An industrial warehouse wedged between a shuttered auto shop and a printing company that probably existed only on paper.
The sign above the warehouse had long ago rusted beyond legibility.
The front entrance was sealed.
The side entranceâbeneath an external metal staircaseâwas not meant to be seen.
He stopped at the mouth of the alley across from it.
His pulse thudded in his ears.
This, he recalled, used to be an old underground Tiger base.
Off the books.
Not on any official roster.
Not in any documentation.
A place his father had once called âinsurance.â
If everything burns, you need somewhere that doesnât exist.
A place to rest. Regroup.
And that was exactly what Jungkook needed right now. Somewhere to lay his head.
He scanned the street.
A white van idled two blocks down.
A woman walked her dog on the opposite sidewalk.
No one looked at him.
He crossed the street casually.
Up close, the metal door looked worse than he remembered. Paint peeling. Lock rusted but intact.
He crouched and ran his fingers along the lower frame.
There.
The secondary latch.
He pressed hard against the narrow seam in the frame, exactly where Hobi had shown him years priorâback when this place had been nothing more than a hideout for bored Tigers skipping drills. Theyâd sit on overturned crates, passing cheap weed between them and laughing about things that had seemed important at the timeâgirls, fights, the next stupid plan Tae was already halfway through inventing.
For a second nothing happened.
Then the hidden latch shifted.
A soft, reluctant click broke the silence.
His breath caught.
It hadnât been sealed.
No one had found it.
Or no one had cared enough to lock it after ransacking the place.
He eased the door open just enough to slip through.
Darkness swallowed him.
The air inside was cold and stale, thick with dust and the faint metallic tang of disuse.
He shut the door behind him.
Stood still.
Listened.
Nothing.
No hum of electricity.
No distant movement.
He took a step forward.
The concrete floor echoed faintly under his boots.
He moved along the wall, fingers trailing lightly over rough cement. He remembered the layout in piecesâan open central space, storage lockers, a small weapons cache in the back.
But he could hardly see anything.
He found the chain that once controlled the overhead lights.
Pulled it.
Nothing.
He exhaled slowly.
âFigures.â
He took another step into the dark.
And that was when he felt it.
Cold.
Unmistakable.
The round mouth of a gun barrel pressed hard against his temple.
Not tentative.
Not shaking.
Deliberate.
The click of the safety sliding off was deafening in the quiet.
Jungkook froze.
Every muscle in his body locked.
He didnât reach for his blade.
Didnât shift his weight.
A voice spoke from behind him, low and edged with something dangerously close to amusement.
âYouâve stumbled on the wrong side of the tracks, motherfucker.â
His blood went cold.
Slowlyâso slowly he felt each vertebra moveâJungkook turned his head just enough to see the vague outline of the figure holding a gun to his head.
A strand of platinum blond hair.
The air was knocked out of his lungs and the word left his mouth before he could stop it.
ââŠJimin?â
â
â
YOUâVE ALL WAITED FOR IT HERE IT ISSSSSS. This was an intense chapter. Very dense. But you know what? We gotta get somewhere at some point. I know a few of you had questionssss and they are about to be answeredddddd. I hope you liked it. Stay tuned for the next chapter and, as usual, send all your reactions and thoughts, Iâm a girl who thrives when given feedback. xxx
Genre: Mafia!au , Slowburn, Angst, Hurt, smut, TW (it is a mafia!AU, after all)
Pairing: Mafia!Jungkook x reader
Wordcount: 3k
Masterlist
â
After Y/N told him to leave, Jungkook walked back to the barracks like a man moving underwater.
Nothing felt real.
Not the snow below.
Not the sky above.
Not the cold slicing through his shirt or the ringing in his ears.
The base was eerily empty.
Right. Hunting drill in the woods, he remembered.
He reached the steps before he even realized where heâd gone. The barrack door was open. A dim light spilled outâa low amber glow that flickered against steel.
Chan sat on the front step, elbows on his knees, a long hunting knife in hand. Stone-faced. Focused. His thumb dragged the blade along a whetstone with slow, controlled strokes.
With a sigh he pushed himself back to his feet, turning as if to leaveâ
Only then did Chan speak.
âI hadnât seen her in almost five years.â
His voice was rough.
Jungkook froze mid-step.
Behind him, Chan set the whetstone down beside his boot, though he still didnât lift his eyes from the knife resting across his palm.
âFive years,â he repeated quietly. âSince the day they sent her away.â
The words settled between them.
Chan exhaled once through his nose, not a sigh exactlyâmore like something that had been trapped for a long time finally slipping out.
âWe trained together, back in the day,â he went on, âSame routine. Same instructors. Same bruises. She was the only girl around. You can imagine what that meant.â
âBack then,â Chan said slowly, âBoys thought a girl among us was an invitation. Men, too, who knew better and looked anyway.â His thumb dragged lightly along the spine of the knife. âSome of them tried more than looking.â
A faint shadow of amusement crossed his mouth, brief and brittle. âNot that she ever needed anyone stepping in for her.â
The expression faded almost as quickly as it had appeared.
âShe always could handle herself.â He tilted the blade slightly, watching the dim light catch along the edge. âThey learned.â
Chan paused, his jaw tightening for a moment before he went on.
âShe was different from the rest of us. Better, if you want the truth.â His voice was quiet, matter-of-fact. âCarried herself like she already knew where she was headed. Like she understood sheâd outrank all of us eventually.â
Jungkook stayed silent. The words scraped too close to the hollow in his chest for him to trust what might come out if he spoke.
Chanâs jaw shifted, a brief clench.
He remembered it all like it had been yesterday.
They were close. As close as people can be in such a place. He even gave her a flower, once, when they were younger.
A pretty little blue thing that had survived the frost.
She had thrown it on the ground, of course. He hadnât tried again after that. And they stayed friends, or colleagues, or whatever it is that they were.
Untilâ
One evening, two years later, when Chan actually gathered the nerve to kiss her. They were young. On a mission beyond the border, freezing to death. They had sought refuge in some abandoned warehouse.
He thought it was the right moment.
Maybe the only moment heâd ever get.
Chan ran a thumb along the knifeâs edgeânot to test the sharpness, but because his hand needed something to do.
He hadnât thoughtâ
Hadnât plannedâ
Just stepped in close and kissed her once, hard and stupid.
She didnât slap him or slit his throat or even threaten to. She simply looked at him for a second, before turning around walking off right into the blizzard. He hadnât been able to hold her back, heâd stood frozen, unable to utter a single word.
She didnât say a word either. Just found her way back across the border on her own. So did he.
She didnât talk to him for a month after that.
Or maybe he didnât talk to her.
Either way, there was no talking.
A month of torture that Chan spent in complete helplessness. He thought heâd blown it. Thought she hated him. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
Thenâ
One evening. Something happened.
Chan remembered that night with the strange clarity of memories that had never quite settled into the past.
He had been slouched against the narrow desk in one of the guard towers, half-asleep from the cold and the endless hours of watch, when the hatch creaked open. She climbed up through it without a word, bringing a gust of wind with her before slamming it shut again.
For a moment she simply stood there.
Then, she bent down and began unlacing her boots.
He had sat there the entire time, dumbfounded, watching it happen as though his mind simply refused to keep up with what his eyes were seeing.
The boots came off first, dropped quietly against the metal floor. Then her shirt. Then the rest. No hesitation, no explanationâonly that same steady composure she carried everywhere.
He hadnât said a word. Couldnât have if he tried.
They were so young.
Chan would remember that detail for the rest of his lifeâkids, convinced, like most recruits, that they were already hardened adults.
In truth, he had barely even held a girlâs hand before.
The Ravens sometimes took the younger recruits into town on slow winter nights, shoving them into cheap brothels with girls who needed the money more than the warmth. Chan had always found some excuse to stay behind. Guard duty. Cleaning detail. Anything that spared him the humiliation of it.
So when Y/N crossed the narrow room and climbed into his lap as if it were the most ordinary decision in the world, every thought in his head simply vanished.
He had never been with a girl before. Not really. Not even close.
And judging by the way her hands trembled slightly where they rested on his chest, he suspected she hadnât either.
Their movements had been awkwardâhesitant and clumsy in a way neither of them would have tolerated anywhere else.
Theyâd fumbled like two children pretending they werenâtâhands shaking, cold air around burning skin, the faint hum of the perimeter lights.
Chan remembered the moment it changedâwhen their movements stopped feeling like guesses and started feeling like instinct. Like two people discovering something they hadnât known they were allowed to have.
For a while the cold disappeared completely.
There had only been warmth. Skin against skin. Her breath against his throat. The quiet sound she made when he touched her and she didnât pull away.
It hadnât been graceful.
It hadnât been perfect.
But it had been good.
Because for those few minutes in that freezing watchtower, they had just been two kids holding onto each other in the dark.
When it was overâshe rested her forehead briefly against his shoulder.
Just once.
Chan remembered that part more clearly than anything else: the faint tremor that ran through her skin, subtle but unmistakable.
Then she pulled away, as though whatever had driven her up that tower had been a decision she intended to leave behind with the night.
By the time she finished dressing, she already looked like herself againâcomposed, distant, the same girl who could walk through a training yard full of grown men without flinching.
Chan had sat there like an idiot, watching her go, a foolish, impossible hope blooming somewhere in his chest that she might stop. That she might look back. That she might say somethingâanythingâto explain what that night had meant.
She didnât look back.
But she did pause haflway down the hatch.
Only for a second.
The cold wind slipped in around her, tugging loose strands of hair across her shoulders. She didnât turn fully, only angled her head slightly over her shoulder.
âThank you,â she said quietly.
Then she climbed down the ladder and disappeared into the dark.
Chan had spent the rest of the night floating somewhere above the ground, moving through the hours of his watch with the strange lightness of someone who had just discovered a part of the world he hadnât known existed. He didnât know what it meant. Didnât know if it meant anything at all.
Only that it had felt right.
That had been enough for a night.
Onlyâ
The following morning came with news that spread through the compound like smoke.
Their leader, Park Sanghoon was dead.
Jaebeom had taken over.
And Y/Nâwell.
Y/N was already gone.
A plane to England, theyâd said.
No goodbye. Not even a glance back.
Chan had spent a long time wondering about that. Whether Jaebeom had known. Whether that moment in the tower had somehow reached his ears. Jaebeom had always possessed a particular kind of cruelty where his sister was concernedâsharp, territorial, vindictive in ways that made most men keep their distance from her entirely.
Few people would have dared approach Jaebeomâs little lark after she reached puberty.
It wasnât impossible to imagine the rest.
A sister shipped off across the world overnight. A quiet punishment for a line someone had crossed without permission.
Chan had never asked.
A year later Yeji appearedâplain, quiet Yeji, suddenly installed in a position close enough to Chan that he could never quite ignore her presence. That was when the suspicion hardened into something colder. Jaebeom had always enjoyed his little games, his slow cruelties. Perhaps she was another punishment. Who could tell? It certainly felt like it.
Still, Chan stayed.
He worked. Climbed the ladder. Learned to keep his head down and his knife sharper than the men around him.
And somewhere in the back of his mind he held onto a single thought, stubborn and quiet as an ember.
One dayâ
One day she would come back.
One day their eyes would meet again.
He had no idea what he would say when that moment came. No plan, no speech prepared in advance.
But when it happenedâ
he intended to make it count.
Chan finally turned his head toward Jungkookânot fully, but enough to show the truth in his eyes.
âFive years,â he said again. A long time to keep a candle burning. âShe never called. Never sent word. We didnât even know if she was alive. And then,â he paused, âone day, I come back from an eight-month-long mission and hear that, not only was Park Y/N back in the country, but she had just left for the Unity Summit with her brother.â He shook his head. âI couldnât believe it. Five fucking years.â
The memory bloomed behind Chanâs eyesâ
He had waited and paced by the main gates all night, adrenaline still buzzing through him from the news.
It was only at dawn that the armored vehicle had rolled in slowly, engine sputtering, smoke curling from its hood.
Jaebeom had jumped out of the transport first, already shouting orders before his boots even touched the ground, his voice cutting through the early morning like a whip.
And thenâ
she appeared.
Y/N stepped down from the vehicle slowly, like someone returning from the dead. Her hair, much longer than it once had been, had come loose, dark strands tangled around her shoulders, and the formal gown she wore was streaked and stiff with drying blood. For a second she simply stood there, one hand braced against the doorframe, as if steadying herself.
Yet her posture was still rigid. Controlled. The same iron composure she had carried since the day Chan had first known her.
Her eyes found him almost immediately.
Across the frostbitten courtyard. Across the chaos of men shouting, engines sputtering, medics rushing forward with carts and stretchers.
Five years collapsed in an instant.
To Chan, she looked almost exactly as she had the night sheâd climbed down that watchtower and disappeared into the darkâsame face, same stillness, the same unreadable calm.
His heart was ready to jump out of his chest
Onlyâ
she didnât smile.
She didnât move toward him the way he had imagined a thousand times during those five years.
She didnât even utter his name.
Instead she began walking toward him with slow, measured steps, barefoot on the freezing gravel as though she didnât feel the cold at all.
Behind her the medics were already unloading something. Metal wheels rattled through the snow, white sheets flashing with red where the gauze had soaked through.
But Chan barely noticed any of it.
All he could see was her.
When she stopped in front of him, something inside his chest twisted sharply.
Her eyes were different than he remembered.
Something haunted had crept into themâsomething hollowed out and distant, like a house that had burned from the inside. They were red.
The first light of sunrise caught her hand then.
Something sparkled, blinding and violent.
A diamond ring.
Chan felt his heart stutter in his chest. For a moment he didnât understand what he was seeing.
But he didnât have the time to ask.
Because after five years, after everything.
The first words Park Y/N spoke to Bang Chan wereâ
âLook after him.â
Her voice was raw, scraped thin by exhaustion.
Chan blinked at her, confused. ââŠwhat?â
She didnât elaborate.
She only tilted her head slightly toward the stretcher being hauled from the back of the transport.
A body lay on it, pale and unconscious. Dark bandages around his chest.
A young TigerâChan would later learnânamed Jeon Jungkook.
When she spoke again, her voice faltered just enough for Chan to notice.
âPlease?â
Chan had felt his throat close there and then.
Becauseâ
âY/N doesnât plead,â he said to Jungkook. âShe orders. She commands. She threatens. She does a lot of things. But she doesnât plead. Ever. Not for anything. Not for anyone. But she did that night. For you.â
His fingers tightened imperceptibly around the whetstone.
âAnd thatâs when I knew.â
Jungkookâs breath stilled.
Chan shrugged, the gesture small and tired.
âBecause after all that time,â Chan went on, softer, âshe didnât say my name. Not once.â
A beat.
âBut she said yours.â
Chan kept his gaze on the bladeâbecause looking at Jungkook now wouldâve been too much like opening a door heâd barricaded years ago.
âItâs funny,â he stated. âFive years waiting. And she comes back with an engagement on her handâŠâ
His gaze cut sideways, sharp as the blade in his palm.
ââŠand someone else in her heart.â
The silence that followed was a cold, brutal thing.
Chan didnât clarify.
Didnât name Jungkook.
He didnât need to.
Some truths lived in the spaces between sentences.
âShe didnât explain anything,â Chan murmured. âJust handed you over and vanished again.â
The knife in his hand went still.
For the first time that night, he lifted his head and looked at Jungkook properly.
âI didnât know the details,â he went on. âNot then. But I knew enough.â His jaw tightened slightly. âEnough to understand what sheâd done.â
The words sat between them like a loaded gun.
âShe chose your life,â Chan said softly. âOver her own. Over everything that couldâve been had she come back here a free woman.â
Jungkookâs breath shook.
Chan didnât comfort him.
Didnât soften.
He wiped the knife clean on a cloth, methodical, almost gentle.
And the worst part, Chan thought with a dull bitterness he no longer bothered hiding from himself, was that heâd never been able to refuse her anything. Not once in his life. So when sheâd pleaded. Asked him to look after Jungkook.
Heâd complied.
Chan had assigned his younger brother, Taki, to do the job first, because he couldnât bear to do it himself.
But he hadnât been able to stay away long.
And heâd spent the following months looking over his shoulder, making sure Jungkook wouldnât get himself killed.
Week after week.
All the while the same questions gnawed at the back of his mind whenever sleep refused to come.
What had she seen in him?
What on earth did that weak, selfish, reckless, miserable, pathetic little excuse for a man have that he didnât?
What could possibly have driven a woman like Y/N to throw away everythingâher freedom, her future, her own lifeâfor someone like him?
Jungkookâs throat tightened.
Chanâs expression didnât change. No jealousy, no anger, no regret. Only the calm acceptance of someone who had long since made peace with the shape of things.
âNow, here we are,â he murmured.
He set the knife aside and started working on another.
Shhhk. Shhhk.
Controlled. Detached.
The conversation, as far as he was concerned, was over.
Meanwhile, Jungkook stared at the last bit of snow gathering along the barrack steps, feeling something cold and foreign twist in his chest.
It struck him thenâwith a clarity that made him almost nauseousâthat they were just two men sitting shoulder to shoulder in the dark. Two men tied together by circumstance and the decisions of others.
And two men who hadâby some cruel twist of fateâboth ended up in love with the same woman.
A woman promised to another.
A woman neither of them could claim.
And neither of them could save.
The realization hollowed him in a way even grief hadnât.
They sat thereâquiet and exhaustedâworlds apart and unbearably close, equally powerless in the face of the same cruel fact:
In three weeks time, Park YN would marry Lee Taeyong.
And there was not a single fucking thing either of them could do about it.
â
â
SOOOOOOOOO, the truth keeps on unfoldinggggg and itâs not over yet! What did you think? Stay tuned for the next chapter and, as usual, send all your reactions and thoughts, Iâm a girl who thrives when given feedback. xxx
Is Namjoon really dead?đ I think Hoseok, Namjoon & Jimin are alive, atleast thatâs what I want to believe đ
Jungkook is IN LOVE!!!đ But theyâre really playing with his head and making him believe he was used, but I think the OC is protecting him⊠they are both being tested against each other, Jaebeom knows they care about each other and he wants to make sure it doesnât happen. Thatâs why he keeps saying things to both of them to get a reaction, what a jerk!!
ALSO Jaebeom got a Y/N look a like from the WishApp (Yeji) and heâs been sleeping with her and apparently all the other guys too, is he lowkey obsessed with his own sister?đ€Ż
The Wedding Ceremony is going to be crazy!! I wonder if Jungkook will be able to stay calm and collected seeing HIS GIRL (I know theyâre not together yet but thatâs his girlđ€) have to give herself to another man đ«Ł
Amazing chapter as ALWAYS!âš
LMAOOO this comment was a full rollercoaster and I loved every second of it đ
First of all: the Tiger situation⊠I will neither confirm nor deny anything because I enjoy watching you all spiral.
As for Jungkook being in love â oh that boy is down CATASTROPHIC and I think he doesnât even realize the full extent of it yet. Unfortunately for him, heâs also surrounded by people who are very good at getting inside his head and twisting every insecurity he has. BUT NOW AT LAST HE KNOWS MORE
And youâre absolutely right that Jaebeom thrives on pushing people, provoking reactions, testing loyalties â thatâs basically his favorite hobby. The man runs on psychological warfare.
Now about the Yeji situation⊠yes, the resemblance is meant to be deeply uncomfortable. Jaebeomâs relationship to Y/N is already⊠letâs say extremely unhealthy, and Yeji being a look-alike just adds another layer of âwhat the hell is wrong with this man.â
Also Jungkook cracking under pressure had to happen at some point â the poor guy is emotionally wrecked, sleep deprived, recovering from a bullet wound, and constantly being provoked. That man is hanging on by a thread. But youâre right about one thing: even in that moment he still made it very clear Yeji is not Y/N. That that boy is a devoted yearner. A one-woman man even when heâs breaking Yejiâs back đđ
And the wedding ceremony⊠oh boy.
Letâs just say Jungkook attending the wedding of the woman he loves is probably not a recipe for calm, rational behavior.
I'm tired of ravens underestimating jungkook!!! they need to get a taste of the jungkook yn saw in the ring. I think he still there but buried under all that grief and hearbreak, and when that side of him comes back up a lot of people should be scared. Pair that side of him with all the and the grudges he is holding
Honestly I love that people keep defending Jungkookâs honor because the Ravens have seriously been clowning the poor guy.
And to be fair⊠our boy is going through it. The man is grieving, he got shot in the chest not that long ago, and the love of his life is currently engaged to someone else. It has, objectively speaking, not been a great couple of months for Kookie.
So yeah â that version of him Y/N saw in the ring? The one that made people nervous? Heâs still there. Heâs just buried under about ten layers of heartbreak, blood loss, and existential crisis.
Now that being said⊠the Ravens mocking him isnât entirely unfair either.
Jungkook is a phenomenal hand-to-hand fighter. In the ring, heâs terrifying. But up North? Hand-to-hand is basically a hobby. Itâs what you do on the rare occasion you might drop your blade (and letâs just say â Ravens do not drop their weapons!!! They got their gear basically stitched onto their skin) they donât fight fair and they definitely donât fight clean.
The Tigers are businessmen first. Violence is a tool they use when necessary.
For the Ravens⊠violence IS the business.
It comes with the territory. Thatâs why their resilience is on a different level. The level of brutality they endure and inflict has basically no ceiling. So from their perspective, this southern pretty boy who throws a decent right hook isnât exactly top-tier threat material to them. And sadly, Jungkook canât yet punch his way out of a knife fight. Not to mention that one of Jungkookâs biggest weaknesses right now is his lack of control. He lets his emotions and impulsivity get the better of him, whereas the Ravens are trained to operate with terrifying restraint and ruthless composure.
Now that being said⊠he has been quietly recuperating (I think Changbinâs front teeth can confirm.) Quietly learning. And sooner or later, those skills of his will prove very usefulâŠ
Come on Y/N. After 41 chapters and a new series , throw my man a bone or something . Show him your ankles . Just a wee bit of a sign. Damn! My poor Kookie is devastatingly a sad yearner.
I AM DYINGGG you are actually hilarious.
Sorry girl, I grew up on Mr Darcy, Colonel Brandon, Sydney Carton and John Thornton. It is sad yearner for the win ALL YEAR ROUND over here.
And our boy, Kookie, is DEFINITELY plagued by the same affliction, though I can promise you itâs not a lifelong condition đ
