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Chapter 4

Warnings: mentions of physical illness, lots of dialogue, one mention of a car accident

Word count: approximately 2.3k

“Get up,” Hongjoong’s voice cut into Esperanza ears. He was silent for a time before Esperanza heard him move. Suddenly, his voice came from directly beside her, “I know you’re awake, so get up.”

Esperanza slowly rose from the bed and stood. Hongjoong grabbed her upper arm before walking quickly out of the room. He struggled against the girl’s weight as she planted her feet.

“Where the hell are you trying to take me,” her face tilted to glower at the man in front of her. Her feet slid roughly against the carpet as Hongjoong slowly began to overpower her.

“You and your friend have some questions to answer since you decided not to tell us everything.” Esperanza felt herself being forced down the hallway before she reached what seemed to be a dining room. Artemisia already sat with her head resting on the table. A quiet groan escaped the girl before she lifted her head.

“Why the fuck did you feel the need to wake me up this early?” A snort escaped Yeosang before he turned to Hongjoong. Esperanza felt her shoulders being pressed down before she was forced to sit in the chair next to Artemisia. Yeosang spoke as Esperanza shifted closer to Artemisia.

“This one doesn’t seem too inclined to answer anything right now.”

“Esperanza.” Hongjoong caught Esperanza leaning toward her partner from the corner of his vision. “Don’t even try it, you two.”

“Hey, Hongjoong, can I talk to you really quick? I may have found something.” A new voice came from behind the pair at the table before they turned to see the newcomer. A tall woman with red hair stood in the doorway, staring urgently at Hongjoong. “It’s kinda important.”

Hongjoong looked at Yeosang before the other male nodded. He turned back to the mysterious girl, “Alright, make it quick.”

Esperanza watched as Hongjoong followed the unfamiliar woman out of the room. Artemisia elbowed her side before Esperanza turned her attention back towards Yeosang lingering on the other side of the table.

“Which one of you is the one who hacked the camera systems yesterday?” The pair glanced at each other before simultaneously questioning Yeosang.

“What do you mean?” The pair’s confused expressions mirrored each other. Esperanza panicked slightly as she was forced to remember the threats she received briefly after she broke into the Lee Enterprise building. They had said something about always watching her, waiting to do something to her. Or the people around her.

“I usually handle software and stuff but there was no registered CCTV at that building. What do you mean someone hacked the system?” Esperanza explained. If there were cameras there and someone hacked them, it could put both her and Artemisia in danger, along with anyone seen with them. “Who hacked the system? What did they see?’

“Why does it matter to you who did? You two were the only other ones there so it had to have been one of you.”

This time it was Artemisia glaring at Yeosang. “What part of what she said didn’t make sense? It wasn’t us, we didn’t even know about there being cameras. Why don’t you just tell us who did it?” She hissed. Yeosang stalked closer to the table before being stopped by Hongjoong reappearing in the doorway.

“Yeosang, stop.” He moved to sit across from the two girls. “What do you two know about Lee Enterprises?” Yeosang’s eyes widened before he whispered sharply to Hongjoong.

“What are you doing? What are you implying? Do they have to do with this?”

“I’m implying that Lee Enterprises hacked into the cameras of the gala building during our hit.” Hongjoong placed his hands on the table before leaning closer to the girls in front of him. “And they seemed very interested in following what you two were doing. How are you connected to them?”

Esperanza sighed before looking at Artemisia. “I think we need to tell them about how we met.” She turned her head to look back at the two men watching the duo. “When I was younger, my sister Lacey got really sick. ”

Esperanza looked up at her parents whispering outside her sister’s bedroom. It was unusual for them to keep any secrets from either of them. “Mom? Dad? I don’t understand? What’s going on? Why did you- why did you call a doctor? Is there something wrong?”

Her mother quickly turned, blocking the young girl’s view into her sister’s room. “Ezie, sweetie, nothing is wrong, you’re sister is just feeling a little sick. She’ll be alright soon.”

“At first, I really did believe them.”

As the years progressed and the two sisters grew, Esperanza realized that something wasn’t quite right with her sister. She was always out with one of their parents while the other one was with Esperanza to take her to her clubs and activities. She was forced into activities she had no interest in until they found something that stuck. It seemed almost as if they were trying to distract her from Lacey’s condition. It wasn’t until she reached high school that Esperanza realized how much her parents kept them separated. Her parents didn’t ask her to join clubs or activities she no longer found interesting, but Esperanza still found herself barely home. Esperanza worked as hard as she could in school, even if it was just her first year, and oftentimes found herself staying late after school to help with clubs or at the library studying. Esperanza realized when she arrived home on the rare days she didn’t stay out working, her younger sister was often passed out, asleep, in random places throughout the house. Thinking back, the young teen found that lately, it seemed her sister lacked the energy she used to have when they were younger. Was something wrong? Why didn’t her parents say anything?

So Esperanza confronted her parents. She heard them in the living room one night, talking about how they were going to be able to afford continuing to “live like this.” Esperanza didn’t understand. They may not have been very rich, but her family was well-off enough they could afford a little comfort in their lives. Stepping from around the corner, she silently approached the couch.

“Mom? Dad?”

Her parents froze in shock briefly before turning to their young teenage daughter in the doorway. “Yes dear?”

“Can I ask you a question?” The young girl hesitated. No, that wasn’t good enough, she needed to be more specific. “If I ask you a question, do you promise to answer it honestly and seriously? No matter what it is?”

“Of course honey, what is it?” Her parents seemed skittish at her appearance. Her mother’s hands shifted with the edge of her sweater before Esperanza’s father grabbed her hands to still her hands.

“What is wrong with Lacey?”

“Esperanza, we’ve told you, nothing is wrong. Your sister just has a lot to do and gets tired at the end of the day.”

“At that point, I definitely suspected something was wrong. A few months later, my suspicions were proven corrected.”

Turning as quietly as possible, Esperanza turned the door knob slightly before gently closing the office door behind her. A clock on the desk flashed 12:45 AM.

Slipping slightly on her socks, Esperanza gripped the edge of a chair. Exhaling a soft breath, she tiptoed forward before reaching the edge of her father’s desk. Reaching for the belt of her shorts, Esperanza clicked on a pen light.

Sliding out the drawers, Esperanza found multiple different files. None of them were the ones she was looking for.

A groan of frustration left Esperanza before something flashed across her room. Sitting on the edge of the desk was a manila folder, the corner of reflective film sheet peeking out of it. Esperanza opened the file and almost immediately dropped it.

Her parents had been lying to her.

Lacey was sick. She had been for a while. And Esperanza had no idea the whole time how bad it actually was.

Footsteps echoed in the hall. Panicking, Esperanza hurriedly shoved the papers back into the folder before setting it back on the desk. Her hair whipped wildly as she tried to find a place to hide.

Slamming the chair back, she forced herself under the desk before yanking it back. The steps echoed close to the office door, pausing momentarily.

Esperanza held her breath as a shadow passed under the door. It turned and the footsteps faded away down toward her sister’s room.

Esperanza sighed and uncurled herself before standing and going to hide by the door. She pressed her ear to the door and listened to the eerie quiet filling the house. A few minutes later, the steps came and went again with the sound of a door closing.

Esperanza slowly opened the door and peaked out before slipping through the doorway. She ran quietly on her tiptoes back to her room. Her hand slipped on the door knob of her room as she struggled to open it. Finally, she turned it and slid into her room.

“It turns out our parents were running out of money and couldn’t afford as many treatments as they used to and at this point, I don’t think they would have helped anyway. A few months later, they disappeared without leaving anything behind beside our inheritances. It still wasn’t enough for Lacey’s medicine and treatments so I had to find ways to pay for her treatments. I started stealing information for hire.”

“Then one day, I got a job, but this one. This one was different. It was on back channels on the dark web. But it wasn’t a usual channel. It was encrypted with a firewall that would take months for a supercomputer to break and required an invitation code, which somehow sent personally to my “day job”. Whoever it was didn’t want to be found. They wanted to hack into Lee Enterprises mainframe and then steal files on someone named Lee Seunghoon.” Hongjoong inhaled sharply at the name.

“Hold on, someone hired you to steal files on Lee Seunghoon?” Hongjoong anxiously glanced between the two girls.

“Yes. I destroyed their system firewalls but when I got into the system, the files weren’t there anymore. There were traces of digital sabotage in the digital files. It was irreparable, the file itself had been corrupted by someone from the outside. I couldn’t even trace who did it. The only clean copies of the files were the original paper copies. So I needed to get into Lee Entreprises file storage. I hacked the security systems of their main headquarters and broke in. I couldn’t find the files because many things seemed to have been damaged in a fire. It looked almost intentional. I didn’t have time to investigate any further, their systems were coming back online. I had to get out of there as quickly as possible.” Esperanza looked over at Artemisia watching her with caution.

“However what I didn’t know was that I didn’t cover my tracks well enough and Lee Enterprises soon discovered what I had done. They hired someone to kill me,” Artemisia grabbed Esperanza’s arm gently before Esperanza glanced down to her partner’s hand and shook her head softly. “Artemisia saved me. After that, we formed a duo to survive together.”

Esperanza looked back up at the men in front of her. “I didn’t know what Lee Enterprises was until a few months ago. After I found out who they truly were, I fully realized the extent of what I had done. Every week, a new threat would appear wherever we lived. No matter where we moved, or how quickly, they always found us. However, once we accepted the gala hit, the one where you kidnapped us, they just stopped. The threats disappeared almost instantly.”

Esperanza slowly removed Artemisia’s hand from her arm. “I’m afraid that you all may be in danger if they find out you have me here. If you let me go, they may leave you alone. However, you must promise to protect Artemisia if I leave. She never was the target of their threats, but her background from her childhood makes her a target for ‘aggressive recruitment’.”

“Esperanza, no. You promised when we teamed up that we would survive together. If you go, I go with you.” Artemisia pleaded with her partner. Esperanza protected her by not telling Hongjoong and Yeosang the full story, but that also could put the two of them at risk. If ATEEZ found out she had been hired by Lee Enterprises to kill Esperanza, they may kill Artemisia or force her onto the streets, alone.

“No, neither of you are leaving. Not until we know everything that you know. And everything we need to know about you.” Hongjoong looked at Esperanza, scanning her face. “What did you find about Lee Sunghoon?”

“Just that he was the son of the CEO of Lee Enterprises, who also happens to be the leader of the Lee family mafia. It said he was killed in a freak car accident a few years ago.”

“Good, they don’t know then.” Esperanza jumped when Yeosang spoke. He had been so quiet when she was talking, Esperanza had forgotten he was even there. “Briar did a better job than we originally thought.”

“They don’t know what? Who’s Briar?”

“That Lee Sunghoon is alive, and with us.” Hongjoong spoke in a hushed tone as Yeosang came to stand behind him. Esperanza’s head whipped back to face Hongjoong.

“Lee Sunghoon is alive?!”

Silently, Yeosang sat beside Hongjoong, facing the women. Yeosang looked down at the pair watching him carefully. “Yes, he is here now,” Artemisia examined Yeosang’s face. Something about his features was familiar, a vague recollection of an older, deadly man hunting her down for a job he considered vital.

She sucked in a breath in surprise.

“No way.”

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