Characters: NamjoonxReader
Length: 2256 words
Genre: Mafia AU
Warnings: Violence
Part 37 Part 39
Namjoon tried to focus on your father. He was sitting on one of the leather couches near the fireplace with two men in suits standing behind him and two more on each side of the armchair your father was seated in. Another three of his henchmen were standing in random corners of the room, faces stoic and thumbs lazily hooked into the waistbands of their pants. Bodyguards couldn't have their hands in their pockets for an array of reasons that would put them at a disadvantage if the need to engage arose. These men had clearly internalized the next best thing. Namjoon himself preferred to just keep one hand on the gun.
Unfortunately, his had been taken from him before they had even left your father's mansion.
Your father was a short, bland man who had the puffed up chest of someone with the lung capacity to facilitate his loud, demanding voice. He suffered from the same delusional entitlement as many people in positions of power who had acquired it by no effort of their own. Your father had been born rich, and marriage had made him even richer. But money and power hadn't been enough.
Greed had turned him into a monster.
Namjoon kept his eyes on your father when he got up and walked over to the fireplace. Deliberately slowly, your father took the poker and prodded around in the already impressive fire. Namjoon would have given him credit for it, if not for the half-empty bottle of accelerant on the brick ledge above the open fireplace. He watched as your father put the poker down next to the bottle. He watched as he walked over to one of the windows and gazed out into the unyielding green of the forest. When your father didn't move for a while, Namjoon just kept staring at his back.
He did everything he could to avoid looking at Jungkook's lifeless body on the ground.
They had beaten him until he had stopped trying to tear your father to shreds. They had beaten him until he had collapsed onto the ground and blood had sprayed from his mouth onto the waxed floor. And they had still continued to beat him after he had stopped screaming, stopped fighting.
Stopped moving.
“I heard Jin went to the funeral,” your father finally spoke, still staring out of the window. “How very considerate of him.”
“What do you want?” Namjoon leaned back and stretched out his arms, trying hard to keep the composure of someone who couldn't care less that another man was lying bleeding at his feet.
“I need a favor. I need you to talk to our mutual friend Jung Hoseok about my wife's testament.”
Namjoon almost snorted. Hoseok would gnaw off all his fingers before he'd pick up a pen to make any changes to your mother's will.
“I can try,” Namjoon said, but the mockery in his tone filled the room like a stale joke. Unsurprisingly, nobody laughed.
“I think it's only fair, don't you agree? I gave you my daughter, you help me out now. It's business.”
“She was not yours to give.”
Finally, your father turned around. “Then what made you think she was yours to take?”
Namjoon glared at him, the fury flaring up in him like the fire in its brick cage.
“You're no better than me, Namjoon. We do what needs to be done to get what we want. You act so high and mighty just because you don't sell drugs to dumb kids and can't think of people as commodities. The only difference between smuggling cargo and smuggling people is that one of the two requires a bit more air in the containers. But how many people have you killed, boy? How much blood is on your hands?”
“Even if I hadn't killed a single person in my life, there would still be too much blood on my hands,” Namjoon replied calmly. “Maybe I'm not better than you. I'm a murderer and a criminal in a world filled with murderers and criminals. This is the only life I know. I just do what I have to do so I can still sleep at night.”
“I'm sure it's even easier when there's someone who keeps the bed warm.” Your father gave him a lewd grin, and a piece of bark cracked loudly in the fire.
“How can you talk like that about your own daughter?”
“She wasn't my daughter. She was just part of the deal.” Your father shrugged. “She was always an idiot. Weak. She pitied herself for living like a bird in a cage because she didn't know that the whole world is a cage, only with more cats in it. Like that little piece of shit over there.” Your father gestured vaguely at Jungkook. “We tried to use his father and him to kill two birds with one stone – as it were.” He grinned as he realized the joke he had unwittingly made. “But then he turned. How did she do it? Did she give it up for him, too?”
Namjoon's Adam's apple jumped in his throat as he tried to hold back his anger. The only solace were the visions of himself pressing your screaming father's face into the roaring fire.
“Well, I guess it doesn't matter now.”
“It doesn't, and frankly, your misogyny is starting to bore me.” Namjoon closed his eyes and exhaled loudly. “If you're going to keep talking about how your wife and daughter making their own decisions and successfully living their own lives can only be explained by them being sluts, you better fucking shoot me right now.”
Your father grunted, then sneered. “You're a mouse, not a man.”
“And can you stop with the weird animal analogies, I really don't think-” A hard blow to the back of his head had Namjoon almost toppling over, but he grabbed the edges of the couch for support as he struggled to regain his senses.
“Namjoon.” Your father's tone was cold. “I want what's mine. I want what I deserve.”
Namjoon spat some saliva onto the wooden floor and clenched his fists around the cushioned leather. He had had enough. There was no way for him to escape the situation unscathed – or even alive. The police must have made it to the mansion by now, so you and Jimin were safe with them, safe from your father, and Hoseok would make sure it stayed that way if Namjoon didn't come back.
He had his ways.
And really, who was Namjoon to deny an old man his wish. What I deserve. Nothing easier than that.
Namjoon darted out of his seat and used his height and the length of his arms to his advantage – a split second later, he swung the poker at your father's head and watched as he slumped to the ground almost in slow motion, the contact accompanied by a crashing sound that seemed way louder than it should have been. Namjoon closed his eyes and waited for the inevitable, and soon enough he could hear it – the clicking of a gun, and then a shot. He waited for the force of impact, the pain, and – if God was merciful – maybe another heart attack.
But it didn't come.
Instead, there was another shot. And another. And then a voice.
“Namjoon, little help?”
He spun around, his head still thumping slightly from the assault a few moments earlier. The two men who had stood behind the couch were now lying on the ground, bleeding from invisible holes in their bodies. Another one, the one who had stood the farthest away from him, sat with his back against the wall, a black circle in the middle of his forehead creating a cruel contrast to his pale face.
Jimin was wrestling with one of the other bodyguards, his only disadvantage being that he refused to let go of his gun. Finally, he headbutted the man before forcing him around to grab him by the neck. The sound of bone breaking as Jimin slammed his skull against the edge of a metal oven across from the fireplace was drowned out by your scream when another bodyguard charged at you and brought you down by throwing his entire body weight on you.
Namjoon's legs moved on their own accord. He hurdled over Jungkook and one of the couches easily, the adrenaline making him forget all the pain and injuries ailing his body. Before he even got to you, he lifted the poker, and when he struck the man he did it with all the strength left in his muscles. Then he drove the tip into the man's ribcage from the side and used it as a lever to heave him off of you. You groaned, the sudden attack having knocked the wind out of you and left you dizzy. Namjoon carefully cradled the back of your head with his hand and helped you sit up. You coughed and blinked, and then you smiled at him.
“Hey babe.”
Before Namjoon could reply, you lifted your gun and shot at something behind him, which was followed by the noise of a heavy body falling limply to the ground. Namjoon didn't bother to turn around.
“Why did you come here?” he yelled, partly because he was upset, partly because you had just fired a handgun right next to his ear.
“To hunt deer, Namjoon. What do you think?”
A million protests were forming on Namjoon's tongue, but he swallowed them all and kissed you instead.
“You've spent too much time with Jimin,” he mumbled against your lips and made you grin back at him.
Then you heard the footsteps on the stairs.
The basement had several guest rooms your father's men usually occupied. It made sense that on a day like this, your father was traveling with more than just seven bodyguards, especially after word had gotten out that someone had broken into the mansion and killed a handful of his henchmen. You didn't have to see the bodies to know they were there – Jin's face had said it all.
You looked around and your eyes landed on Jimin and the last living bodyguard, if you could call it that. His face was bloodied and beaten, and it looked like one of his eyeballs had been forced deeper into his skull. You looked away when Jimin shoved the length of his gun into the man's mouth, waiting for the echo of the shot to fade before you spoke.
“Where is Jungkook?”
The steps were now in the hallway. Namjoon got up to slam the doors shut and lock them to buy you at least a little time.
Before he could answer, you had already scrambled to your feet, a strangled scream escaping you when you saw Jungkook on the floor. Dried blood made his black hair look sticky and dull, and he lay face-down with his legs angled and hands resting slightly above his head. You hurried over to him, dropping down next to his upper body, but the pain jolting through your body from your knees wasn't registered by your brain. All your senses were focused on Jungkook as you pressed a hand on his back and leaned over him to put your ear next to his mouth.
He was breathing.
“Jimin, you-” The rattling of the double doors startled you, but you forced yourself to gather your thoughts. “Jimin, come here. Take Jungkook.”
“Why?” he asked, but followed your order anyway. He knelt down next to Jungkook, across from you, and took his arm, draping it over his shoulders.
“I can't carry him, and neither can Namjoon. The door in the back leads to the dining room. Use the trapdoor and take him out through basement. There should be cars out front. They always leave the key in the ignition. Take him to a hospital.”
“I don't know any hospitals in Seoul!” Jimin retorted, slightly overwhelmed by the situation. You shot him a condescending look that both irritated and calmed him.
“It's 2016, Jimin. Use GPS.”
“What about you?”
You got to your feet when Jimin did, helping to lift Jungkook's off the ground by lodging your shoulder under his other arm. “We have seven new guns and a lot of rage. We'll be fine.”
“Hyung?” Jimin inquired hesitantly, clearly not quite convinced by your words.
“Hurry, Jimin,” Namjoon urged and checked the ammunition of the two guns he had acquired.
Dead men didn't need Glocks.
“We'll be right behind you,” you added, and now you understood how the lie could have come out of Yoongi's mouth so easily.
A shot made one of the doors splinter, and Jimin took that as his cue to hurl Jungkook onto his back and run for the second, smaller exit on the other side of the room. He held his bloody S&W in one hand, in case he'd encounter resistance, but the way he smoothly slipped into the dining room and closed the door behind him reassured you that all of the attention was on the main entrance.
“Babe?” Namjoon's voice made you look up from the new magazine in your hand.
“Yeah?”
“I love you.”
“Don't worry, Namjoon. It's going to be okay.” You smirked and reloaded your gun. “You promised.”
Characters: NamjoonxReader
Length: 2200-ish words
Genre: Mafia AU
Warnings: Violence
Part 36 Part 38
“Where are they going?”
Jimin leaned over the dashboard and squinted his eyes at the street signs hanging high above the road. They had names of places he’d never heard of and probably wouldn’t get to see anytime soon, if the numbers of kilometers next to them were any indication. From what he could tell, there was nothing around them for quite some time – nothing but mountains and woods. If he turned around, he could glimpse the ocean of lights that was the city of Seoul, but it seemed like there was nothing but darkness ahead. Then again, he couldn’t be sure. He had never before been to Seoul.
So far, he didn’t care much for it.
There was now a considerable distance between the car in front of you and the Porsche, but you weren’t worried about losing it.
You knew where they were going.
“My father has a hunting lodge about 15 minutes off this road,” you answered.
“Is hunting legal in Korea?”
You threw Jimin a look. It struck you as odd that he was suddenly worrying about the limitations of the law while clutching his unregistered and illegally purchased S&W. If you had been in the mood, you would have made a joke.
“It’s not for hunting,” you mumbled, only realizing the fact just now yourself.
If Jimin had been in the mood, he would have laughed.
“Don’t give them too much- ow!” Jimin protested when you suddenly made a sharp left, causing his head to hit the side window. “What are you doing?”
“It’s the middle of the day, we can’t just park in front of the front door,” you argued. “We’re going through the woods – on foot.”
Jimin looked like he wanted to say something, but bit his tongue. Instead, he focused on gripping the handle above his head as the Porsche battled its way over the rocky dirt road that was barely suitable for machinery equipped for forest work, never mind a vintage tin can such as this. It didn’t help that you were going way too fast, and Jimin could hear tree branches angrily whipping against the vehicle. He doubted the car was going to make it through in one piece.
Then again, its safety wasn’t at the top of his priority list right now.
“Why do you think he took them alive?”
“Hoseok,” you replied curtly and barely avoided a small stack of wood on the side of the road. Jimin’s blood froze in his veins.
“The will.”
“Exactly. I doubt they care about Jungkook, but my father must have figured out the connection by now, especially since my mother left part of her inheritance to Jin. He probably thinks Namjoon is the link that connects them all, and the one who can convince Hoseok into making my mother’s will disappear.”
“What if he tries to hurt them?”
“Killing Hoseok won’t make the will any less final. Killing Namjoon won’t make Hoseok any less likely to give into my father’s demands.” The knuckles of your hands had turned white from holding the steering wheel a little too tightly, and your gaze seemed to want to will the forest to part and make way for you. Jimin nodded slowly, unable to look away from you. He had never seen you this determined, this focused, this tough. There was not an inch of fear left in you, only the unbendable wish to save Namjoon and Jungkook, and the icy hatred of someone who had discarded the idea of mercy.
Your resolve and courage seemed to cloak you in a mantle of steel, and Jimin was sure that if he reached out, you would be cold to the touch.
“What about Jungkook?” Jimin finally said, more to break the unbearable silence than anything else. He still hadn’t been able – or willing – to spend much thought on the fact that Jungkook was his older brother. It felt weird, distant – like the right feelings, the correct feelings were just slightly out of reach. He knew how he was supposed to feel about having a brother; he had Namjoon, after all. But the only thing he had felt when Namjoon had sat him down and told him about the mayor, Jimin’s parents, and Jungkook was anger at yet another thing that had disrupted their life, turned things upside down, and changed things forever. He couldn’t do this, not again, not right now, not yet.
He had only just accepted you.
The truth was, he had been holding a grudge against Namjoon that he had never quite been able to explain. Namjoon had never approved of Jimin’s relationship with Hoseok, so Jimin had tried hard not to rub it in his face, to be discreet about it. And Hoseok had been understanding and supportive, because Hoseok was wonderful and the best thing that had happened to Jimin since he had become a Kim.
And then one day, Namjoon had brought you home with him and fallen in love with you for the whole world to see, no matter how hard Jimin had tried to keep his eyes closed. And you had made a home for yourself in their lives, not caring whether or not there was space or whether you were welcome there.
And then you had dragged in the cat.
Jimin understood. He understood how Namjoon felt about you and you about him, and he understood that you were going to be together no matter what. He understood, because he felt the same way about Hoseok. But he couldn’t help but be afraid that Namjoon would love him less, that he would rather spend his time you than with him. He was afraid that their little family would fall apart. It had taken him a while to realize that that wasn’t going to happen.
Family was stronger than that.
And Jimin felt like the bond had become even stronger with you around. Your existence in their lives hadn’t taken anything away from him.
Quite the opposite.
“We’re here.” You killed the engine and Jimin blinked, confused. All around there was nothing but trees, bushes, and a frightened squirrel racing up a tree when you got out the car and angrily slammed the door shut. Jimin climbed out of the vehicle and tentatively followed you to the edge of the seemingly impermeable underbrush.
“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”
“Please, Jimin.” You pulled a pair of gloves out of your pocket and slipped them on. “This is my city.”
Jimin shrugged and grinned.
“Then let’s go, noona.”
You felt like ants were crawling over your skin, leaving raised hairs and tingly nerve ends in their path. You tried to focus on your surroundings – light, distance, angles – but the air was too heavy and the tension weighed like lead on your shoulders, and you weren’t able to hold on to a single thought that was rushing through your head.
“What?” you hissed when you couldn’t take Jimin’s prolonged staring for a second longer.
“You said it was a hunting lodge.”
“It is a hunting lodge.”
Leafs rustled when Jimin stood up and carefully swept them aside to take another look at the building about fifty yards away.
“I have seen palaces smaller than this.”
“Oh shut up, Jimin, don’t be so dramatic.”
“It’s huge.”
“It’s in a forest and made of wood, what else would I have called it?”
“Beaver paradise?” suggested Jimin, and a smile tucked at his lips. You frowned disapprovingly.
“If you turn this into a dirty joke, I will leave you here.”
“Fine.” Jimin pouted and crouched down to meet you on eye level. “What now?”
You met his gaze with a smile that sent chills down Jimin’s smile. “I’m a ghost, Jimin. I can get in anywhere.”
Jimin was convinced by neither your logic nor your – maddeningly uninspired – plan. But nonetheless, he followed you as you made your way through the thicket closer to the house. When you finally burst through the branches and boscage, and out of the safety of hiding, you were only a few feet away from the building itself. The dark brown walls stretched left and right from you, and the windows were oddly high, as if the floor inside was elevated. The house seemed to have only two stories and possibly an attic, but even amidst the tall trees and their crowns which seemed to reach into the sky, it was an intimidatingly enormous man-made structure. At first Jimin was not quite sure why you had chosen this spot to approach the building, given the absence of doors as far as the eyes could reach, but then he discovered the latch surrounded by a cement frame in the ground.
A basement.
Without hesitation, you grabbed the handle of the metal latch and pulled it up, seemingly unbothered by the grating sound it made as you forced it out of its comfortable resting position. Jimin peeked over your shoulder and into the opening, but all he could see was an abyss of darkness.
“Aaand we have creepy.”
“Do you have your phone?”
“It’s 2016.”
You rolled your eyes at Jimin and pulled out your own cell phone – the one Namjoon had gotten you, the one that only had a handful of numbers in it, and yet those were all the ones you needed. Suppressing a sigh, and the urge to call Namjoon’s number, you switched on the flashlight and pointed it into the entrance of the basement. It was just as you remembered: the stone steps leading into the seemingly shallow belly of the house, but part of the ceiling of the basement was slightly higher than ground level. When your father had the lodge built, it had turned out that water was running not too far underground, so the architects had to get creative to make sure the average adult could still walk upright in the rooms – or at least the ones in use by your family.
The space that you were about to enter was a different story.
As a kid, you had loved the low, cramped part of the basement that stretched under the entire length of the kitchen and dining room. It was used for the storage of non-perishable food, old furniture, and long-forgotten clothing, among other things. It was accessible not only from the outside, but also connected to both rooms on the inside.
You figured the kitchen was your better shot.
After about five minutes of walking and Jimin’s continuous mumbling of gross, gross, gross behind you, you arrived under the trapdoor that would grant you access to the ground floor of the lodge. You shot Jimin a look to shut him up and silently urge him to turn off the flashlight on his phone, as you had done with yours. Then you looked up at the wooden ceiling and listened.
Nothing.
Carefully, you grabbed hold of the most convenient rung of the wooden ladder that assisted the ascent into the kitchen. Your heart was beating in your chest and the gloves were sticking to the sweaty skin of your hands, but no physical reaction to the situation would keep you from doing everything you could to save Namjoon and Jungkook. They would have done the same for you.
They had done the same for you.
You looked back at Jimin one last time and waited for him to give you a curt nod before slowly pushing open the trapdoor. A quick glance around the kitchen revealed that it was empty except for the furniture which had been around for as long as you could remember. Everything in this house was familiar, and yet you felt like you only now saw it for what it was. Your father had invited many a business partner up to his hunting lodge.
Some of them you had never seen again.
Jimin gently closed the trapdoor behind him after he had climbed into the room. You were already by the door, cracking it open just a bit to look outside. There was nobody in the hallway, but you could hear muffled voices from the living room, or rather one voice – your father.
“Guess the funeral ended early,” you commented bitterly and felt the nervousness replaced by disdain and disgust.
“Don’t think about that now,” said Jimin softly as he walked up behind you. “If we die here, your mom will kick my ass in heaven.”
You let out a noise that resembled a laugh as much as it did a sob and grabbed Jimin’s hand to squeeze it briefly.
“They’re in the living room.” You pointed at a pair of big double doors down the hallway before taking the Beretta out of the waistband of your pants. Automatically, Jimin followed your example. You moved to pull on the door knob, but before you could someone kicked at it from the outside, making it swing wide open. You recognized the man standing in front of you instantly – he had been with your father for at least seven years.
It took him a second longer to realize who was standing before him.
“Y-you?” he stuttered, but before he could finish the thought, Jimin punched him in the throat hard, reducing his words to an indistinguishable gurgle. Another deliberate strike to his temple sent him to the ground where his eyes fluttered shut as Jimin prepared for a third hit.
“He’s out,” you commented when you saw the blood lust in Jimin’s eyes, and the aggression in his stance. It took him a moment to collect himself, which you used to scan the motionless form of the man on the ground. You couldn’t tell if he was still breathing.
And you couldn’t bring yourself to care.
“They really think I’m dead,” you whispered, painfully conscious of the now-open door.
“Well, rumor has it that Taehyung killed you.” Jimin clicked his tongue. “Sloppy job, if you ask me.”
You managed a grin and raised your gun again. You were merely a few yards away from Namjoon, Jungkook, and your father, but it felt like a unbridgeable distance. You had no idea what awaited you behind that door. How many of your father’s men? What state were Namjoon and Jungkook in? How would the scene play out? Who would live?
Who would die?
But this was not the time to hesitate. This was the time when you had to rise and show your true strength. When you could finally repay courage with courage and love with love.
