House of Cards by: sugamins

Part 18

Unlike the previous morning Taehyung wasn't woken up by his itching and aching shoulder, that horrible sensation that demanded attention, rather he was woken up by the sound of a door clicking shut. It was loud in the silence of the room, almost as loud as a gunshot and he opened his eyes to stare up at the ceiling. Like always he felt a momentary sense of disorientation seeing his reflection in the ceiling mirror hanging above him and so he just stared at it for a few seconds. The sight that the mirror revealed was him lying on his back, the white bed covers up to his waist and heavily wrinkled from use, his hair strewn messily across the pillow. Beside him, lying on his side in a rather tight ball was Jimin, who was also mostly hidden away under the covers. Taehyung turned his head to look at him for a second and then he turned to look the other way to see what was going on.

Jungkook had just entered the penthouse suite and he was standing beside the door. Across the wide layout of the suite Taehyung could see that he was in the act of removing his shoes, hunkered down so that he couldn't see his face. What time was it? Taehyung glanced back in Jimin's direction again to try and look out the wall of windows. He saw a faint orange light bleeding in and across the marble flooring, the sight of either a sunrise or a sunset; he was clueless trying to figure out which one that it was.

Jungkook headed straight up the stairs just as he struggled up into a sitting position. The younger man didn't look back down at him and rather just continued up to the top to disappear into the bedroom. Perhaps to use the bathroom and freshen up for the day. Taehyung wasn't able to call out to him before he disappeared out of sight, to do much more than open his mouth because it felt much too dry for that. After watching him stepping into the bedroom he looked at the dresser and he saw nothing there beyond an empty glass. When he checked the bottom of the bed he saw Wangbi lying along the wide stretch of mattress, deeply asleep and seemingly content lying on his feet again. There was no sight of the laptop anywhere. It took him a moment to remember that Jimin had put it back in his office earlier in the day...or was it yesterday now? Taehyung couldn't quite recall, he seemed to have lost a great deal of time over the last three or so days. But there was one thing that he remembered.

The hard drives.

Taehyung reached up with his good arm so that he could rub at his eyes. He found that his eyelids didn't feel heavy or tight, rather he felt rather well-rested. That was a blessing he supposed; better than waking up feeling like shit again. His shoulder was still aching however, particularly when he tried to roll it. Just attempting half a rotation had him wincing and pressing his lips together to stop a whine from escaping. Okay, so he wasn't feeling great but good was enough for now. All things taken into account he should have felt fucking fantastic yet his shoulder was putting a major damper on it all.

Taehyung knew for a fact that Jungkook kept detailed records on men in his possession stored on hard drives, all of them located somewhere in his office room. If he kept receipts of transactions and more then there was a very high chance that a lot of that material could be linked back to him. Material that had his name, his signature, his fucking details on...that was the kind of material that could result in charges. Charges could result in warrants and warrants meant armed raids. Just thinking about it was enough to make Taehyung shift on the bed, unable to fight the urge to fidget. When he moved his feet Wangbi lifted her head and gave him a rather irritated look before settling down again.

Taehyung had hit pay dirt and yet thinking about it was enough to make him feel almost...guilty.

From upstairs came the sound of the shower running, a sudden hard burst that signaled that Jungkook was getting cleaned up. Considering that he might have been working for two entire days now without much of a break it was no wonder that he had went straight to the shower. Taehyung glanced up at the balcony for a few seconds before dropping his eyes to study Wangbi. The cat was happily curled up again on the bed, stomach rising and falling as she breathed. A glance over at her owner showed Jimin was also still deeply asleep, chest rising and falling at a much slower rate than the cat.