The Price of Love

Chapter 46: No Time to Lose

Namjoon

"Holy hell, Jimin!" I yelled as I watched Seokjin crumble like a marionette whose strings had been cut. Thankfully, he swayed toward the couch where Hoseok immediately sat him down.

Seokjin groaned a bit before blinking rapidly and regaining his senses.

"Did... did you just hit...my face?" he asked, looking up at Jimin in shock.

Jimin took a step toward him, but Taehyung cut him off.

"Stop it," he growled in his low voice. He held Jimin by the shoulders.

"No!" Jimin exclaimed angrily. "This fucking coward is just going to toss Bella aside like trash!" He tried to break free, but Taehyung was stronger. "That's bullshit, Seokjin! I warned you! I told you that you better treat her right!"

Seokjin rubbed his chin. "Oh, that's great coming from you. Weren't you the one who cheated on her then forced her to stay with you out of pity?"

Jimin strained against Taehyung's hold. "Shut the hell up! At least I'm not tossing money at her like she's a prostitute! You just used her like one of your common sluts!"

"I made her happy," Seokjin growled. Then his full lips curled into a sneer. "Ecstatically happy."

Jimin tried to get to him again. This time I stood in front of him and pushed him back. Taehyung pulled Jimin further away until he forced him to sit on the bed.

"This fighting solves nothing," I said. "We have to figure out what to do, and you two are acting like teenage morons. Stop it, Jimin!"

"Don't you care about what he's doing to Bella?" Jimin snapped angrily.

"Of course, I care! I don't want Bella to be hurt. I love Bella." I saw some of the guys look at me questioningly, and I panicked for an instant. Why had I said that out loud?

"We all love Bella. She's...she's like a sister to us," I added quickly. "We all care about her, and we need to find a way to make this situation better. Why don't all of you go to your room? Let me talk to Seokjin for a minute."

Taehyung nodded and led Hoseok and Jimin to the door.

"Fucking coward," Jimin hissed before Taehyung and Hoseok pulled him out of the room. I noticed how Seokjin's shoulders tensed at Jimin's words.

My thoughts were interrupted by a soft snore coming from Seokjin's bed. Yoongi had fallen asleep again.

"Just leave him there," Seokjin said with a shake of his head. "It doesn't matter."

I sat next to him. "Look, if we're going to find a solution, we have to turn over every stone. We can't give up. I know you probably won't agree, but I enlisted my father to help us look into Gettis' proposal for KWI." I held up a hand to stop his protest. "Just give it a chance. My father is much more involved in the day-to-day of the finance department. I am certain there's something we can uncover. Just don't give up."

His wide shoulders were slumped down in a posture of defeat. "I don't know, Joon. There's no time. I'm afraid to hope. You know that Gettis will go after Bella and her parents if I humiliate his daughter. I will never forgive myself if anything happens to her or them." I sighed. "I heard from some guys on my team. They are sure Gettis is behind KWI's mysterious cash shortfall. We just can't find any hard proof. We can't find the link. It's over."

"We can't just do nothing, bro," I told him. "You can't give up. You can't get married."

"What does it matter?" he said dejectedly. "It's not like I ever have to be with her. We will be married in name only. Once the threat to KWI and the Domanis passes, I can ask for a paternity test then get a divorce quietly."

"No! You can't do that."

"Why does it matter to you so much?" he asked me.

I sighed and looked him in the eye. "Because Bella deserves better. She deserves a man who will fight for her and never let her down, a man who not only says he loves her but proves it to her every day." I glanced away. "I thought that man was you."

After a long, charged silence, I heard a soft voice, small and childlike.

"She hates me."

I leaned closer to him thinking that I had misheard. Had he even spoken?

"She...hates me," he repeated in the same soft voice. "She doesn't believe in me. She left me even though I begged her to stay. I begged her to stay with me."

I wasn't sure what to say. I was alarmed by the neediness in his voice. It was almost as if he had reverted back to childhood. After a few moments it dawned on me that he was reliving his mother's abandonment. She had walked away from him when he was 12, telling him to stay with his father because she couldn't deal with a child and a husband and anything that required her to trust in others. He was transferring his feelings toward his mother's leaving to the current situation, and he was ready to give up trying. Nothing had brought his mother back, and now he felt nothing would bring Bella back.

Unfortunately, I had seen him this way once before. Seokjin usually kept his feelings under control, like a dam holding back water. But every now and then, that control slipped, the dam cracked, and the flood waters crashed through. I was no psychologist, but I knew that he kept his negativity bottled up and tended to focus on whatever made him believe he was happy. That's how he got by--spending money, banging girls. Deep down, however, he knew that he was pretending at being happy. Then he fell in love with Bella, and he found real happiness in life. Now that happiness had been snatched away, and he was lost.

"What's wrong?" a voice whispered next to me.

I jumped up. It was Yoongi. He was standing next to me staring at Seokjin with concern.

"He's just tired," I replied softly. "And he probably had too much to drink. Let's get him into bed." I pulled Seokjin to his feet, and Yoongi helped me take him to the bed. After removing his coat and shoes, we eased him onto the bed. He was eerily docile.

Seokjin's eyes were already closed.

"Poor bastard," Yoongi said sadly. "We have to help him. No one deserves to be put through this. It's insane. I don't like seeing him like this. He's falling apart."

I nodded. "I have an idea. Will you stay here and watch him? I'll be back in a few minutes." At Yoongi's nod, I rushed out the door. I had no time to lose.