The Summer Sting

12. Down in Flames

It's almost like you had it planned
It's like you smiled and shook my hand
And said, "hey,
I'm about to screw you over big time"

Hotel Lima Marbella was a far cry from the luxury Ri Jeong-hyeok had experienced on the costa del sol, but he'd seen far worse accommodations on undercover operations. There was a peculiar charm to the boutique hotel's attempt at flairs of style and finnicky neatness. It was reminiscent of his favorite coffee shop on Saechang-ro, and he clung to the comfort like a child with his favorite toy.

The noon sun was bright and cheery, but inside Pyo Chi-su's suite, everything was dark and forbidding.

It looked like a war room, littered with highlighted news clippings, scribbled-on print-outs and candid, blurry photographs. Two heavy-duty laptops sat on the desk opposite the bed. Jeong-hyeok had never seen the blinking devices attached to them before, but he didn't ask – didn't really expect an answer. They swept past them and into a small living room with a loveseat and two armchairs, all of which pointed towards a blank projected screen attached to a complex-looking teleconferencing setup.

Agent Pyo didn't bother with preamble before he ushered Jeong-hyeok into a seat and started fiddling with the device's touchscreen.

"So is this where you usually disappear to when you go shopping?" Jeong-hyeok wondered, watching as a live stream of the two of them lit the projected screen. Truth be told, he didn't particularly care about the other man's whereabouts. What he wanted was a distraction. He felt nauseous and clammy, and his chest was tight with dread.

Chi-su paused mid-dial as if realizing that he would have to speak to him before getting on with business. "Yes," he replied. "It's a makeshift base for me on this operation."

"What else don't I know about this operation? I've earned some knowledge privileges, haven't I?" he asked, the words a little too sharp, too bitter. About an hour ago, he'd gone on a drive with Pyo Chi-su and had described in meticulous detail everything he'd seen on Her Majesty last night.

At the break of dawn, he'd kissed Yoon Se-ri just outside the kitchen entrance of Casa de la Reina.

"Se-ri!" Jeong-hyeok grabbed her wrist when she charged into the foliage camouflaging Casa de la Reina's fenced periphery. "Won't we trip like ten security alarms trying to sneak in like this?"

She pulled her arm out of his grasp, slid her warm, sure hand into his and tugged him forward with a mischievous smile he could barely make out in the dark. "Technically, yes, but there's a loophole in the system. Discovered it when I was seventeen," she told him over her shoulder, weaving her way through what was clearly a familiar path, and he pictured her as a rebellious young girl, sneaking in and out of her family's estate on a whim. "Follow me."

They dodged a few wayward branches and overgrown shrubs in search of Se-ri's loophole. Behind a cluster of bushy trees, large rocks brought the fence to waist-height, and she stepped over it, mindful of its sharp, jagged edges. He followed suit, toting both their bags in his arms. "Careful," she cautioned, jumping off a rock and onto the gravel on the other side of the fence. "There's a motion detector here, you just need to step over it."

"You were a very crafty seventeen-year-old," he grunted as he leapt off the rock and landed beside her. "Did you sneak out to meet boys?" he asked, casting a suspicious sideways glance at her.

"Sometimes," she confirmed, looked faraway for a moment before her gaze cleared and she started walking towards the house. Jeong-hyeok followed, falling into step beside her with unpracticed familiarity. "Anyway, I moved to Paris when I was eighteen. I didn't really need to sneak out to meet boys," she mused.