Nobody Knows | Jeon Jungkook

•33•

I point the silver gun and pull the trigger. The only difference is that I'm no longer aiming at the policeman, but at myself, right under my chin.

The gun just clicks, a sound that makes everyone in the room go silent.

It's unloaded.

I pull the trigger once, twice more, but each time I hear the empty clicking, not the numbing reverberations of an actual gunshot. I look Irina's father dead in the eye as I do so, and he looks back at me with utter seriousness. A small smirk creeps onto my lips as I notice the corner of his lips somehow pull up in a laudatory manner.

He looks at the gun still placed under my chin until I remove it from my face and place it on the desk in front of me.

"I can't follow your orders if the gun is unloaded," I say casually. "Right?"

I look back into Nikolai's brown eyes and he purses his lips before his head slowly cocks in a nod. He steps forward so he's barely a breath away from me. It feels like the two of us are the only ones in the room and I can't even feel Irina's presence. It's like he's blocking contact with the outside world with his dominance, and I'd be lying if I said it doesn't make me a little nervous.

But I make sure I don't show any of it. Instead, I stand my ground, my shoulders rolling back smugly because I've actually done something that I'm sure has changed the image of me in his mind. I can see it in his eyes.

"How did you know the gun was empty?" he asks, snapping his head to the side as he watches me from head to toe until his smirking eyes look deep into mine again.

I shrug my shoulder. "You locked the slide before you aimed it and a second time before you handed it to me," I explain.

I take out the gun I have tucked in my belt behind my back and although my hands are shaking a little I demonstrate exactly what he did a few minutes ago. "A loaded gun would spit out a bullet if it was locked twice without being fired," I say and we both watch as a bullet pops into the air.

I catch it, holding it between my thumb and index finger. He looks at the bullet I'm holding in front of his face - though not in a provocative way - and he puffs out a breath of air. The last thing I want is for him to think I'm rubbing this little mistake that others might not have noticed in his face, but I want him to know I'm not like others.

"Like this." I grin as I notice he doesn't look angry or pissed. Instead, his eyebrows jump up and he looks from the bullet between my fingers back to the two bodyguards and to Irina like he's looking for agreement.

My eyes fall on Irina for a brief second, as she tries to hide her smile, but her eyes shine with pride. To be honest, I wouldn't have dared such a dangerous act if I hadn't known 100 percent that the gun Nikolai gave me was unloaded.

Her lips mouthing 'it's empty' guaranteed that and I think it was the right move to win Nikolai over. I want him to know that I would not hesitate to oblige his orders, although I would indeed hesitate. But it's all deception anyway. I could never have shot an innocent man just because I have now joined the mafia.

"Besides, I don't think you'd have your own man shot for no valid reason," I add, and Nikolai's relaxed eyebrows jump up again.

I wasn't sure at first when I was in the warehouse, but with the empty gun, my theory has turned out to be true. The alleged policeman who actually turns out to be working for Nikolai is colorblind, and policemen with red-green vision deficiency don't really exist. My uncle used to want to be a policeman and had to give up the dream because of his handicap.