Mine to Keep

Chapter 3

Ryujin's

Sipping from my own glass, I study Yeji as she looks out the window at the rapidly shrinking ground below. She's wearing jeans and a blue fleece sweater, her small feet clad in a pair of chunky-looking black sheepskin boots. Uggs, I think they're called. Despite that off-putting footwear, she still looks sexy though I far prefer seeing her in summer dresses, her smooth skin glowing in the sun.

Watching her calm expression, I wonder what she's thinking and if she has any regrets.

She shouldn't. I would've taken her regardless.

As though sensing my gaze on her, she turns toward me. "How did they find out about me?" she asks quietly. "The men who kidnapped me, I mean. How did they learn of my existence?"

At her question, my entire body tenses. My mind flashes back to those hellish hours after the attack on the clinic, and for a moment, I'm gripped by that same volatile mix of burning fury and paralyzing fear.

She could've died. She would've died if I hadn't found her in time. Even if I'd given them what they wanted, they would've still killed her to punish me for not giving in to their demands sooner. I would've lost her, just like I lost Ruby.

Just like we both lost Lia.

"It was the nursing assistant at the clinic." My voice sounds cold and distant as I place my champagne glass back on the tray. "Angela. She was on Al-Qadar's payroll all along."

Yeji's eyes glitter brightly. "That bitch," she whispers, and I can hear the pain and anger in her voice. Her handshakes as she puts down her own glass on the table. "That fucking bitch."

I nod, trying to control my own rage as images from the video Yujin sent me to slide through my mind.

They tortured Lia before killing her. They made her suffer. Her life had held nothing but suffering since her asshole of a father sold her to a brothel across the Mexican border at the age of thirteen. Who had been one of the very few people whose loyalty I never questioned?

They made her suffer and now I will make them suffer worse.

"Where is she now?" Yeji's question brings me out of a pleasurable reverie where I have each member of Al-Qadar strung up and at my mercy. When I look at her blankly, she clarifies, "Angela."

I smile at her naïve question. "You don't have to worry about her, my pet." All that remains of Angela are ashes, scattered on the lawn of the clinic in the Philippines.

Heesung's  brand of questioning is brutal but effective, and he always disposes of the evidence afterward. "She paid for her betrayal."

Yeji swallows, and I know she understands exactly what I mean. She's no longer the same girl I met in that club in Chicago.

I can see the shadows in her eyes, and I know I'm responsible for putting them there. Despite my best efforts to keep her sheltered on the island, the ugliness of my world touched her and tainted her innocence.

Al-Qadar will pay for that as well.

The scar on my head begins to throb, and I touch it lightly with my left hand. My head still aches occasionally, but other than that, I'm almost back to my normal self.

Considering that I spent a good portion of the last four months as a vegetable, I'm quite content with this state of affairs.

"Are you all right?" There is a concerned expression on Yeji's face as she reaches up to touch the area above my left ear. Her slender fingers are gentle on my scalp. "Does it still hurt?"