"If you don't get out of my house in ten seconds, I'm never going to let you go again," he lowly warns as a way of threatening her. It was as if her staying meant that he'd devote his entire body and soul to her, and that was exactly the case.
In wh...
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Five years later, 2023
"Remember, Taelyn. There is always a border between good and evil," her mother evoked a profound thought into her mind. "Always stay on the good side."
Although it was an important statement to abide by, Taelyn had been receiving it since childhood as a method of nagging by her mother. It had long been repetitive to her. "Ma, I know. You've been telling me for as long as I can remember."
The now twenty-two year old girl was more mature than her past seventeen year old self her mother referred to. She was exhausted with how her mom treated her like it was still 2018. In 2018, she was an ambitious high school student. Now, in 2023, she was an overqualified nurse. She had already changed in maturity.
"Just because you're a nurse now does not mean you get to be excused from these wise words," her mother lectured. "Remember? Your father—"
"He's a part of the biggest mafia in South Korea. That, I also know very well," she reiterated. Taelyn felt like this conversation was inappropriate to have on their dinner table.
Sitting beside her, her brother minded his business, silently eating his meal. Madame Kim smiles at her daughter. "Of course, this is why you must marry a—"
"Good man," she finishes her mother's favourite sentence. You must marry a good man, Taelyn. She heard this a lot growing up because her mother did not want her to follow her footsteps in mistakenly marrying the wrong person.
She was twelve when her father and mother went through a messy divorce. Well, it was bound to happen anyway. They were an arranged marriage since they both came from successful families. That was until her father rebelled and joined the SM Mafia.
This was when he became abusive to their entire family, but not to Taelyn. Her older brother, Taehyung, who was six years older than Taelyn, knew the worst of their father. He raised the poor boy to be tough and cold, like "a man should be" in their father's eyes, thus he went through a lot of unfortunate manhandling.
However, her father was different with her; He adored her. To him, she was the light of his horrendous life. He fought hard to have sole possession of her after the divorce, but of course, being a part of the mafia, the law wasn't ever going to be on his side. Why would law ever be in his side? He wasn't even on theirs.
When Madame Kim was ready to take over her father's company, she made sure to give her children privileged lives to compensate their unfortunate past. "I remembered Lee Heeseung last night," Madame Kim takes a sip of tea.
That name. Without meaning to, Taelyn's fists, that held her spoon and fork, slam against the table top. Taehyung, who sat right beside her, widens his eyes in surprise at the sudden move. "I was seventeen," Taelyn purses her lips into a thin line.
That name never failed to make Taelyn's heart sink to her stomach.
"Yes, you were. You could've died at seventeen," her mother's eyes darken. Taelyn was exhausted with her bringing him up, it always hurt her.
