Untouched [minsung]

Chapter 39

Felix POV

Lily was alive. She was alive, and Chan knew that for a fact.

I'd fallen to my knees with my head in my hands. I hadn't even allowed the possibility of her being alive to cross through my mind since I'd been told she passed. I couldn't believe it. I needed to see her.

"Where is she?" I asked, looking up at Chan through tears.

He swallowed hard, "The Hwangs have her."

I felt dizzy. The family who'd hired me to help me pay off enough to save her, had been holding her this whole time? Had they expected me to save up enough and be their own personal bomb to use on the Seo family? I'd go to pay her debts off, they'd find her name and see she was dead, and then what? Did they think I'd kill them and take care of their dirty work?

"How do you know she's alive?" I asked Chan. If I had to find out she was dead again, I think I'd die, too.

"The Hwangs have her," he repeated with a pitiful face.

Nothing felt real. This entire conversation felt like a dream.

"The Seo family was putting on a gala night...do you know what those are?" he began.

I nodded. Lee Know had filled me in.

"She was due to participate. Before that night, she'd been a maid for the family. I'd see her every now and then, and we became friends. I didn't know your name because she was quite secretive, but she told me about you. She told me how sorry she was that she'd put you two in this situation. She told me she'd gotten clean and hoped to get out soon to be with you. She even said she'd hoped to start a family with you," Chan began.

Hearing about her life there was difficult, but I took comfort in the fact that she had a friend in Chan. It was nice to know that she wasn't completely alone. I wanted to give her a family more than anything.

Chan continued, "Her name was drawn for the gala, though, and I was responsible for collecting those who had been chosen. I'd never gone against an order from the Seos before, but she was too kind to be in there. I couldn't take her future away. The others..." he paused, shaking his head with an apologetic expression, "I obviously can't save everyone."

Chan looked upset at the admission. He knew the people he worked for were wrong. Again, I wondered why he did it at all. What was he gaining?

"I told Mrs. Seo that she'd died. Because it was marked as a gala day, I guess that's why Seungmin assumed that she'd died in a fight. But I'd actually taken her here. I planned to drop her off so she could have you take her away."

My heart sank. She'd been just outside of my apartment. If I'd just looked outside at the right time...

"I think we were followed though. The second I drove away to go back for gala prep, she was thrown into a van. The Hwang family must have thought they could use her for information."

"How do you know she's still alive?" I asked again. I needed the reassurance.

"I hacked their cameras."

Chan pulled out his laptop and opened up the files for me to see.

And the cry that erupted from me was painful. This was the first time I'd seen her in months. She sat on the ground in the corner. She was playing with her hair and looked scared and small. She was wearing what looked like a nightgown.

"Is there any audio?"

"Oh yeah, sorry," Chan said, unmuting his computer.

Chan turned up the volume, and we could hear her humming something to herself as she rocked back and forth.

It was our song.

I smiled through my tears. She turned to face the wall and began drawing with her finger on the concrete.

She carefully traced the outline of an F and then a + and then an L before encompassing them in a heart.

"I need to save her," I sobbed into Chan's lap.

"We will. We will," he assured me as he combed his fingers through my hair. "What was your plan? Because I don't think just telling me about your wife was going to solve our problems."

I sat up, ready to confide in Chan now that I knew he'd broken the Seo's orders to help Lily. I still needed to play it safe and truly make him see this wasn't something I'd have chosen to do for no reason.

"I took a few jobs to save money to help Lily pay off her debt with the Seo's. I'd even sold my company off to people and actually made good money that way. I guess Jeongin noticed how desperate I was for cash, and he approached me and asked me to get close to Changbin. He already knew about my reason for saving money somehow. He hired me to keep tabs on him and promised that his family would find Lily, so I could try to visit her. Which they obviously had her almost the entire time."

Chan didn't look surprised. I still wanted to make sure he knew how much I valued Changbin.

"I accepted the job. For Lily. But they told me Changbin was selfish and horrible like his family. I thought I'd be doing the world a favor helping to backstab someone like that. But he isn't like that at all. In fact, if I'd never met Lily, I could see myself with Changbin. He's funny and kind. I don't want to hurt him," I stuttered.

I was worried about how this would go and now it was all laid out on the table. Chan would either believe me or he wouldn't. But the longer Chan didn't say anything, the more worried I became.

"Please don't tell Changbin. Or the Seo family. I need to save Lily, and then I will take her far away. You can tell them you killed me, a traitor. They'll think you're a hero. Just please don't tell them. Now that I know she's alive I just..." I began to hyperventilate. It was all too much.

"Felix, you can relax. I'm not going to tell anyone. You're obviously a good person just trying to help someone."

I breathed a sigh of relief.

"Now what's the plan?"

Right, the plan.

"I can ask the Hwangs to meet with me. I can tell them I have urgent information about the Seo family. I'll tell them something they already know, like how Han is her son. You can hide in the trunk of my car, and then, while I'm talking to them, you can find and rescue the others."

"My job is way harder than yours." Chan snorted. "What then? They'll notice a car full of people leaving the facility."

"They only check cars on arrival," I informed him. I'd visited a few times before.

"Okay, and what if they check the trunk when we get there?"

I smiled. "We'll use a false bottom."

Chan looked impressed. "Okay. Let's do it."

He shrugged as if he'd agreed to grab a beer, and I returned my gaze to his laptop. My Lily was alive. I could save her.