Chapter 1
Lisa
My finger brushed against the metal picture frame for what felt like the millionth time these past months. My wife. My beautiful wife. Tzuyu. Every time I remembered her, it felt like I was mourning her all over again. As if she hadn't been brutally murdered and put to rest eleven months ago. Eleven months. It felt longer as if time extended when one was grieving. I felt like a piece of me was gone, and no matter what anyone tells you, time doesn't heal all wounds.
As time dragged on, the pain grew, the guilt deepened, and the hatred towards the world expanded. It was one of our wedding photos that she insisted that we have framed so that we never forgot this moment. Our marriage wasn't an arranged one or one of mere convenience. I love her... loved her, from the very first time my sister, Rosé, introduced her to the family. She was nineteen and was attending university with my sister. I was twenty-three at the time, and it felt like I was learning what love truly was with her. Tzuyu taught me how kind and beautiful love and life could be.
Hair as black as night and eyes as light as heaven themselves, and a smile that could bring the Devil himself to his knees, Tzuyu was the most beautiful girl I had ever laid eyes on. The empty area in my chest where my heart was supposed to be felt shallower than usual as if she had taken it with her to the grave. As if she didn't want me ever to love someone as much as I loved her. I wouldn't. I would never love anyone ever again.
Tzuyu and I had been married for ten years, but we couldn't have children no matter how much we tried or how many doctors we saw. It was what people saw as a flaw, a weakness, something they'd point out to us repeatedly.
I didn't care. If it wasn't with her, I never wanted to have children with anyone else. She begged me to marry another over the strenuous years of IVF, surgeries, and other failed attempts.
My uncle who was adopted by the Manoban clan, kept pressuring me to marry another so that I would have an heir to take over the Manoban
bloodline after I passed away. The thought of touching anyone, kissing anyone, fucking anyone that wasn't my wife made bile burn in the back of my throat. Even after all time that had passed, I still think about her and see her in my dreams.
She's always calling out to me to save her, and no matter how hard I try and how strong I am, I can never reach her. The nightmares keep me awake as punishment for not being able to save her from my bloodthirsty enemies.
The fucking Polish. I didn't deserve to be alive with everything they put her through. I reached for the pack of cigarettes and loathed myself immensely as I lit the stick between my lips. Tzuyu hated the smell of smoke, so I'd cut back from smoking our entire marriage. Now that I didn't have to watch out for the scent clinging to my clothes, I smoked like a fucking chimney.
I went through a pack a day, anything to help lessen the stress I had on my shoulders and the demons at bay. I let my head fall back on my chair as I exhaled the smoke. There was a knock on the door, and before I could even say come in, the wooden doors swung open, and my uncle Jiyong stepped in. I straightened myself in the chair and stood up once he neared my desk.
"Lisa, how's it going?" He asked, his large hand coming up, and I shook it politely. He sat down in the black leather chair in front of me. Jiyong held half of South Korea and dealt with transportation matters. His job was to make sure my dealings went smoothly and that the cops we had in our pockets kept their fucking mouths shut.
Jiyong didn't look like my father at all as he was adopted by the Manoban clan at a young age. He was skinny, gangly, loud and rude. A complete opposite of my father, who, even though ruled with an iron fist, was a man of honour and loyalty. Something Jiyong didn't quite possess. My father was a man who lived by his own rules yet commanded the Manoban clan justly. Everyone spoke of Marco Manoban everywhere you went as if he was God. May my father rest in peace now that he has finally found it.
Jiyong's hands rested on his belly, his fingers decorated with rings of all sizes and colours. His dress shirt was unbuttoned, revealing his chest tattoos, and his smile was too white like he used those whitening strips but left them on for way too long. His hair was thinning, balding at some points, probably due to all the weird hair dyes he had used over the years.
