From Reluctance to Desire: A Mafia Story [JJK]

✨THROUGH THE FIRES OF RAGE✨

Jungkook's POV:

I hadn't slept.

Not a second, not a blink. The moment I realized she was gone, something inside me shattered. A part of my soul ripped apart, the echo of her voice haunting me every second. Y/N. Areum. My girl. The woman I couldn't protect.

I tore the world apart looking for her.

Every night blurred into the next. My eyes burned, my knuckles split open from punching walls and doors of locked warehouses that turned up empty.

I kicked down every lead. 

Threatened every bastard that even breathed her name. Taehyung and Jimin tried to make me rest—tried to get me to sit, breathe, just for a second. But how could I?

She was out there. Alone. Afraid. And I wasn't there.

I hated myself.

I replayed the moment over and over again—how I should've known. Should've felt something. Her silence. Her absence. The way she looked at me before she disappeared.

I failed her.

On the fifth day, my hands trembled with exhaustion, but I kept going. I had to. I got a lead. A confirmed one this time. An informant whispered a name I'd been dreading: Zalgo.

My vision blurred in red.

Zalgo.

If he had her... if he even laid a finger on her...

I didn't wait. I didn't call for backup. I didn't give a damn about plans or safety. I drove straight to that hellhole. The moment the building came into view, I knew. Something in me knew she was in there.

I was running through smoke and screams, bodies dropping left and right as my team tore through Zalgo's men. Gunfire echoed behind me, but I didn't stop. I couldn't stop.

I kicked down another door, eyes wild.

Nothing.

Keep moving.

Another hall. Another scream. A man launched himself at me—I grabbed him, flipped him, and broke his arm before slamming him to the floor. 

My mind wasn't even processing the pain anymore. Just one thought: Find her. Find her. Find her.

I turned a corner and froze.

A door opened across the hall.

And then—

Her.

Y/N.

She was a ghost, stumbling out of the doorway like she'd forgotten what freedom felt like. Barefoot. Shaking. Skin pale, lips cracked, face bruised.

My chest clenched so tight I couldn't breathe.

But then—

Zalgo.

The bastard appeared behind her, his hand latching onto her wrist, yanking her back like she was some doll he owned.

"AREUM!" he barked.

My blood boiled.

She screamed—fought with everything in her—but she was weak. I could see it in how her body trembled, how her legs dragged against the floor.

"No—let me go!" she cried out, desperation raw in her voice.

That was all it took.

I charged.