°BACKSTABBERS°

chapter 15

The low hum of the cafeteria lights felt louder now. Ivey's skin prickled. Her eyes darted around, as if half-expecting someone to be watching and maybe they were.

She swallowed hard and leaned closer to Taehyung.
"Then what now?" she murmured.

Taehyung's gaze lingered on hers a moment longer before flickering away. "Now... we tread carefully. Because from this point, you'll be on every radar and not all of them friendly."

Before Ivey could respond, a phone buzzed against the table. It wasn't hers.

Taehyung glanced at the screen, his expression darkening. Without a word, he grabbed it and stood. "Come with me."

The sudden shift in his tone made Ivey's stomach knot.

They left the cafeteria, weaving through the narrow back corridors of the facility ones Ivey didn't even realize existed. The deeper they went, the colder the air became, the hum of fluorescent lights overhead sharp and oppressive.

Taehyung stopped in front of an unmarked door. A heavy-looking security lock blinked red until he swiped his badge and pressed his thumb against the scanner. The lock clicked open.

"Where are we?" Ivey whispered.

Taehyung didn't answer.
He pushed the door open.

Inside, the room was dimly lit by monitors lining one wall. Live surveillance feeds flickered across the screens: the interrogation cells, the main hall, the chopper pad... and one unfamiliar place a small, windowless holding cell.

Ivey stepped forward, her eyes narrowing as she focused on that particular feed.

A girl.

Young, pale, unconscious. Her face was bloodied, a deep gash on her brow. She was cuffed to a chair.

Ivey's heart lurched.
It was her.

Taehyung spoke quietly beside her. “That's what Edward meant... when he said they'd 'check on her.' ”

Ivey felt a rush of nausea. "That wasn't part of the deal. We were supposed to get her out."

“Yeah.” Taehyung's voice was tight. “But Edward has his own way of dealing with loose ends.”

Ivey's pulse pounded in her ears. She knew what happened to people in rooms like that. No one came out the same.

But before she could speak, one of the monitors flickered a burst of static.

Then another.

And another.

Suddenly, half the feeds went dead. A piercing, shrill sound filled the room for a brief second before the screen in the corner came back on.

Only now, it wasn't a surveillance feed.

It was a live transmission.

A shadowed figure appeared on the screen. Only his mouth and jaw visible sharp, cruel, unmistakably familiar.

Jimin.

But not from inside a cell.

From somewhere else.

Ivey's breath caught.
“That's... impossible.”

Taehyung froze, his face turning to stone.

Jimin's lips curled into a slow, deliberate smirk.

“Miss me?”

His voice was like velvet and venom.

Ivey's stomach dropped.