Spades & Hearts

Diamonds

Everything inside him just wanted to explode like new year's eve's colorful fireworks when her hand touched his cheek. But he knew well that she was just playing him. She knew how weak he was for her; and in all honesty—as exaggerated as it might sound—just the touch of her hand made him want to crumble to his knees and let her have her way. However, Chanyeol wouldn't let her have it this time. Not anymore.

She needed to know that he was in charge. That he was the head of the family. He was done being overpowered by her. It was for her own good too! Every time he let her be, she got into trouble. He could not afford that anymore. He could not afford losing her. She was lucky Lay was there to protect her yesterday.

Lay.

The thought of his friend didn't really make him feel good. Suzy was right. He was jealous of Lay. But how could he not? She seemed to trust his friend more than himself, the husband. The fact that she called Lay by his birth name just irked him more. Yet still, he trusted Lay.

Amidst the situation where there was the possibility of an insider helping Jongin, he knew Lay was at his top list of trusted people. Jongin did tell him that he had eyes and ears everywhere. Suzy was right to cut out some people around her to lessen the risk. She was right that Lay was the trusted person to stay by her side in this situation they were in.

His head agreed with that. But not his heart.

This was all because of Jongin!

No. This was all because of his careless mistake few years ago. If only he wasn't careless, Jongin wouldn't lose his brother.

Sitting inside his car, Chanyeol watched Suzy's car left with Lay as the driver before telling his chauffeur to head to the office. Chanyeol sighed and tapped his pc tablet opening the email Lay had sent him. When they discussed about Jongin's reappearance last night, Lay revealed to him the result of his research after reading the information that Sehun and Baekhyun gave him.

Jongin had been starting a business of selling playing cards. At first, Chanyeol was confused as to why Lay had to point that out. His friend proceeded to disclose his opinion that the business was very likely to be a disguise of a more shady one.

Lay had a trusted acquaintance working as an anti narcotics officer who had been telling him of the latest devices drug dealers tweaked to hide their drugs. A deck of playing cards being one of them. They would make small compartments that looked like a deck of card and hide their drugs inside.

Lay had also explained that Jongin's unique black playing cards had gained him numerous casinos and some hotels as partners. But there was one casino that had been buying from him more frequently than others. And that casino was, according to his research, one of the casinos suspected as disguised drug cartel. With Jongin's past record of drug use, it was not hard to put two and two together. Unfortunately, putting these kind of people behind bars wouldn't be easy without concrete evidence. These people went all out to hide everything. And sometimes, even if they got caught, they could pay the police officers to shut their mouths.

If he wanted to slowly take down Jongin, Chanyeol could try by doing something with Jongin's business, Lay had suggested. Yet his suggestion came with a warning for Chanyeol to be careful. If he were too reckless and hasty, it might turn into a backlash.

Chanyeol wasn't really sure what to do, but he would surely do something to take Jongin down. Jongin was once his best friend's cute little brother; and Chanyeol had been holding back a lot for the sake of his late best friend. But now that Jongin had dared to get his wife involved in his revenge plan, he would not hold back any longer.

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"I've received the Ace, but aren't you missing some grams in the delivery? You know the deal. You've been doing this quite often lately, and I'm not pleased," said the person on the other end of the call.

With a smirk, Jongin leaned back on the seat's backrest and propped his feet up on the table. "It's only a few grams," he light heartedly replied. His free hand tapped on his laptop's cursor pad to replay the video he had been watching. "And our deal was for me to deliver 100 packages every month. I sent 100, didn't I?"

"Ten of which are real deck of cards."

"Ninety deck of aces plus ten deck of real cards are still equal to hundred decks, aren't they?"

"Why you little—"

"Calm down," Jongin chuckled as he paused his video and placed his feet back down. "I'm doing this because the Anti Narcotics Force has been working really hard lately. Haven't you seen the news? I don't want my business to raise red flags for them. It's for the good of both of us."

"In any case," the gruff voice of the man greeted Jongin's ear again, "you better not lose any more grams for the next delivery or I'll have to cut down the fees too. I don't need a surplus of your black playing cards no matter how unique they are!"

"Of course!" Jongin replied with a roll of his eyes then ended the call.

Grabbing a card from a deck on his table, he replayed the video he got from the camera he had secretly installed and retrieved. The scene of the rooftop attack played again. He paused the video and his grin grew wider.

Jongin was satisfied. Having Lay to help achieve his goal could be the best decision ever. He twirled his matte black card between his fingers; the single black diamond suit on the center of the card shined when light hit it. The glossy dark letter "A" was on the top left and bottom right of the card. Throwing his head back, he laughed heartily.

"You past the test, Lay hyung!" He pointed at the screen then laughed again before it abruptly died down.

His smile wiped away; he glanced at the framed photo he had placed at the edge of his table and picked it up. Seeing the picture wrenched his heart again. He stared at the person adorned in graduation gown standing beside him in the picture. He remembered this last picture with his brother was taken by Lay on the two older ones' university graduation.

"I know you would be disappointed in me for going down this path, Hyung. But I don't have you to guide me anymore."
His hand clenched around the frame as he gritted his teeth and briefly squeezed his eyes shut. "That was all because of Park Chanyeol!" Glancing at the picture again, he sighed. "I'm sorry, Jongdae hyung, but I'm not going to let Chanyeol live peacefully before he feels the same enormous loss I've been feeling." He slammed the card in his other hand on the table.

"You may feel like a king now, Park Chanyeol"—his lips curled into a smirk—"but I'm the ace in this game and I'm going to crush you!" Slamming his curled hand on the table, he vowed to destroy Chanyeol's life as he had destroyed his.

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So apparently, in drug slangs, ace means marijuana cigarette. Just letting you know if you're curious of what the person on the phone was referring to at the beginning of their conversation.

Sorry, no Suzy in this chapter.

Oh! And DON'T DO DRUGS, PEEPS!