NCT Ten | Mafia

Hotel

Ten's P.O.V 

"Yuta won't want that. I'm telling you," Kun growls as he signals and merges onto the highway. "You should have left it in the woods."

"The search dogs would have found it," I say, rubbing the place in my leg where one of them bit me. He took me down, and it was a close call. I had a knife, but I didn't want to hurt the beast. It wasn't his fault he's good at his damn job.

I got away. Barely.

Made it to the city where I could dial Kun for an extraction.

It was too bad I lost the caterer's van before I could torch it, but Kun's ride is a lot nicer; a vintage Porsche that's probably had blood in it a few times over the years. At least I had the ring in my pocket when I left the van behind.

"He wants it."

"He won't even look at it." Kun is wearing a crisp purple button-down and slacks, like he's going to some swanky hot spot for happy hour after work instead of picking up his boss from a manhunt.

"He'll look at it," I say. "You'll see."

Yuta needs somebody in this fucking life to come through for him. That's my job. With all my brothers. Make sure they get what they need. Sometimes that means vintage cars. Sometimes that means closure in the form of a bloodstained ring.

I pull it out and take another look. It's fat and gold with some emblem of a fancy university imprinted on it. This is the ring I promised to bring him as I held his shaking, sobbing body, and now he gets it. It took a good twelve years, but I would have searched for that fucker for another twelve if I had to. I mean to keep each and every promise I made back when we were kids, back when we were being made to do things with men that no kid should ever be made to do.

Our success in hunting those scumbags down is part of why they hit back, framing Johnny for that murder. It was a smart move; even I can admit that. It distracts us from hunting them down. And no jury will pass up the opportunity to slam a cop killer for life. Even if the supposed cop killer is innocent.

But it won't work.

Even if Johnny's convicted, we'll keep hunting them. We'll just have all the more reason to make them sorry.

"You're crazy if you think he's gonna want to see it. The same ring he saw all that time in the..." He trails off at the word basement. He doesn't like to say it, doesn't like to think about it. He prefers fast cars and oblivion. Every guy in the crew needs something different.

What do you need?

A soft voice in my head asks. A voice that sounds a lot like Layla. But I ignore that voice. I don't need anything.

"He gets the option," I growl. "That's the fucking point here. And someday we're gonna get to all of them. They all die. Begging on their knees. I don't care what it takes."

Kun glares into the distance. With his knowledge, he could easily have a job at some tech company. Something that has a fitness center and stock options. He would fit in there, but he prefers to run with the crew. Most of us do. There's too much outsiders don't know. Too much we don't know to ever really fit in out there.

Kun doesn't like that I dumped the body back where it all started. He thinks it's intense that I'm keeping the promises, but I don't give a fuck. Those promises are all that keep me going.

The guys need their leader to follow through, even Kun. Especially him. I'm the stability they never got. I'm their personal fucking angel of vengeance.

"You sure the kid didn't see anything?" he asks again. Maybe he smells the lie on me, I don't know. It's fucked up that I'm lying about this, but I have her handled. That's what's important. She's a good girl. She follows the rules. She'll do what it takes to protect the people she loves. But thing is NCT didn't even know, we are childhood friend. I can't let them know. Not now.