House of Cards | Bulletproof book 2 | A BTS Gang AU

02: Let Me Know

At exactly ten forty-five, I told Soyeon I was stepping out for my lunch break. It would still be a couple hours before the drunks from the nearby bars started betting each other to go get tattoos, anyway, so it's not like I'd be missed. She waved me off with one well-manicured hand before yelling out the door after me to bring her back something to drink. I shook my head and grinned, pulling my coat up around my face to keep the icy wind away.

I turned down the now-familiar back alley behind the shop and headed toward the docks. It had become a common meeting place over the past few weeks and as I walked, my mind switched to autopilot - only alerting me to things that needed immediate attention so my conscious mind could shut off for a few blissful moments.

The smell of briny water was the first indication that I was close, followed shortly by the sound of gentle waves breaking against the pilings and bulkhead. Once I wound my way through abandoned shipping containers and spools of wire bigger than me, I found him standing at the edge of the water.

His gray hair looked silver in the moonlight where it was pulled into a short ponytail at the crown of his head. The sides were still shaved, showing off the sinewy muscles of his neck and upper shoulders. How he wasn't freezing without a coat on, I didn't know.

"You're going to catch your death of cold out here without a coat on, Kai."

He turned and flashed that devastating smile at me, pulling his hands from his pockets so he could wrap me up in a hug. I leaned into it more than I'd planned to, needing the connection with another human more than I thought I would. He rubbed his hand up and down my back and tucked my head under his chin. He was a good hugger for someone so dangerous.

When I finally pulled away, his smile was still just as warm as before. "You know that's not true."

I shrugged and offered him a weak smile of my own. "Sounded like a good thing to say at the time."

His laugh was low-pitched and quiet, but his face lit up with the effort. The duality of that man was something to behold. A killer one minute and a teddy bear the next.

"Well, then I appreciate the thought." He looked down at me, taking in my hunched frame and probably noticing the dark circles under my eyes that even heavy concealer couldn't hide. He puffed out a breath that caught on the wind and hit me like a mint-tinged breeze. "You aren't sleeping."

I tipped my shoulder up and turned to look over the water. In the crisp night air, there was no smog to speak of to cloud the view of the city lights and advertisements. Their reflections so much more beautiful than what they really were. But such was the same with some people.

"Can't really be helped, I guess," he added when I didn't say anything else. "With people in our line of work, you worry about the ones that don't have trouble sleeping."

"So which type are you?"

When I turned to look back at him over my shoulder, his gaze was far away. Almost lost. When he finally spoke, his voice had dropped. "I haven't slept a full night since I was a child."

"Kinda scary with a bunch of sleep-deprived people running around the city with guns, isn't it?"

I hadn't meant it to be terribly funny, but Kai's laugh was as sudden as it was comforting. "Yeah, probably so." He walked up beside me and leaned against the railing next to the slow-moving, brackish river clogged with hundreds of years of human apathy.

"So what news do you have for me?"

His sigh was loaded. "We haven't really learned much more from Hwasa."

I cast him a glance from the corner of my eye. "She's not talking?"

He looked down at his fingers and my stomach dropped. "We don't have her anymore."