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PROLOGUE
The mist hung low, a storm was raging on the horizon and I was standing there, watching dead sharks pile up on the shore of Incheon.
The previous night, a police raid happened out in the open sea and it reached an unexpectedly violent climax. Three drug smugglers got torn apart by sharks, but not before throwing their product in the ocean. The police operation was a complete failure and now, my partner and I were forced to pay the price for it. '' I should've known that something bad was gonna happen when I got a call from work on a Sunday. ''
'' You make it sound like you do anything eventful on Sundays, '' my partner grumbled in response and placed a cigarette between his chapped lips. The sea breeze was toying with his dark curls, his cheeks were rosy from the cold and his old sneakers were sinking in the wet sand. His expression remained grim when he took his eyes off the forensic team that already closed different parts of the beach, glanced in my direction and raised his eyebrows in question. '' Ledo and I made a bet about that. He thinks that you ask for free days just because you want us to believe that you have a life outside of work, but you don't fool me... I know that it's when you secretly indulge in some kind of weird hobby, but my detective skills have yet do decide if it's cosplay or writing smutty fanfiction. ''
On most days, I didn't mind Hyuk's company and I played along with his attempts to provoke me, but that Sunday was different. My heart was filled with dread and ever since the morning, when I got rudely kicked out of bed by my boss's phone call, I couldn't shake off the feeling that something bad was going to happen. At this point, it wasn't even a matter of if, only when.
In my life, there was an everlasting atmosphere of gloom. I had grown accustomed to its company and it was nothing like the uneasy anticipation that I was feeling that Sunday.
As of cue, the clouds hit us with a sudden downpour and my face lit up in a flash of lightning.
The thundering was so loud that I almost didn't hear the sound of my phone. I thought that it was my boss calling, to check how things were going on the beach, but to my surprise - it was an unknown number.
'' Yes? This is detective Kim Chito speaking, '' I answered the phone without thinking, as soon as I made it back to my car.
For a few moments, there was silence. Then - a voice so achingly familiar that just the sound of it was enough to tear my heart into shreds. '' Chito? Is that really you? You take yourself so seriously these days. I almost thought that I got the wrong number. ''
Navi was a fleeting star in my life, a whirlwind of trauma, resentment and pain, a catastrophe that destroyed everything in her path. The last time that I had heard from my sister was three months ago, when she knocked on my door in the middle of the night and asked me to hide a kilogram of cocaine in the freezer. I was already part of the police force by then and I knew the consequences if someone would find the drugs in my home, but I still did it. Why? Because it was her. Because she was family.
