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THE SILVER BULLET, CENTRAL SEOUL
FOUR YEARS EARLIER
Baekhyun stood at the door of the suite, unsure whether or not to enter. The door was open, but not wide enough to signify that the tenant invited people in without permission. Baekhyun had been notified that he was needed, but he was still new to how things worked with the racers—it had been much easier working with the wolves, Baekhyun found himself thinking. As the name suggested, the wolf pack—or the bikers—were much less specific about rules and conditions and such.
Not that Baekhyun refused to follow rules, of course. He would comply to any demands that would keep his head attached to his shoulders, and he didn't exactly have a great history with disobeying direct orders. In fact, doing that very thing was what had forced him to go into hiding in the first place.
Thankfully, he didn't have to wait much longer before he was called. Jungkook, who had been passing by in front of the door, spotted him and invited him to enter.
"You asked for me?" Baekhyun asked, as Jungkook led him into an open atrium. The ceiling had a gaping square hole in the center, through which tangled vines dangled, letting in mottled sunrays from the outside. Around it were a couple of armchairs, and a coffee table with a tabletop designed like a chessboard, with two chairs on either side. This was where Jungkook asked Baekhyun to sit, before taking the seat opposite him.
"Yes," the manager said, leaning back in his chair with a calm expression, probably to indicate that what he wanted to talk about was a harmless topic, and that it probably wasn't. "Something important has come up—something I need you to take care of on your own."
Baekhyun bristled inwardly, but showed no reaction. He settled comfortably into his chair, trying to look as compliant as he could, knowing that the opposite could get him in serious trouble. He had no idea what Jungkook was capable of, though he had heard of the time he had locked twenty people into a barn with lit dynamite.
"Do you remember Vernon's assignment?" Jungkook asked.
"Yes." All Baekhyun actually knew about the assignment was that Vernon had to look after a new recruit in the bikers—watching for trouble, he had called it—and that this recruit was a girl, and that Vernon had become attached to her in a way he wasn't supposed to be. He wondered how much Jungkook knew about that. "What about it?"
Jungkook slipped his phone out of his pocket, dialing a number. He set it on speaker, so Baekhyun could hear every ring resonate through the open-air atrium, and set it down on the table between them. The blond watched it with mild interest, curious about where this was going.
It wasn't long before the call was picked up, and Baekhyun leaned forward in interest. "Jungkook?" Vernon spoke.
Not a surprise. Jungkook had been talking about Vernon's assignment, so it wasn't surprising that it was him who picked up the phone. Jungkook leaned closer to make his voice clearer.
