Dancing With The Devil

owner of a lonely heart.

Fey Mansion - 13 years ago

"Appa! Stop I don't want to!" I yelled, tears rolling down my eyes, running out from the basement. "Emrie Fey! Get back here! You are weak. You are not worthy of being my daughter" Father shouted, chasing closely behind me. The thumping of his footsteps amplified as I was slowly being outrun.

My feet slipped outwards onto the wet autumn leaves as I rounded the corner outside, the cold evening air shocking my throat and lungs as I inhaled deeper, faster. I kept running but I knew my time was up. Every five steps I took, he only had to take one to match. He tackled me to the ground, holding both my arms down, the smell of alcohol lingered with every breath he exhaled. I'd been in this position far too many times already. Every time he struck me, he took away a piece of my soul, the very thing you can never regain. "Eomma!! Help me" I yelled and that was the last thing I saw before I slipped from consciousness.

Fey Mansion - Present

I woke up this morning with the same usual feeling. The feeling of sorrow, the paranoid feeling of always being followed, not easily overcome by a radio song, an upbeat tempo, or a little bit of sunshine. I always felt the urge to run, escape, hide. It was no different than when I was a child feeling the whip of Dad's belt.

There was so much more to survival than the persistence of flesh. Even after my tears had dried or my injuries had healed, my sense of self stayed broken. I kept getting more and more distorted until I could no longer recognize who I used to be.

The mind doesn't seem to comprehend time so easily. As a child, I assumed that adults were more organized in the way they thought, but it's not true at all. Over a decade later, I haven't changed, I haven't healed in any way. I was still the same little girl, just older, more scarred, and more murderous. A child weaned on poison oftentimes considers harm a comfort.

I waited at the entrance of my mansion, ready to leave for university. "Miyoung I'm leaving! Don't wanna get stuck in traffic!" I shouted. "Ok, sweetie! Give me a second!" She responded from the kitchen. Miyoung was my housekeeper, chef, makeshift mom, and everything else. She's been working for our family for way before I was born. Whenever Mom was off the rocker, she was the one who raised all my brothers and I, changing our diapers, making us lunch, getting us ready for school. She was more a parent to us than mother and father ever were combined.

She appeared from down the hall, wiping her wet hands on an apron tied tightly around her waist. Her apron was a staple of my childhood, patterned with exotic flowers and farm animals. When I thought of it, the aromas of fresh baked cookies came flooding through my mind, making my heart leap and there is always a moment of serenity. She was shorter than I was and in her mid-fifties. "Aw Em, you're so grown up it makes me so sad! Your mother would be so proud of you. I always knew you'd be the one to get a degree out of all you Fey kids" Miyoung caressed my face with her almost wrinkled hands. "Mi, you give this talk every time I leave. Stop getting all sappy. I'll only be like 40 minutes away" I chuckled.

"I know but still," she intoned with sadness. I threw one strap of my backpack over my shoulder and began to head out after kissing her cheek. I hopped in my white Mercedes Benz and started the engine, throwing my bag into the passenger seat. The sun was finishing its pilgrimage across the sky and I didn't have much daylight left to drive in. Looking back at Miyoung waving standing below the massive poles that held up the mansion, I smiled and waved back before the guards opened metal gates of the property and I drove off.

While driving on the highway, I received a call from Hyunjin, my father's right-hand man. After I took over as the company and mafia's boss, a lot of our men quit on me. They didn't trust a 19-year-old girl running the most feared mafia in the world so they left soon after father lost his title. Mafia business is all about loyalty and I couldn't force that among them. Many of them had families and working for me was a dangerous job so I let them go without consequence, something my father definitely wouldn't have. Hyunjin, however, understood that I was still a kid and he took care of a lot of business and work for me so I can still go to college and live a normal life.

"Yeah Hyunjin, what's up?" I answered, one hand still gripping the top of the wheel. "Em, we have two shipments coming in tonight on the docks. I have men to take care of it so don't worry. What you should worry about is Sejin just told me that there is trouble not far from the university. Apparently, some small-scaled gangs are rioting, so please be aware and get off that damn phone once in a while!" he ordered. "Uh, you mean the phone that you're calling me on?" I said with sass. "Whatever, go to school. Call me if anything happens!" With that he hung up, leaving me laughing by myself in my car. Hyunjin was the father figure in my life. Although he was busy with his own life and I didn't see him much, he was best friends with my father since high school. I have known him my whole life since he and Dad started working together once they graduated. He loved me like his own and I knew I could count on him more than my own father.

40 minutes drifted by pretty quickly and I arrived at my off-campus apartment. The sun had set already and a slight breeze sent shivers down my spine. I lived with my only friend Jisoo. I couldn't afford to have many friends since I was always a target and anyone I was associated with was at risk of getting hurt or more oftentimes, dying. Other than Hyunjin and Miyoung being the only people who ever really cared about me, I never fell in love with anyone. I didn't want my happiness to depend on whether a person gave me attention or not. Loving people made you weak. I don't want to stay up late wondering if he's thinking about me or cry over someone who might not care. I don't want to stare at my phone waiting for a text back. Most importantly, I don't want to give someone the power to destroy me.

If I'd learned anything, it was that love would almost always be your downfall, and on the rare occasions that it wasn't, the mere cruelty of the world would undoubtedly finish the job.

I didn't have bodyguards for physical protection either. Hyunjin suggested that I do but I refused. I'd been training in hand to hand combat, shooting, knife throwing, and everything you can think of since I was just a child so I was able to protect myself and usually kicked anyone's ass who messed with me. Jisoo was my only friend but she didn't know about half the things I did. I hated lying to her but it was for her own good.

I unpacked my bags and ate some frozen dinner while watching some lame rom-com on TV. Yeah, I was the owner of some of the country's biggest companies, a mafia queen, and a military weapon distributer, I had nearly a billion dollars in my name. But I'm a college student so if that means eating food from the frozen section of the grocery store, then so be it.

I opened my laptop to hopefully get some work done. Although I had Hyunjin and a ton of men working for me, I was still the boss so I had work and business to do. The Fey's owned a chain of hotels, casinos, restaurants, and nightclubs all over South Korea, in addition to a few locations in the States. We also made military weapons with which we sold to the military and police forces. On top of that, also being a mafia. Not the kind of mafia you would think. We didn't kill innocent people and we didn't kill to get high off the chaos of murder.

There were those that took lives and crumpled under the weight of the guilt, even if they had no choice. There were some who killed when necessary and didn't lose a wink of sleep over it, that's where I sit. There are others who made murder a hobby, breathe the wrong way and they'll attack with lethal force. That was my father in a nutshell. My father's minions were the zombies of our apocalypse. Dad had hardwired them to damage others in order to feed their addictions. A chaotic order.

However, the police department and Fey's were in good relations. In certain criminal cases where the police couldn't break rules due to politics and morals, they called us in to do the illegal dirty work in hunting these criminals. In return, we were able to do our dirty business without the fear of police involvement. It was a delicate balance between the angels and the devils but in the end, the devils always win.

From small gangs to other big mafia families, they often targeted the Feys because of the money and success we had and good graces we had with the police. On top of the things we had, we were targeted because everyone wanted revenge for the things my father did. He caused problems with any enemy he could get his hands on, some too close for comfort and some as far as across the world. My father was easily one of the most hated men to walk the planet. Ever since I took over, I was left in his warpath. Easy to say, I was never safe. It wasn't anything I was worried about. It was simply a lifestyle.

Author's Note
Hey! Thanks for checking out my story. This is my first story and I have a lot of ideas for where to take it. Hope you enjoyed the first chapter. I promise the boys will be in the next chapter! This was just a short introduction to the main character.

- A