Beneath the Surface // Moonsun

Chapter 24

Byulyi POV

The Krystal Jung special smelled a little more rotten than usual when I visited our guest today. The acrid smell seeped its way through the cracks in the soundproof door and down the hallway. Perhaps it's due to the fact that she's had her way with him down in the torture room for nearly seventy-two hours now and we're no closer to getting anything from him. Not a name. Not an address. Not a single item of inventory.

Even the information Wheein managed to get on the flashdrive were coded, numbered inventory lists that meant nothing to me. She and Hwasa are working out the coding together whenever the latter finishes her rounds around Newport. It's slow work that I don't have the patience for.

"He'll talk," Krystal is insisting from her seat at the meeting room's table, "and when he does it'll be all the sweeter."

"Make sure you don't kill him any sooner than that," I say curtly, barely giving her a glance.

The crescents of her fingernails are an inky black as she impatiently drums them on the table, aching to return to her torture dungeon I'm sure. She probably hasn't washed her hands since her last session with Hamlet.

I haven't spoken to her directly for the better part of a week and have ignored all of her attempts at contacting me. If it was important, it would've come through Wheein anyway.

"Hamlet hasn't spoken a word in three days," Wheein says from the opposing end of the table. "It's time to move forward based on the information that we already have."

I quickly lose interest in this ever-circular round of topics we've been discussing these past couple of days. I roll my shoulder, still stiff and aching. I had come close to death that day for nothing. If that Rachel bitch wanted me dead she only had to have aimed that bullet a little bit lower. It doesn't fail to irk me. How could someone so stupid and insignificant catch me by surprise and hold that sort of power over my life?

Wheein claims that I should just be thankful to be alive. On the contrary, I want to murder Rachel with my bare hands for degrading me like that—for embarrassing me in front of Hamlet and Yongsun.

"You think they'll come for him?" Hyejin asks quietly. I tune back into the conversation for a moment. "We caused a big mess over at Morgan Harbor."

"They know we're based in Newport," Tailah says with her hands folded on the table, "but if they knew exactly how to hit us where it hurts, they would've done it by now."

"Perhaps they've inserted a spy in our midst to find out." I give her a sharp smile that she seems amused by. Wheein shoots me eye-daggers from across the table.

I don't trust Tailah and how she sits at our tables and plays nice like she never betrayed us a year ago. Wheein's never led me astray before, but I can't get past the feeling that her judgement is somehow clouded with whatever was between them before.

Taliah's face is open and earnest. "As long as you people are helping me get my daughter back I'll be in your debt. I already know Lin holds her as a bargaining chip, they'll never release her even if I did help them."

The daughter. I'd completely forgotten about her and didn't even know we were wasting precious resources trying to find her. I glance at Wheein whose face gives nothing away. Releasing a heavy sigh through my nose, I steeple my fingers in my lap.

"Whatever. You're the one I'm least concerned about right now."

"Gee thanks?"

Krystal hums, picking at her teeth with her dirty nails. "Well don't get cocky yet. One screw up and you won't be able to blink before I have my hand so far up your ass—"