Chapter Nine
1977 Words
I'm nobody's hero, child. I'm just throwing her a rope; the rest is up to her.
~Rom~
Romano
I was in Seoul by 6:30 in the morning. I had not been sleeping well; in fact, I hadn't slept for nine hours straight since I found out Stefano was on the verge of auctioning his daughter.
I knew the son of a b***h was a bastard but auctioning his daughter is another level of evil that I couldn't comprehend; But even as I thought that I knew I was a hypocrite, I have seen more vicious things in this world than that. Raphael's biological father shot and killed his first wife because she was an alcoholic. The irony is she probably drunk because she couldn't handle being married to a man who was vile enough to encourage his children to kill their enemies as a way to measure up who amongst them had killed enough to be the heir.
I was running out of time; the auction was about to go live any time now- rumor had it that Stefano was taking private binds. I was walking through the airport carrying a carry-on spotting one of Lee Seung-jong guys who stood surreptitiously at a corner. Our eyes met, and he signaled to follow him, which I did.
My feet felt lighter like I was walking on air, except I was not only operating on adrenaline but also with very little sleep. Falling in step with Seung's guy, he gave me a barely-there look and a nod but said no word. I liked him, a man who didn't feel the need to fill the silence with unnecessary chatter.
We walked in unison, him on my right as we passed through crowds of people, submerged in between travelers solely to obscure my presence in the country. I did not want the grapevine to start before I knew where Stefano was holding her.
The guy suddenly curved a corner on my left, moving his eyes right and left like he expected to see someone he did not want to see - or maybe he just wanted to see that no one saw us pushing to open an almost unrecognized door which resembled the wall around it. I heard him sign loudly, stepping aside, signaling me to enter. The room was dark, but I could hear voices coming from a place far off somewhere within.
Keeping my steps with the guy in front of me, I started feeling anxious, not because of who or what awaited me in that room- I knew I could deal with that - what made me uneasy was the fact that I was taking responsibility of a woman whom I didn't know from eve.
I wondered what she was like, this young woman whose life was about to be auctioned off to the most ruthless men I knew. It got me wondering, was she a fighter? Because God knew she needed to be.
I heard laughter and a chortle. A childlike endearing emitted by a grown man whose good looking face carried a scar on his forehead, countless tattoos covering every visible part of his body. He stood with his arms outstretched towards me, smiling, revealing one of his broken teeth which he often bragged got while fighting the system while we all knew he got fighting his big brother when he was nine.
"Romano" he called, hurrying to me like he was afraid I would disappear.
"Seung" I breathed, laughing a little as he embraced me like I was his long lost brother whom he adored. I chuckled, hiding the unease that swept through me as I stood in his embrace.
"You need my help?, ehm" He whispered in my ear. It was more of a statement than a question, and I nodded, then saying yes, I indeed needed his help.
"And you got it," He assured me, palming my cheeks as a father does to a son who needs assurance. While I felt uncomfortable with this man's hands on me, I didn't show it; to do so would have been interpreted as disrespectful and also because I needed his help. He was the only person I knew who could help me hack into Stefano's system.
He was also one of the most loyal men I knew outside my family. He was fair but vicious when crossed. There was a lot told about this man, but nobody knew enough to separate facts from fiction, much like how most people knew or heard of me.
I needed to get a copy of all the private bidders and the amount of money he had received so l could top the list just in case the situation called for it. But the thought of giving my money to that son of a b***h grated on me. I also wasn't sure I could get completely away with it. Someone was bound to find out about it. And that was one reputation I didn' want attached to me.
"Come meet my friends," he said, leading me to the one lone guy who looked like a sixteen-year-old boy sitting in a small corner his fingers typing furiously on a computer. He wore designer glasses, giving him a professional look that could have placed him in some prestigious law firm offices somewhere in Newyork instead of a dubious dump room in Seoul surrounded by big lethal-looking men holding their guns the same way older people hold their walking sticks.
He looked mischievous with a tiny smile flirting at the corner of his mouth, looking at Seung.
The young boy looked at me and then at Seung.
"This man right here," Seung pointing at me, "is a good friend of mine, and he needs our help" He fisted my upper arm for a second or so before he moved to stand behind the boy trying to see what he was working on. I had heard some rumors about how gifted this boy was from the guys in our circles, Raphael even joked about trying to steal him from Seung sometimes back, but that would have been underhanded, and the boy wouldn't have agreed. He worshipped Seung, probably saw him like a father or something.
I stood rooted, waiting for Seung to explain what I needed, trying to do some gouging of mine as to what kind of a person this boy was. Could he keep a secret? Would he help me? Would it be possible to hack into Stefano's accounts to give me what I wanted?
Lost in my thoughts, I didn't hear Seung call my name.
"Hey!" He slapped my back, thrusting me back to the present.
"Tell him what you need" He motioned, dragging a chair to sit next to the boy who seemed excited that Seung could sit next to him. Yes, I was right; it was a case of hero-worship.
Opening the brown envelope I carried, I removed two documents and handed them to him. As he bent his head to read, Seung looked at me, smiling and pointed at him. "He is my son," I smiled back, nodding indulgently, "No, he is" I nodded again, turning my face to look at the boy. "Damn it, man! He is," he sounded explosive. "Not many people know this, but he is," I thought he was joking, or just taking pride in how smart Mac was and wanting to take care of him in the world he had chosen, but the man was serious. I turned my head to him and then to the boy again, beginning to notice some similarities. Damn it! He was him, son! I did not want to know that. Now, if anyone outside this family ever finds out this was his kid, I will always be the first suspect or among the first.
"I hope you know I will never breathe a word of this to anyone," I said, looking at the man who I had known and interacted with for over a decade and never really knew. But in this business, what you saw is what you got, but that didn't mean what you saw was what was there. People had layers of them, just like I did. What the outside world saw of me is not what my family saw. My family knew all the layers I had, not entirely all, but almost. They're things that should remain secrets.
"Of course I know that my friend," Seung said, standing up and moving at the corner of the room towards a refrigerator which I had not seen. He took out two beers, throwing one to me before he retook his seat. "His name is Mac" he let out a mirthless laugh, "his mother's idea" I got the sense that he didn't like the idea of his son having an English name, but I could have been wrong, but whatever it was, I didn't ask. To be honest, I didn't care.
"Tell us what you need," He said again, guzzling the beer like it was water.
"I need you to hack into someone's account. Can you do that?" I asked, looking at Mac. His eyes moved to his father's face like he was asking for permission before he could answer me.
"Whose account?" Seung's voice was suspicious like I was telling him to hack one of his friend's accounts. To my knowledge and those of my family, Seung was no friend of Stefano.
"Stefano's," I said, taking a bit of a sip from my beer trying to appear nonchalant. "The guy who is selling that hot virgin," Mac exclaimed, smiling like the infamous Cheshire cat, his teenagehood in total display.
"You've seen her," it was my turn to be shocked.
"Hell yeah! She is hot!" he smiled, his fingers typing something on his laptop before he turned to show me.
Few events in my life remind me of how I felt the first time I experienced them, like how I felt the first time I saw Raph, or how I felt when I realized that I had finally acquired a family. I wasn't alone anymore. Seeing her face was another memory for me. Her image-filled my brain the instance my eyes saw it, maybe it was her eyes, or the eyebrows or the smooth face that shone like the sun, or the fake smile that did not show fear but resentment and little sadness that she tried very much to hide. I don't know what it was exactly, but I knew I was going to rescue her or die trying. Not because she was beautiful because God knows she was, nor was it because I had a good heart; I didn't, it was rotten, pretending otherwise doesn't change that.
Wanting to save her came from one basic principle that everybody should get their god-given right to be who they wanted to be, and choose what they wanted to do. Auctioning her robbed her of that.
"Her face seems like a shock to you. Don't you know her?" Mac inquired, shooting a strange look at me. For the first time, I was glad I didn't know her, it was a better an explainable rumor as to why I was putting my ass on the line to save this girl than some speculation that I was in love with her.
I shook my head slowly.
"Why would you go to such length to safe someone you don't know?"
"Because she is an innocent, venerable girl who is about to be thrown to a wolf den, and no-one will bother to throw her a rope to save herself."
"So, you've decided to appoint yourself as her hero?"
I laughed a little, amused at how childlike the word hero sounded to my ears "I'm nobody's hero, child. I'm just throwing her a rope; the rest is up to her. " I quipped, looking at the face that was going to be the last face my brain saw before I slept, and the first one I saw every waking moment.
I didn't like it. If I believed in superstition, I would say she was haunting me.
- Writer
