The tattooed woman stared me down as though she was assessing me, but there was no change in her apathetic, cold eyes. “You’re one of his sons, then, I guess.” She punched in a number on a mobile intercom system that looked like those outdated walkie talkies. “Park Jungho-ssi, one of the Baek brothers is here to see you. The younger.”

Ice water flooded through my veins at the sound of his name. Even though I had known that I was most likely seeing him, I had hoped that maybe I would only need to talk to one of his lackeys. 

“Send him up,” a grouchy voice crackled through the intercom.  

The woman looked at me and pointed at the staircase leading up from the back of the front office. “Go upstairs.” She returned her focus to the game on her phone I had interrupted. 

I made my way to the stairs apprehensively. As I took the first step, I heard voices coming from the basement below. I caught the sound of someone protesting, then a dull thud. I shuddered and, despite my earlier reticence, picked up my pace and ascended hurriedly. 

To my surprise, the stairs led immediately to a luxuriously furnished open space. The expensive furniture and plush rug contrasted sharply to the stark lower floor. I felt my heart in my throat. The racks of guns and ill-gotten trophies that I naively hoped as a child to see in Park Bonghwan’s house were openly displayed here. Rare animal pelts and bared swords decorated the walls. It was almost cartoonishly similar to what I had expected to see back then. A man was languidly sprawled on a leather sofa. He didn’t look up at me from his phone (I think he was playing the same game as the woman downstairs) but I recognized him as the other man who had been with Park Bonghwan that day, and I tried to keep my heart calm. At the end of the room, a second man sat at a glossy mahogany desk. It was Han Jungho. 

He had noticed me taking a look around his office. “I see you like what I’ve done with the place.” His voice rumbled like rocks in a river, low and throaty. I’d never heard any other voice like that, and I shivered to remember it. I hastily blurted out my most polite greeting, bowing low and holding it. He waved me over. “Sit down.” 

“I-I’m just here to deliver the money my father owes.” I hated that I had stuttered upon first speaking. I took out the envelope of money I had just withdrawn from the ATM. 

“You’d better sit down,” growled the other man from the sofa. I hastily obeyed.  It seemed like the guy on the sofa was probably Jungho’s guard/muscle. Not that it looked like Jungho needed it. He himself was an enormous man with scarred arms rippling with muscle. 

Han Jungho gestured impatiently with his hand and I quickly handed the envelope to him. I sat and nervously watched him as he counted it quickly with practiced efficiency. “Well, damn,” he said. “It’s all there.” 

Hopefully they would let me go now. But that didn’t seem to be the case, as Jungho asked, “Where did you get it?”

I knew instinctively that it was dangerous to tell him, lest he target me for payments over my father. I held my tongue. 

A moment later the man on the couch rose up and grabbed me by the shoulder, squeezing tight. I choked on my heart in my throat again from the pain of his crushing grip. “He asked you a question,” the bruiser said threateningly. 

“I made it from my work,” I stuttered out. 

“And you kept this much back from your parents? You’re a disgraceful son,” Park Jungho said. My face burned. I often thought that way about myself when I looked at my savings, but to hear someone else say it was a new pain I hadn’t yet experienced. 

“Do Hoon pays you well, doesn’t he?” So he knew where and who I worked after all. Panicked, I hoped that they wouldn’t bring  Mr. Do into our conflict. 

I didn’t know if it was a rhetorical question or not, but I didn’t feel like testing their ire. “I work a lot,” I said quietly, in case they had wanted an answer. I mentally begged them to let me go now, but they didn’t. 

Han Jungho dug through a drawer, and my pulse spiked. What was he going to take out? Belatedly, I caught sight of his metal bat leaning ominously against the wall behind him. The many dents in its silvery surface seemed to wink at me maliciously. 

It was a cigarette. Jungho stuck it in his mouth and lit it. He took a long drag off it and exhaled the smoke pointedly at my face. I barely kept from coughing. 

“I’m glad you finally showed up,” he said. “I’ve been looking for you to talk about your debt.”

My debt? I supposed he must be lumping my father and I as one entity.

He studied my face. His bruiser had loosened his grip after I had answered, but now he laid his other hand on my shoulder. I shifted uncomfortably, not knowing what was going to happen next. 

“Do you know how much your father owes us?” 

I nodded. The sum was burned into my mind and always hovered above me like a doomsday counter. 

“Do you know why your father owes us that much?”

“Park Bonghwan said he got it from some other guy,” I stuttered. I didn’t actually know what the reason was, but he was always racking up debt for any number of reasons. 

Jungho broke into a wide, predatory grin. “He didn’t get it from Il-sung. Your mother did.”

I felt like the ceiling had collapsed on me. I didn’t know what possible reason my mother could have for borrowing a ridiculous sum like that. I tried to shake my captor off but the bruiser’s grip held me still.  “T-thats impossible,” I struggled to say. “Why would.. why would she—-“

“That’s funny that you don’t know. She said it was for your college tuition.” The ceiling had already fallen on me, but now it felt like a steamroller was trying to crush the rubble above me. 

“I never— I never even applied—I didn’t even,” I stuttered helplessly. I hadn’t even finished high school. 

“You obviously didn’t go to university,” snapped Jungho. “But either way, the money’s gone, so she or your father must have used it for something else.” He continued as my thoughts crashed around in my head like caged birds. “It’s a pretty good little scheme she ran, actually. She specifically asked Il-sung, who was pretty new. All he knew about your scummy family was that your hotshot brother was off at some fancy university. So he believed her when she told him you were going to go to one too. Well, now Il-sung is less a few fingers, and the rest of us are left fixing this mess.”

I couldn’t believe it. Why are you listening to this asshole telling you all this?a voice in my head screamed. He was a lawless gangster. Everything he was saying could all be lies. Anger took hold and suddenly I found my voice again. “I want to speak to Park Bonghwan-ssi. How do you expect me to believe any of this?” 

“Park Bonghwan’s gone,” said Jungho apathetically. “He failed to collect. That’s the problem I’m trying to avoid right now.” With the henchman holding me down, he got up casually and walked over to a filing cabinet and took a piece of paper out. “If you don’t believe me, see the contract for yourself.” 

He slid the piece of paper across the desk. My eyes widened in shock as I scanned down it. It was true. My mother’s name was written and signed on it, and ….

“That’s your name right there.” Jungho tapped a thick finger against the document. It was undeniable now. Right in the section of the document listing the reason for the loan was my mother’s handwriting. For my son Baek Jaehyun’s college tuition. 

In a surge of panic fueled adrenaline, I actually managed to stand despite the henchman’s hands on my shoulder. But I wasn’t able to escape like I had hoped to do. He shoved me back down. “Sit down!” he shouted. 

Jungho glared at me and I felt any bit of resistance I had managed to summon flee instantly. I was completely in a panic now. “Up to now, your father’s been the co-signer paying back the loan. But he’s not reliable. You, however… you’ve always done whatever you could to get the money to pay it back. Now that’s the kind of guy I want to do business with!” He pointed at me, but for all my panic it felt like he had pierced me with a spear. 

“So I want to do this, Baek Jaehyun-a. I want you to be the new co-signer and our primary contact from now on. Your name’s on this contract already.” He tapped the contract again. “So let’s–” 

There was a sudden commotion downstairs. The voice of the front desk woman, apathetic no longer, was arguing with someone. Jungho snapped his attention from me to the stairway. He nodded to the bruiser, who let me go and started towards it. But he had only taken a couple of steps before someone had rushed up the stairs and stopped, casting a menacing figure. 

It was Taejun.