C31 - Soul-ed MATE

The door to the Inferna doesn’t swing open when I knock this time. No one’s expecting me, but I’m damn well going to come inside. My righteous fury is almost enough to burn down the building. I’m trembling in the cold as I wait with barely leashed rage.

It’s Kim Taehyung who opens the door, the one alpha who auctioned me.

“Jimin. Are you alright?”

A bitter laugh breaks from me. “You’re the second person to ask me that today.”

“I heard what happened, and—”

“Is he here? I know he is.”

I push my way past Kim Taehyung, ready to be a bulldozer if I need to be. Or even a goddamn tank. I’m ready for war.

“Yoongi?”

Smoke rises from the circle of men reclining in leather chairs. Dangerous men, all of them powerful, many of them armed. I feel no fear as I face them. “Where’s Yoongi?”

Some of them look amused, others annoyed. I recognize Kang Daniel from the auction. He gives a cool glance toward the stairs. With a short nod of thanks, I take them two at a time.

Now I understand how Yoongi felt when he took down my father. There’s a burning hunger inside me, to smash things, to ruin them—and that’s exactly what I plan to do.

Min Yoongi will be broken by the time I’m done with him. He’ll beg me to stop. There’s only one piece of furniture left in the strange-light room. A chair, plain and made of wood. That’s where Yoongi sits, expression haunted as he stares at a stack of papers in his hand.

Before I even reach him, I know what he’s seeing.

My destruction.

My shame.

He looks up, and I see the bone-deep weariness in his eyes that matches my own. It’s the kind that comes from a lifetime of secrets, of darkness. Of pretending they can’t hurt you when you’re already bleeding. It doesn’t soften me toward him in the slightest.

I’ll twist the knife if I have to.

“Jimin,” he mutters, and I’m not sure I’ve ever heard him say my name before. I won’t let that soften me either.

“You asshole,” I say, trembling with anger. “I knew you were dirty and underhanded. I knew you would purchase people rather than winning them the honourable way. But this?”

His brows lower. “Who told you?”

“Where do I even start? You have so many secrets and all of them are vile. Just like you.”

“It might help if you explain,” he says tightly. “So, I know what we’re discussing when you insult me.”

“Insult you?” I’m almost breathless with indignation. “Insult you? Fine. I’ll explain what I’m talking about. We’ll play that game as if you don’t know that my house was vandalized.”

“Hyejin.”

“Hyejin. That’s all you have to say about that? That you e-mailed her specifically to tell her not to tell me. Conspiring with her to keep me in the dark. For what?”

“Well, because—” His eyes narrow. “How do you know what I e-mailed her? I can’t imagine she would tell you the details of our private correspondence.”

“Correspondence.” I let out a breath. “That’s a pretty fancy term for sabotage. Betrayal. Need I go on?”

“I’d prefer that you didn’t.”

“And for your information, Hyejin didn’t show me the e-mails. I looked at her laptop when she left the room. Yes, I was devious and underhanded. I learned from the bests, after all.”

Anger flashes across his golden eyes. “That information is confidential.”

“My body is confidential, you asshole.”

He cocks his head. “The pictures. You saw them.”

It takes everything in me not to launch myself at him, to use my broken nails like claws, to bite him. He makes me savage, like the wild animal that he is.

“Yes, the pictures. The pictures you took. The pictures you shared. Did that make you feel better about what my father did? Ruining him wasn’t enough? Ruining me...wasn’t enough?”

“Stop,” he says roughly. “You think I did this?.”

“I saw them!”

“I didn’t share.”

“Yes, you did.”

“Then you know they don’t match the photos we took in this room. You never took off your panties. Your face was hidden by your hair and shadow.”

My teeth clench so hard I hear grinding. “I know what pictures we took.”

“And I sure as hell didn’t share them, even though I had a right to. Taehyung

gave me hell for not passing them on, but I wasn’t letting anyone see what was mine.”

“Yours? Oh no, I don’t belong to you. Not then, not now.”

“I have a winning bid on an auction that says otherwise. The thirty days aren’t up yet.”

“That can’t come fast enough,” I say, challenging him. I’ve never been this fearless confronting him, facing anyone, but he’s pushed me to the edge. “And I already know those pictures didn’t come from this room, but you could have taken them anytime I was in your house.”

An electric silence fills the space around us, setting the colored light in the room on edge. Black and yellow dust motes dance around us, energized.

“You think—” His nostrils flare, his eyes golden but with a hint of antagonism. “You think I took pictures of you while you were in my house, without you knowing?...”

“How else does someone have them?”

He continues as if I didn’t speak, working it through with slow, pained deliberation. “...And you think I shared those pictures with the world out of spite, out of revenge on someone who’s done nothing wrong.”

Doubt flickers inside me. “D-didn’t you?” I expect him to admit it—he’s never shied away from what he’s done. If anything he seems to take perverse pleasure in threatening me, in using me, in pointing out all the ways he hurts me.

Or maybe he’ll deny it, after all. He’ll defend his honour with the same vigour and violence with which he went after my father. He’ll come after me, and when we clash, it will be so satisfying.

He does neither of those things. Instead, he stalks to the window, large hands cradling the window frame, large body canting forward. Over his shoulder I can see the city’s skyline rising high and swerving sideways, like looking through a fun-house mirror.

“You have good reason to suspect me,” he says softly.

I take a step closer. “Don’t.”

“I’m sorry, Jimin.” But it’s not the kind of apology that comes with an admission. It’s soft and thoughtful, the kind that would come from someone who actually gives a shit about me.

“Don’t pull this reverse psychology bullshit on me. I know what you did.”

A short laugh, without any humour. “And what are you going to do about it, Virgin lily? You’re powerless. No money. No one to help you. Living one step up from a cardboard box.”

It stings to hear him lay it out so plainly, but I have the feeling it hurts him too. “I can fight back,” I warn him. I’m still pumped enough to do it, finally pushed beyond all sanity. I could hit him. Kick him. Bite him. Even with the unspooling thread of doubt that he did this to me, I’d be able to hurt someone for the first time in my life.

“Like you did in the attic?” He turns to face me. “I won’t stop you this time.”

And I realize this is my own personal Rubicon, the line I’m going to cross. There will be two versions of Park Jimin, the one who was a victim and the one who’s a warrior. The one who refused to do harm and the one who slaps a man who won’t defend himself.

I’m not sure which version of me is better, but I’m hurting enough to do it anyway. All I have to do is remember the grainy black-and-white pictures of me, taken when I didn’t know it.

Shared to humiliate and shame me.

All I have to do is remember Namjoon saying he forgives me for something I didn’t even do.

“Go ahead,” he murmurs. “I didn’t take those pictures, but I’m not going to pretend I’m innocent. If I hadn’t ruined your father, he wouldn’t have turned on his partners. They wouldn’t have attacked him. You’d have a protector in the world instead of being alone.”

My hands clench into fists. “Keep going.”

His eyes flash with something—maybe regret. Maybe relief. “And that business deal where your father cheated me? Even before that it wasn’t completely legal. He was desperate enough to sell his business for more than it was worth. Desperate enough to include you in the package.”

“No,” I whisper.

What does that even mean—include you? Like I’m an object, a little yellow price tag ‘For Sale’stamped on my chest.

“You’re lying.”

“One month.”

“He would never have asked me that.”

“Of course not. He would have arranged for you to find out about his debts. Maybe your credit card would get declined when you tried to buy notebooks and pencils. And then he’d break down and confess how dire the situation was, how horrible I’m. If only there was something he could do to please me, something he could give me—”

“No.” My voice rises to a shout. “No. No. No. No. No.”

“I already bought you before you even knew it, Jimin. You’ve always been mine.”

Grief and rage collide in a toxic fog, blurring my vision. A keening sound fills the air, and I realize it’s me. And then I’m doing it; I’m hitting him, again and again, and he takes every punch I throw at him.

I’m using all my strength and it barely moves him, the smack ugly and loud. It’s the sound of someone breaking—but not him.

It’s me.

When he finally catches me in his arms, I’m sobbing, incoherent.

“Shh,” he says. “You have to stop. You’ll hurt yourself.”

When he says it, I realize that my hand is throbbing. My whole body is shaking. That’s how strong he is, how impenetrable. Like beating myself against a brick wall. He’ll still be standing in a hundred years.

“No,” I say, voice thick with tears. “You’re lying. You’re lying.” Except he’s not. I know because he promised to tell me the truth. And he’s kept his word time and time again. It feels like losing a part of me, a limb torn off, to hear what Dad did.

How could he do it? Some truths you’d rather not hear. His hands move over me, soothing, tender. “I know, bluebell. I know.”

“She didn’t love him,” I say, voice still broken by tears.

“I know.”

I don’t ask how he does, but that’s true too. There are secrets in my family. Secrets so dark I’m beginning to wonder if they buried my mother deeper than the accident ever did. There’s only been one constant.

Min Yoongi.

That he’s wanted me. He’s taken me.

‘You’ve always been mine.’

His hands frame my face. I must look terrible with my eyes red from crying, grief staining my face, but the reverence in his gaze leaves no doubt what he sees. Someone beautiful.

“Listen to me,” he says softly. “Your mother lived in a time when omegas didn’t have many choices. She did the best she could for her family. She was strong—damn near invincible.”

I never doubted my mother. “Why are you telling me this?”

His thumbs sweep away my tears. “Because that’s what you did. That’s what you are.” He cleans the snot from the heel of his palm.

“I don’t live in her time.”

“Don’t you? Your father wanted to keep you as his little omega. He would let you out of your room for parties to impress the other grownups with how smart you are. Namjoon wanted a trophy, something to parade around and lord over the other frat boys.”

“And you?”

“I’m the worst of them,” he says softly. “I want to own every inch of your skin, to be the only man who touches you, who tastes you. You think I wouldn’t bid on someone as chaste as you? That I shouldn’t bid on you, of all people? I’ll spend every cent I have, break every goddamn law to keep you.”

A shiver runs through me. “You wanted the auction.”

“Wanted it? No. Those were the worst hours of my life, knowing that others would see you. That they might touch you. I wanted to smash their faces in, every single one of them.”

“Then why did you suggest it?”

“Would you have sold yourself to me if I had suggested it at the Inferna?”

“No.”

“And what about if your father had come to you, told you to sleep with me in order to pay his debts?”

I swallow hard. “I...I don’t know.”

“Oh, I think you would have. I think you’d have done anything for your precious Dad, but he got cold feet. After the ink dried, when he went home and looked into your eyes, he didn’t want to go through with it.”

It’s hard to take comfort in that, knowing he agreed to the deal in the first place. “And no one backs out of a deal with you.”

“For that alone I would have ruined him, but I wanted you. He should have known I’d have you no matter what. Whether he agreed or not. Whether you wanted me or not.”

“Why are you telling me now?”

His lips twist in cold amusement. “I didn’t count on how well you could play the game.”

“I lost everything.”

“It wasn’t a fair trade,” he admits softly. “My black heart for everything you hold dear. Your only solace is that I’m ruined even worse. An empty shell.”

“What are you saying?” I whisper.

“Do you remember when I told you to kneel?”

My heart thuds. “I can’t forget.”

“Why did you do it?”

“Because I wanted the diary.”

Except that’s not the whole truth. And doesn’t he deserve that? I wanted him broken, bleeding, and he’s doing that. This proud man admitting defeat.

“And because I wanted you.” I add.

His eyes burn like the sun, painful and bright. “Do you know what it did to me? God, I was so ready to take you. I would have taken you and taken you. Never giving anything back. Understand? I never thought for one second that you’d give yourself to me willingly.”

“You never came to me.”

“I never believed I could have you without buying you,” he says, his voice flat. There’s nothing in his tone to reveal emotion, no hint of weakness.

How long did it take him to perfect that facade?

How much power does it require to maintain those walls?

I know the truth about him—about Yoongi’s father and his limnio. His Darkmoon omegas.

What did Min Yoongi see that made him think he wasn’t worthy of love?

“Kneel,” I say softly.

He stills. “Repeat that.” It’s a dangerous game, making a lion bow in front of you. One I’m willing to play if it means winning. It’s not only my safety that’s at stake, but my heart. Not as black as Yoongi’s, but more fragile.

“Kneel.”

!!~~~~~!!!!~~~~~!!