When we finally did arrive, he was ushered away by a doctor. I stood in the waiting room, still fueled by anger at not being allowed in with him.
“Miss, please let us see to your injuries,” a nurse was asking.
“I would rather be with Ha Kyungu,” I snapped at her. I sucked in a deep breath. There was no reason for me to be this aggressive with someone trying to help me. I apologized and allowed her to lead me to my own bed, calling Tae in the process.
Tae arrived half an hour later, alone. By that time, I had fresh white bandages on my knees and a red mark on my elbow which was going to turn into a nice bruise. “The bandages are overkill,” I said as soon as Tae saw them. “Band aids would have been fine.”
“Holly, what the hell happened? Are you OK? Where’s Kyun?”
“I’m sore, but it’s nothing more than a graze,” I assured him. “Kyun is being seen to by a doctor. He was beaten up.”
“You said that on the phone. Why?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know, Tae. He didn’t say anything in the ride to the hospital and then he’s been with the doctor. I’m waiting for someone to tell me I can see him, and then I’ll ask him.”
“I swear to god, if this has anything to do with his father, I’m going to kill him,” Tae growled, pacing back and forth beside my bed.
“Why would this have anything to do with his father?” I asked, my eyes going wide.
“Because the only thing that has changed for Kyun is you reintroducing him to his father.”
Before I could comment, a nurse pulled back the curtain. “Are you Ha Kyungu’s guardian?”
“Yes,” both Tae and I responded, instantly.
“The doctor has finished with him. You can see him now if you want to.”
If you want to…?
We followed after the nurse and she led us to Kyun’s room. He was sitting up in bed with a large band aid covering the cut on his forehead—funny how they found one for him—but his lip and cheek was red and swollen.
“Kyunnie!” Tae hurried over to Kyun’s side, grabbing his chin to point it up in his direction. “What did you do?”
“Ha Kyungu can consider himself lucky,” the doctor said, appearing behind us. “He’s going to be sore for a few days, and there will be a few nasty looking bruises. I would advise a couple of weeks rest, but we did some x-rays and there’s no broken bones.”
“He can go home today?” Tae asked.
The doctor nodded. “I see no reason to keep him in overnight. I will have the nurse put the discharge paperwork together and you should be out of here in a couple of hours.”
I thanked him, waiting for him to leave so I could close the door. The moment I turned around, Tae all but exploded on him.
“What the hell happened to you? Who did this?”
Hurrying over, I placed a hand on Tae’s arm and tugged him back. “Let’s not yell at each other.” I turned to Kyun and perched on the bed, putting myself between the two of them. Kyun was absolutely safe from Tae, but I wanted to act as a buffer just in case Tae started shouting again.
Kyun stared at Tae, a mixture of embarrassment and regret in his eyes. He looked away and dropped his head. “My father has been gambling. Those men were his loan sharks.”
“Why did they come after you?” I asked.
“I fucking knew he couldn’t be trusted,” Tae exploded.
Turning, I looked at Tae in surprise. This level of anger was out of character for him. I stood and walked over to him. “Can you do me a favor and get me a coffee? I haven’t had anything to drink and I’m cold.”
“Holly—”
“Please?” I said, giving him a look, which told him I wasn’t really asking.
Tae’s eyes narrowed, but he turned on his heals and stormed out of the room.
I moved back to the bed and found Kyun was still staring at his lap. “Tell me. I’ll tell Tae everything after so that you don’t have to. He just cares.”
“There’s not much else to tell,” Kyun mumbled. “They didn’t really say anything other than I was now responsible for my father’s debt.”
“Did they say how much it was?”
“Fifty million.”
I blew out a breath. “I think it’s safe to say your father wasn’t moving apartments.” As I folded my arms, starting to work out what our options were, the door opened. “Tae, I didn’t really want…” I trailed off as Ha Jeonggu burst in, rushing over to Kyun’s bed.
“Son! Are you OK?”
Maybe it was everything that had happened, but I couldn’t tell if he looked genuinely concerned or not.
Jeonggu reached out, but Kyun jerked back out of his way. “What are you doing here?”
“The hospital called me.”
“Did they?” Kyun asked, his eyes narrowing in suspicion. “You haven’t been listed as my guardian on anything since I went to live with Hyuntae and his mom. Are you sure your loan shark didn’t call you?”
Jeonggu took a step back from the bed. “It’s not what you think.”
“Really?!” Kyun asked, his eyes narrowing. “Because they said since you owed them fifty million won you didn’t have, you passed that responsibility over to me. And then they hit me.” Kyun pointed at his split lip and bruising cheek.
“I told them that to give me some time for me to get it together,” he said, hurriedly. “I was going to settle my debt by myself.”
“And the money you’ve already had from me?” Kyun asked. “Did you get back in my life because you needed money?” I saw it then. The cold mask he was wearing couldn’t hide the hint of desperation in his eyes. Kyun still had hope for his father.
Ha Jeonggu stared back at him, then suddenly, he shrugged. “You earn more than enough money. Your responsibility as a son is to look after your father. And you owe me years.”
The desperation in Kyun’s eyes suddenly disappeared. “I don’t owe you anything.”
Jeonggu’s gave his son a twisted sneer. “Just be a good son and give me some money.”
“Ha Jeonggu, I think it’s time to leave,” I said. I wasn’t going to take any more of this bullshit behavior.
Jeonggu turned and the look he gave me had warning alarms going off in the back of my head. “Holly Lee. Vice Chairwoman and heir of Atlantis Entertainment… How much is your company worth to you?”
“If you want money, I’ll give you money,” Kyun said. “Don’t bring Holly into this.”
“Why? Don’t you want your girlfriend to meet her father-in-law?”
Baby Don’t Stop
“Holly?” Kyun repeated in disbelief. “She’s my boss.”
“I thought you might say that. Memory-loss seems to affect people at the most convenient of times.” Jeonggu pulled his phone out of his pocket and pulled up a picture.
No, not a picture.
A video.
Ha Jeonggu pressed play. It was of Kyun kissing me in the soup and stew restaurant.
“I think you should leave now,” Kyun said, coldly.
“Strangely, I thought you might say that.” Jeonggu closed the video and slipped his phone into his pocket. “I’ll be in touch about the money. Get better soon, son.” With a nod of his head at me, he walked out of the room, his head held high like he hadn’t just blackmailed his only son.
“I’m so sorry,” Kyun said, looking at me like he had caused the end of the world.
It may well have been the end of days, but that wasn’t his fault.
I moved over to the chair by his bed, sinking into it. Reaching out for his hand, I took it and squeezed it. “None of this is your fault, Kyun.”
“He’s my father.”
“Who is an adult and responsible for his own blackmailing actions. The question is, what do you want to do about it?”
The door opened and Tae poked his head in, looking somewhat calmer. “Can I come back in?”
I looked at Kyun who nodded, miserably.
“I’m sorry, Kyunnie. I shouldn’t have shouted
at you. I saw your father leave, so I guess there is some good in him…” he trailed off as Kyun gave a hollow laugh. “What did I miss?”
Before I could warn Tae that he needed to keep a cool head, Kyun responded. “My dad gave his debt to me. The loan sharks were there to collect. My father came in to blackmail me and make sure I paid it by threatening us with a video of me kissing Holly.”
Tae ground his teeth together, but somehow refrained from snapping. Finally, he took a deep breath. “Kyunnie, I know you’ve been excited about your father being back in your life, but in only a few weeks he has proven that he’s not worth it. He hurt you once, and it kills me that he’s hurting you again, so please, please, cut him for good. I know that not having parents haunts you, but you have family. You know my mom thinks of you as her own. You are my brother—I don’t give a shit about DNA.”
“Holly had asked me what I wanted to do, just before you walked in. I’m done with him. I’ll pay him the money and then tell him I don’t want anything else to do with him.”
Tae’s teeth were grinding together, but he didn’t say anything else. I narrowed my eyes as I watched him. There was definitely something he wasn’t saying, but something he wasn’t prepared to say to Kyun.
Probably the I told you so to me.
“I’m sorry, Kyun,” I told him.
Kyun didn’t respond, instead staring blankly at his phone. Tae and I stayed by his side until he was finally discharged and I drove him home.
As soon as we walked through the door, we were pounced on everyone. “What happened?” Jun’s voice was the loudest.
“I need a shower and then I’ll tell you everything,” Kyun muttered, barely pausing to answer the hoard in front of him. He took up off the stairs, hunched over like a man three times his age.
Everyone looked at me and Tae.
Tae held a hand up. “Kyun needs a shower and then he will tell you everything. Didn’t you hear?”
“OK, but will that explain why Holly looks like she got knee-capped?” Nate asked.
“Knee-capped?” I repeated, looking down at the bandages over my knees. I pulled a face. “Nate, have you been watching that show again?”
“Peaky Blinders is magnificent, and stop changing the subject.”
Suddenly feeling weary, I rubbed at my temple. “I got caught up in the tail end of…” I gestured in the vague direction of Kyun’s room upstairs. “I’m fine, just sore. The doctors went a little overboard with treating me, but it’s just cuts and grazes under there.”
“And keeping Holly on her feet isn’t helping her,” Tae added.
Before I could take my shoes and coat off, Dante stepped forward and swept me up in his arms. “Right, which room?” Without waiting for an answer, he carried me up the stairs to my bedroom.
“We’ve not eaten,” Tae said, giving me a look as Dante set me down on my bed. “Minhyuk, can you order pizza?”
“Which gives me the perfect amount of time to shower too,” I said, ducking around everyone and heading to my bathroom before anyone could suggest joining me.
I could hear them coming and going in my bedroom while I cleaned the dried dirty puddle water from me. Most of it had gone over my clothes, but I had this residual feeling of being dirty after the evening’s events. It also felt good to get the unnecessary bandages from my knees, even if they did sting when I cleaned them.
The water felt good and I must have zoned out because by the time I had gotten out, towel-dried myself and put some night clothes on, there were five guys on my bed and five boxes of pizza.
Making sure to twist my hair up in a towel first, I joined them on the bed. my stomach was grumbling loudly as I reached for the nearest slice of margarita pizza.
Pizza was actually my least favorite food in Korea and the only one who could understand that was Nate. Both of us had been brought up in America and the pizza there was superior in every way. Korean pizza felt like it had been made in a kindergarten, where children had been allowed to throw whatever toppings on to it that they wanted—even if the made no sense.
I was on my second slice when Kyun finally joined us. As he sat down on the bed Jun handed him an egg. “Thanks,” Kyun muttered, taking it from him. There was already a bruise forming on his cheek, but he rolled the egg over it anyway.
Tae had threatened the others with mutilation if they dared to question Kyun before he had eaten. Even though he’d never have followed through with his threat, Dante, Nate, Minhyuk and Jun waited for Kyun to eat his fill and push the empty pizza box off the end of the bed.
“My father decided to get back into my life because he owes a shit-ton of money to a loan shark, and instead of telling me he was in trouble, told the loan shark I was responsible for the debt and they beat me up.”
Four stunned faces stared at Kyun.
“Wait, what?” Jun blurted out. “You’ve never mentioned you dad before.”
“Are you OK?” Minhyuk asked, gently.
“There’s a reason he’s not been mentioned before,” Tae said with a warning tone.
“I just assumed…” Jun shook his head. “I’m sorry.”
“So, what are we going to do now?” Dante asked.
“I will settle his debt and tell him I never want to see him again.”
Jun sat working his jaw as the considered that, before shaking his head. “Whatever he owes, I’ll give you the same again. Pay your father off and make sure he doesn’t come back for more.”
“You can’t do that.” Kyun shifted uncomfortably. “He’s my father and my mess.”
“Sperm donor,” Nate muttered making all of us look at him. He shrugged. “The guy isn’t a father. Not anymore, at least. And even if he is, that doesn’t make him family. America has its faults—many of them—but at least it can accept different family dynamics.”
“Most different family dynamics,” I corrected him.
Nate shifted his weight as Minhyuk leaned against him. “Compared to this country, it’s downright progressive sometimes. But look, this is us, we’re in a relationship which virtually no one in the country will understand or accept, so we’re making our own rules, right? Why should that stop with us. We have who we want in our lives.”
Tae gently bumped his shoulder against Kyun’s. “How often have I told you that?”
“But Jun has a point,” Dante said.
Jun’s head slowly turned as he looked at his hyung. Suddenly, he was scrambling to pull his phone out of his pocket. He turned the camera on and pointed it at Dante. “Say that again.”
Dante merely raised his hand and flipped Jun the bird.
“You all heard it though, right?”
“Paying his debt isn’t necessarily going to keep him away,” Dante continued, ignoring the maknae. “He needs paying off. I’ll transfer you some money before I fly tomorrow.”
Kyun shook his head. “I earn just as much as you. I have the money. And this is my mess.”
Dante leaned across the bed and smacked Kyun upside the head, although doing it with a lot less force than he ever did with Jun. “Did what Nate said just now not sink in? We’re family. The man is our problem and we can resolve it together. Besides, I’ve got this judge position which means I get extra money. It’s not like I’m Jun about to release a mixtape which is clearly not going to make any money…”
Jun’s mouth was pressed into a thin line as he narrowed his eyes at Dante. “I hope you don’t enjoy being back in China so much that you want to stay there.”
It was another night spent together in my bed. If my greatest purchase was the house, the second was the bed. It wasn’t something we did very often, but sometimes I wished we did.
There was something satisfying, heartwarming, and just plain right about seven of us sleeping together, even if Jun liked to starfish when he slept, and Nate snored. With everyone close by, not only did I feel secure, but I felt like I could keep an eye on them too.
It also meant that I knew when the others woke. Dante�
�s alarm woke him up, and after years of crazy hours for promotions and comebacks, everyone but me rolled over and went back to sleep.
Even if falling straight back to sleep was a useful gift to have, I wanted to get up anyway. Dante’s alarm was going off because he had to catch an early morning flight to China and Manager Kim would be there to pick him up soon.
I wriggled out of the bed, trying not to disturb everyone, even if they could fall back to sleep
“Stay in bed,” Dante whispered.
“You’re going to be away from me for a week,” I returned as I followed him out of the room and closed it gently behind me. “And I know you like waffles, so I figured I would whip you some up while you get ready.”
Dante’s eyes lit up as he responded in Chinese.
“What did that mean?” I asked him.
Instead of replying, Dante gave me a wicked grin and left me in the hallway. Rolling my eyes, I made my way to the kitchen and started pulling the ingredients out of the cupboards.
I had turned the waffle maker on to heat and just started mixing the batter when Dante appeared in the kitchen. He walked up behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist. “I’m going to miss you,” he murmured in my ear. “I wish that I could take you with me.”
Leaning back into him, I paused in my mixing. “If it were possible, I’d be there with you. I’ll miss you a lot.”
Dante rested his head on my shoulder. As I started mixing again, his hands slowly moved down to my thighs, settling against the fabric of the night dress. Just as slowly, he started scrunching it up in his hands, raising it up my thighs inch by inch.
“What are you doing?” I asked him, despite the fact that was obvious. “We’re in the kitchen. It’s not exactly hygienic.”
“The way I figure it is, if you have time to make me waffles, I have time to make you come around my cock. And to be honest I’d rather you for breakfast.” His fingers moved sideways, cupping me between my legs as he pushed my panties to the side. As he rubbed a finger over my clit, I nearly dropped the bowl.
Wicked Souls: A Limited Edition Reverse Harem Romance Collection Page 122
