The Halo of Amaris

by Jade Brieanne

  Jin wasn’t wearing much, just a short teal dress and high stilettos that she knew Jin absolutely hated wearing, with a thin shawl around her shaking shoulders. The Natasha Couture peacock clutch Chaerin had let her borrow was clenched in her hand.

  Chaerin led her to the couch in the living room and snatched off her cardigan to throw around Jin. When Jin’s eyes shifted toward her, she seemed oddly detached, as if her head was floating above her body. Chaerin had never seen her like this and it scared her.

  “Jin, honey,” she said slowly, carefully, “I need you to talk to me.”

  Jin blinked. “I threw up in the hall. I’m sorry.”

  “Are you drunk?”

  Chaerin frowned when Jin didn’t answer. She sighed and rose from the couch, wrapping her thin, tan arms around herself, the air cool without the shelter of her cardigan as she walked into her kitchen to put on a fresh pot of coffee. Minutes later, she brought the whole carafe into the living room and poured Jin a cup, black. She’d have to talk to get cream and sugar.

  “What happened—and don’t tell me nothing, because your face is a mess and your hair looks like someone whooped your ass.” Chaerin paused and stared at Jin, before a thought made her gasp and narrow her brown eyes. “Shen didn’t hurt you did he?” She moved closer, her hands roving everywhere as she checked Jin over. “I knew there was a reason I didn’t like that son of a bitch, but if he put his hands on you, I swear on everything I’ll kill him.”

  “No,” Jin said quietly. She almost smiled, but it deflated before it blossomed. “He didn’t hurt me.”

  “Then what’s wrong, Jin? Please, you’re scaring me.”

  Jin reached over to the coffee table and grabbed the blue mug with her initials painted on the handle. She took a sip and grimaced, probably because it was black. “Shen’s been lying to me. The entire time. He’s not who he says he is.”

  Chaerin snorted. “Do you want me to jump to conclusions, or are you in the mood to hear my preconceived notions about your shitty fiancé?”

  This time Jin did laugh. “What are you going to guess? He’s cheating on me? He’s got a child he’s never told me about?”

  “I won’t call you a mind reader but…” Chaerin shrugged.

  “Or I could tell you I went to his place last night to surprise him, dressed like this, wearing these stupid shoes, and he wasn’t there. Or that I found a plane ticket to Jeju dated for yesterday, when he told me he was asleep in his bed. Maybe I should tell you that when I went to leave him a note, I found these.” Jin put the coffee cup down carefully and reached for the manila folder on the table. She unwound the red string holding it closed, seeming transfixed by watching it loop around the silver fastener. “You know they say red strings mean fate,” she muttered as the string dropped and the flap popped open. She flipped it over, and pictures and sheets of paper slipped out of it.

  “What is this?” Chaerin asked, frowning.

  Jin was silent. She wasn’t even looking at the table anymore, her eyes trained on the large bay window in Chaerin’s apartment. Confused, Chaerin began shuffling through the pile. The first thing she reached for was a thick piece of paper, laminated and curled at the edges. She flipped it over. It was a flyer.

  “Gehenna? Isn’t this that really obscure massage parlor in Itaewon? What? Did you find Shen at one of ’em?”

  Jin chuckled darkly.

  “God, they only charge a few thousand won for a quick yank. Pretty cheap, but he is a man.” Chaerin put the flyer down and shifted through the rest of the pile. “What is this, a payroll log? Honey,”—she shook her head—“if you wanted to catch him cheating, all you had to do was wait for him to get out of the shower, and I mean right out the shower, soaking wet and all, and ask him straight up. Men don’t think of lies quick enough on their feet. They are really simple.”

  “Chaerin,” Jin sighed. “This isn’t about him cheating on me. I wish it was just that but…just…keep looking.”

  Frowning, Chaerin put the sheet of paper down and grabbed a Polaroid. It was a picture of a woman taken from far away. “Are these like surveillance pictures?” Chaerin asked.

  “Keep looking,” Jin said quietly.

  So Chaerin picked up another and another and another. Surveillance photos. Pictures of abduction. Pictures that were beyond horrific. As she picked up another one, it started to make sense to her. “Jin,” she breathed, “w-what is this?”

  Jin kept silent, instead glancing back at the pile. She shuffled through the stack of pictures until she found the one she was looking for. “Gehenna means hell.”

  Chaerin squinted. “Oh dear God—”

  In her hand was a picture of a room. It was dark and dingy, with rows and rows of beds all crowded close together. It honestly looked like a dorm room from hell, and that was saying a lot considering she shared a room with four other girls in college. The women littered across the beds didn’t look happy. They looked tired, exhausted…sad.

  Right in the center of the photo was a girl, young, probably no older than seventeen, being shown a bed. She was on her hands and knees, crying, and looked like she was begging. A deep maroon and pink hanbok—the traditional Korean dress—had been laid across the bed. To the side, in a wooden case, was a gache— an intricate wig only high-court ladies and kisaeng wore in ancient Joseon. Chaerin’s focus shifted from the girl to the man pointing at the bed.

  I know that face.

  “Rabbit,” Jin said quietly. “That’s his nickname. Rabbit.”

  It was Shen.

  “Gehenna favors a more historical look for their prostitutes. North wing, kisaeng, south is for nagarvadhu. The east holds the sing-song girls and American escorts, and for foreign taste, the grisettes and kurwas in the west wing.”

  “How do you know all of this?”

  “I followed a trail. Asked a few of my more seedy clients what they knew about the place. They tell me if you show up with a freshwater pearl, they’ll show you the ‘second circle,’ whatever that means. So I did it. I showed up with the pearl, flashed a little money and I was in. There were dozens of them to choose from. But this one?” she said, pointing the picture of the young girl. “Her name is Eunsook. Sixteen. Found out she was reported missing four months ago.” Jin turned to Chaerin. “I had to leave her there. I couldn’t take her with me, and I hate myself for it.”

  Chaerin felt sick. She had a dogged disdain for Shen, everyone knew that, he knew that. It was mostly because he treated Jin like she was some sort of exotic trophy he could show off to his business buddies. But Jin wasn’t stupid, she wasn’t naive, and she wasn’t blind. She was in love and Chaerin couldn’t argue against that because he was never unkind to Jin, never cruel or disrespectful. But this? This was far beyond personal dislike.

  Shen was a lunatic.

  There was a moment of quiet that stretched to the four walls of Chaerin’s living room. Neither moved until Jin’s gasp broke the silence.

  “Shit,” Jin cried out. Her eyes sharpened, like the haze had dissipated. “Shit! I’m so stupid. Why did I come over here? I shouldn’t have gotten you involved. I just…I had to talk to you, I didn’t know where else to go, I was going crazy!” Jin’s hand lashed out, pushing the photos to the edge of the table, her hands shaking as she did. She scooped the pile of pictures off the table, watching as some fell and fluttered to the ground. With a loud groan of frustration, she snatched them up and stuffed them back into the envelope. “I wasn’t here, okay? If anybody asks, I wasn’t here,” she said, pushing to her feet.

  “Jin, wait!”

  Jin ignored her and marched toward the door.

  Chaerin jumped from the couch and got in front of her, her long legs and tall frame beating Jin to the door. “Just stop for a minute and let me think!” She chewed her lip, racking her brain for what she should do. Sneak back into Shen’s place and put the photos back, hide Jin at her place, burn the evidence. Fly to Venezuela, change their names, dye their hair, open a market and sell charm b
racelets. Chaerin rolled her eyes. She reached for her purse and upended it, watching the contents scatter across the floor until she found her planner under a pile of makeup compacts and business cards. She flipped through the pages frantically, eyes scanning each line until she found what she was looking for. She ripped a page out and pushed it into Jin’s hands.

  “Nari. She’s a friend of mine who works for the police. She can help. She has connections. She can help protect you. Just give me a minute.” Chaerin flung her closet door open and tugged a coat off a hanger. “Let me grab my sneakers and we’ll go straight there—”

  “Please, don’t.” Jin’s voice cracked and Chaerin paused. “Stay here. It’s safer here. If you were hurt because of me I couldn’t… Look, I’ll be okay. I made it over here, right? I can make it to the police department. You can’t be seen with me, Chae.” Jin stuffed the piece of paper in the clutch before she shrugged off Chaerin’s cardigan, draping it back over Chaerin’s shoulders with a sniffle.

  “Jin—”

  “I’ll be fine. You know me. I’m too hard headed to not get through this. I’ll be fine,” she muttered over and over again. “Just, I was never here. Remember that. I was never here.”

  A sharp trill pierced the air and both of them jumped. Jin’s trembling fingers extracted her cell phone from the jewel-encrusted clutch, and Chaerin watched a myriad of emotions wash over Jin’s face.

  “It’s Shen.”

  “Don’t answer it! You don’t need to talk to that asshole any—”

  “Hello?” Jin pressed the phone to her ear. She glanced at Chaerin and mouthed a silent apology.

  “Shen? Oh, hey, honey! No…nothing is wrong. I’m at the office. They had a file I needed. You know me, whatever it takes.” A stiff laugh. “I’ll call you when I get home. No, it’s nothing. I’m just really tired, baby.” Jin hung up the phone silently. “Chae,” she called out softly, turning to her. “I know you have that big award show coming up, but just…cancel it. Don’t leave your house for a few days. Everything should blow over soon, so it won’t be too long, okay? I’m going to call you when I get to the police station.”

  Chaerin was trying to be strong for Jin, but her façade cracked when Jin pulled her shoulders back and dragged a hand across her face to wipe away the smeared makeup. Wiped her face clean like it was a slate, like nothing had happened or changed, that everything wasn’t suddenly different—and for the first time, Chaerin hated her best friend. Hated her for thinking she was stronger than anybody else.

  “What if he finds you?”

  Jin waved her question away. “He won’t.”

  Chaerin watched Jin walk out, smiling, the envelope full of pictures and evidence and life-destroying antimatter clutched to her chest just the same as when she first walked in. The door clicked shut, deafening in the quiet room. Chaerin stood there for a long moment, frozen, before she slid down to the floor and prayed.

  Chapter Four

  American Embassy

  Seoul, South Korea

  Transnational Agency for Organized Crime Investigation

  FBI Special Agent Aiden Choi came off as very intimidating, and he had learned to use it in his favor. His six-foot frame towered over people, his forehead puckered when he was upset, he frowned when he asked questions, and he spoke in a deep, resonating voice. Chun down in the ballistics lab told everyone Aiden was a black belt in Taekwondo—which was absolutely false—and that he’d once punched some guy’s heart through his chest, so now all of the clerks were afraid of him. He’d barely hit the guy, but yeah, the whole “Oh, god, here comes Choi,” thing kind of worked for him anyway—even though it was the exact opposite of who he really was. He was level headed and a bit introverted which made him come off as a dickhead. Level-headedness was an attractive trait in his line of work. It meant the difference between a life he protected successfully and a death he had to explain to a family.

  Despite his ability to speak three languages, his above-average entrance scores, and his ability to circumvent the wide gap between reaction and reason, Aiden had done just okay at the FBI Academy. One of his instructors—one with all the analytical deduction skills of dried fruit—scribbled at the bottom of his final review: “His personal mission is one of retardation, to move like molasses as if marginal growth is his burning desire.”

  Asshole.

  However, since Aiden’s assignment to Seoul, the Supreme Prosecutor’s Office treated him like he was a shiny, brand-new car, something to show off when other foreign agents would visit, or to parade in front of new recruits to maybe scare them.

  Still, his job here had plenty of perks. Besides the gallons and gallons of free coffee, it provided him with the ability to help people. And Aiden knew that sounded…corny—it was his job, how dare he enjoy it?—but he did. Helping people was his passion.

  Currently, his passion for benevolent caped-crusading was curbed by his second night in a row with no sleep. He grimaced at the reheated coffee swirling around in his cup, his fifth cup of the day. The phone on his desk rang, but he was too tired to answer it. His partner, Jon, would get it.

  “And I'm not here, either,” he said when Jon’s thick forearm swept over the desk as he grappled blindly for the receiver. Aiden grabbed his cup of coffee before the idiot knocked it over.

  “Kim,” Jon barked as he cradled the phone between his shoulder and ear. His bloodshot, equally sleep-deprived eyes stayed locked on his computer screen, looking over the details of the Chul case they were working on. He yawned into the receiver, and Aiden chuckled at him.

  He’d known Jon since they were teenagers. Before Seoul, before joining the FBI. Aiden had been the typical jock in high school—self-assured, almost arrogant. Between his father’s height and his mother’s high cheekbones and full bottom lip, his good looks and thoughtful nature elevated him right into the high school elite. He sat at the popular table, charmed his way into getting girls to do his homework for him, pushed a freshman into a locker once, and dated the captain of the cheer squad, mainly because that’s what he was supposed to do. Better that than the name-calling or the sticky notes with slanted eyes drawn on them that he’d endured in middle school. He didn’t want to have to come home again and tell his parents why he’d been in another fight, or that he hadn’t eaten lunch—because someone had dumped his dak galbi over his head. Plus, popularity suited him.

  His sophomore year, he met a transfer by the name of Jonathan Kim, a boy who not only matched his arrogance, but beat it black and blue. Jon told Aiden he saw through his false bravado, his penchant for laughing when everyone laughed, and revealed his disdain for running with other kids just to seem normal. It was a shared sentiment. After that, it was natural for them to mesh together into this fearsome tag team duo. Instant best friends who loved instant noodles.

  Jon was the first person Aiden called from the hospital the night Aiden’s father died. A stick-up gone bad—Aiden had asked his father for the money to buy new soccer cleats, and his father had gathered his hat, slipped on his shoes and his coat, and bundled up for the walk to the ATM. He should have taken the car. He should have waited until the morning, he should have told Aiden no. His smile, proud, so ridiculously proud, was the last time Aiden saw his father alive.

  That event was what steered Aiden away from soccer, away from his dreams and away from America. His mother decided to travel the world in an attempt to distract herself from her pain, and with no real home base left, Aiden convinced his best friend that they could make a name for themselves back in Korea. And that’s what they did.

  After they graduated college, they both applied to the FBI Academy. It took awhile, but eventually they both received assignments with the Legal Attaché Program in Seoul. Their natural chemistry as friends was the deciding factor in them being partnered. Aiden also thought the higher-ups liked calling them Turner and Hooch. Aiden was Turner.

  Grunting, “Hooch” grabbed a folder and flipped it open. “Yeah, he’s right here.”

/>   Aiden looked up from the mug-shot photos to his partner, mouth open in surprise, and Jon half-growled, half-whined, frowning as he dangled the receiver between them without looking.

  Aiden snatched it from his hand. “Choi,” he snapped into the receiver. A woman's voice squeaked over the line, and he sighed. “Oh, Nari, it's you.” He yawned and propped his head up on his hand. “What is it?” Aiden listened, his attention more on flipping from page to page as Nari droned on incessantly about some case files they needed help with.

  “Sarge said he’s sending some papers over to help with your internal affairs debrief next week. Man, how do you keep pissing them off?—it kills me—and, oh! Some waegukin came here a few nights ago.”

  “It’s not polite to call foreigners, ‘foreigners’, Nari. Try ‘tourist’, it sounds better,” he finished in English.

  “Okay, she was a tourist.”

  “She?”

  “She.”

  “Well, what did she want?”

  “To show me some pictures. I took one look and knew it was over my head. Then I remembered that you dealt with that kind of shit. I think it involves the Five Star Mob, but I’m not sure.”

  “Wait.” He paused mid-flip. “What did you just say?”

  A beat of silence before Nari repeated herself. “F-Five Star?”

  Aiden scrambled for a pen and a pad, snatching the cap off with his teeth and spitting it over to Jon’s desk. “Nari, you just became my favorite person.”

  Aiden slapped the notebook with the address scribbled in it against his palm as he peered down the dimly lit alleyway. An unsavory motel was parked down the dirty length of it, with too many dark corners and angles to be considered safe—definitely no place for anyone to be hiding all alone. He frowned as he made his way down the alley, not stopping until he reached the number on his pad.

  Aiden hesitated before knocking on the mottled-green motel door that looked flimsy enough to crumble if he blew hard enough. He waited a long moment, scanning the alleyway every couple of seconds. When no one answered, he raised a brow. “Ms. Amaris?” he called out quietly in English.