Page 4 of Perfect Martinis

The leader nods. “That’s obvious. The question now is, what are you going to do?”

“I want to pay off Phil’s debt. I want to leave this city and move back to Seoul, where I went to university. And last, I want to open my own bar. I always dreamed of owning a bar in Gangnam,” I admit.

The leader pauses, appearing to think. “Nearly a million dollars to us, the rest to start the business. You’re sure?”

I nod. “I want my friend out of debt and protected. And I want to live my dream. I don’t need anything else.”

The leader glances at Phil as I speak.

“All right. On one condition. You allow the kkangpae there in Seoul to use the bar for trades and occasional gambling events. It’s illegal there, and we always appreciate the places that protect us,” the leader says.

I bristle at “trades”. “Not people.”

“What?”

“Trades. I won’t be part of human trafficking.”

The leader laughs as if I’m a sideshow act. “No, sweetheart. Trades as in inanimate products. Not humans. Now, do we have a deal?”

He holds his hand out and I tentatively take it.

“Deal.”

* * *

Phil was put out by my leaving, but I couldn’t stay in Chicago anymore. Not only did I always intend on moving back to Seoul, I had more reasons to now: to get away from the awful memories at his bar.

Despite being a chain, all Sweet Cock-Tails bars are independently operated, we just have to pay a licensing fee to use the name. Since that’s what Phil’s was, it seems right to make mine a Sweet Cock-Tails, too. The first and only in Seoul.

Smoothing over the volatile rift between the Sicilians and the kkangpae won’t happen overnight, but my distant family has no qualms with me bridging a gap and working with the kkangpae, but I was given a warning.

“Whatever you do,” my cousin Isabella Sorrento tells me over the phone, “if it backfires, it backfires on you and you only. We won’t be getting in the middle of it.”

“You won’t have to,” I promise.

She scoffs. “You better hope so. It’s your funeral … literally.”

Chapter Three

Jeong-Ki

I must be cursed with shitty bosses.

My new one here at the Special Forces headquarters is as much of a dick as my old manager used to be, and that’s saying something.

An employee, be it an officer or an idol, should be given a modicum of respect, right? Not called stupid and lazy and good for nothing every time they turn around.

At least, unlike my old manager and label, I know this one isn’t entrenched in drug money. You can't get anywhere in power and not be into shady shit, but this guy managed, and that’s why I don’t transfer out.

“Lazy fuck, stop daydreaming and get into my office,” he barks at me, making me jump.

“Yes, Sergeant Kim-ssi,” I mutter. I wasn’t daydreaming. I was merely lamenting to myself how I have the worst luck in the world. What’s that Sicilian curse? Malocchio? I think someone put it on me, because no matter how well I do and how hard I try, nothing is ever good enough.

I am never good enough.

Yet the media used to call me perfect.

Inside the office, he glares at me before my phone beeps.

---