Page 41 of Marked By Him

But I’m still not satisfied.

I’m on him before the next blink of an eye. I drive a knee into his chin as he tries to stand again, then another punch to the cheek. His bone cracks beneath my knuckles. The dull pain throbs through my hand, a welcome sign I’m doing him damage.

He’s sputtering and spitting up blood now. His cocky grin is unlikely to reappear anytime soon.

I drop to straddle his chest and grab a fistful of his sweaty, damp hair, yanking his head up off the mat.

“If it weren’t against the Baekho oath,” I growl, voice shaking with thin restraint, “I’d rip your fucking heart out right here. With my bare hands.”

He opens his mouth, then coughs up more blood as I dig my knee harder into his ribs.

“But,” I continue menacingly, “there’s no rule against ripping your tongue out.”

My fingers clench shut on his jaw like I’m about to do just that. I’m seconds away from prying open his mouth and ripping his tongue out by force.

“Don’t fucking speak on things you don’t understand. I am your captain. Your Ho-gwi. And if I have to teach you a lesson, I will.”

I knock him out with a final punch.

Seung-min goes limp, splayed out on the mat with blood bathing his squashed face.

Silence has fallen over the gym. No one dares interfere or so much as moves an inch.

I slide my fingers through my sweat-damp hair and rise to my feet. I ignore their stares as I turn and walk out the door.

I’ve hesitated for too long. I spent two weeks watching Monroe Ross so closely, I got to know her intimately. Though I am a cold, withdrawn, emotionally distant man, I am still human. I have some semblance of a conscience.

I realize now, that as frustrating as it is, I can’t kill her.

Someone else will have to do the job for me.

It’s late at night when I show up to an alley behind the Gukje Market. It reeks of the day’s trash, unpleasant smells like rotting meat, spoiled milk, and eggs. Sewage and sludge that’s oozed onto the streets from the drainage holes.

I cross the pebbly asphalt and accidentally scare off a stray cat that hisses and darts from one side of the alley to the other.

He should be showing up any second now.

When I came to terms with the fact that I can’t kill Monroe, I realized that the person who did it couldn’t be Seung-min. It couldn’t be anyone from the Baekho Pa.

The last thing I want is for one of them to hold it over my head. For me to know they took her life and have to act as if we are brothers bound by the oath we’ve taken.

Someone else needed to do it. Someone further removed.

Nam In-soo emerges from the shadows. A contract killer the gang sometimes hires when we’re looking for clean, unassociated kills of important people like elected officials, prosecutors, or police; he’s good at what he does.

Maybe because he’s so unassuming. He looks like somebody’s father.

Small, no taller than five-five, five-six, he dresses like a civil servant in slacks and a windbreaker. Wire-framed glasses sit onhis round face, his hair up top sparse and neatly parted. He could be a tax clerk or banker.

But really he has more kills under his belt than almost anyone in South Korea. His record is flawless, his trace that of a ghost.

I don’t know much about his past, except Jae-hyun once told me he defected from the North after an illustrious military career.

He adjusts his glasses as he stops in front of me. “You said you had a target you wanted to discuss.”

Tension thickens inside my jaw. I give a stiff nod. “Yes. Her name is Monroe Ross. She’s an American expat, teaching children English?—”

“I don’t care who she is,” he replies dismissively. “All I care about is finishing the job and getting paid.”

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