The End of Gods (A Welcome to the Underworld Novel, Book 4) (19 page)

Just as she said this, sounds of sniper shots rang out again, killing her father’s men and shooting her father down.

She glanced at Tae Hyun after he returned to his desk and replayed the video again. Only this time, he started the video at the moment when the shots started to fire. Curiously, he did not focus too heavily on the scene where Ho Young and Young Jae shot her father; he simply set up the media player to loop the beginning scene where her father was walking out of the warehouse and ending where he and his men were shot.

Chills continuously chased each other on her body as she watched the dawning light of realization shine brighter in Tae Hyun’s eyes.

“Suddenly seeing my father’s men getting shot will tell us why Ho Young and Young Jae were working together?” she asked skeptically, still focusing her attention on Tae Hyun. She was getting annoyed that he wouldn’t divulge what he was doing. “What is it? Do you think Ju Won lied to me, and Tony wasn’t the one recording?”

Then finally, after an extended moment of ignoring her, he decided to enlighten her with his findings.

“Sometimes when we watch recorded videos, we focus too much on the event of what took place and too much on the insignificant things like who was recording. By doing so, we miss important clues altogether.” He pointed at the monitor. “From the camera’s direction and how far they had to zoom in to get a measly shot of what was happening, it shows that Tony and Hee Jun were pretty far away from the scene. From their angle, you can see there are no buildings closer than theirs. This indicates that the sniper was at least another building behind, if not further, to better conceal themselves. Now if you pay attention to all the shots and how windy it was that day, then you’d see how accurate all the shots were, despite the turbulent weather. The sniper successfully killed the other men with clean, accurate shots. With your father, the sniper shot your father in such a way that would only handicap him, not kill him. The sniper was setting your father up for Young Jae and my brother. He was basically putting your father on a platter for them.”

“What are you getting at?” Soo Jin asked, even though in her mind, she knew the chills she was receiving meant that she was heading towards the same conclusion as Tae Hyun.

He faced her with knowledge running through his eyes. “This sniper was
extremely
skilled. It was incredibly windy that day, but he still shot with perfect accuracy.” Tae Hyun’s voice grew lower, more solemn. “There’s only one sniper in our world skilled enough to shoot from that range and with such precision, especially shooting against that type of violent wind that would surely throw others off.”

And then the truth slapped her like a whipping tornado.

“Lee Ji Hoon,” she whispered, her eyes widening at this revelation. “You’re insinuating that Ji Hoon was working with my brother and your brother?” Her head was spinning. The insinuation absolutely made no sense to her. “Why? Why would the three of them work together?”

Tae Hyun sighed incredulously. Everything was finally making sense to him. “
Why
did Young Jae disappear to Japan for three years?”

“My brother grew up and was trained in Japan,” she answered him. “He has close ties to the Underworld there.”

Tae Hyun nodded. “My brother grew up and was trained in China. He had close ties to the Underworld there as well.”

In the road that Tae Hyun was slowly painting for her, Soo Jin finally saw the destination they were headed to.

“Young Jae and Ho Young never wanted Korea’s Underworld,” she began disbelievingly. “Young Jae wanted to rule over Japan’s Underworld, Ho Young wanted China’s Underworld, so that meant—”

“In their agreement, Lee Ji Hoon gets Korea’s Underworld,” Tae Hyun finished for her. His voice held a mixture of amazement and disbelief. “It was a conspiracy. They weren’t enemies. The three of them were working together the entire time. They were conspiring with one another to garner control over the three Underworlds.”

Soo Jin was still utterly gobsmacked by this revelation.

“
That
was why Ji Hoon never made the effort to get on to Ju Won’s good side when I was around, because he knew that he’d have the Underworld regardless. Nevertheless, he wanted to break me, to make me think he cared about me more than the Underworld and that he was willing to sacrifice everything for me. He wanted his coveted throne and his trophy girlfriend.”

“Anna wasn’t the only one who betrayed you,” Tae Hyun provided shrewdly.

“No,” Soo Jin conceded. “Anna only knew a bit, but Ji Hoon knew the whole plan. The bitch never realized what I was planning to do to her husband. She only thought I was betraying him; she could’ve never imagined that I had planned on killing him. It wasn’t until Ji Hoon divulged everything to them.”

She felt the rage brew like an unstoppable storm inside her.

“
He
was the one who told Young Jae, he was the one who was working with them, he was the one who helped kill my father, and he was the one who betrayed me and ruined everything.”

“No matter who protects you, we will annihilate them.”

07: The Meeting of Gods

“I’m going to fucking kill that bastard,” Soo Jin seethed, gazing at the video of her father’s death with an entirely new outlook on what took place.

The more she watched, the more she wanted to rip Ji Hoon apart limb by limb. Fucking bastard. He was right in her grasp the other night, and what did she do? She let him go because she felt that she “owed” him for all his help. In actuality, the fucker was the primary one who screwed her over!

“He’s already left the country.”

She faced Tae Hyun. He was now sitting calmly on the edge of his desk, his eyes on her. For the first time, their hatred for Ji Hoon matched in intensity.

“
What
?”

“I’ve been trying to find him for the past few days,” Tae Hyun shared as the beginnings of the setting sun began to descend behind him, “to kill him once and for all for what he did to my father. But my Cobras told me he left the country after the war. He hasn’t been in Korea for a while.”

“Where is he right now?” she inquired, suspecting that Tae Hyun probably knew.

He inclined his head at her. “Where do you think?”

A resurgence of fury flashed through her. After all these revelations, after what had transpired since her return to the Underworld, and after the war’s commencement, she knew all too well where Ji Hoon was.

“He went to my brother.”

Tae Hyun nodded. He took a slight pause to ponder something before he released a dejected sigh. He abruptly whipped out his phone from his pocket.

“Who are you calling?” Soo Jin asked watchfully, her stern eyes locked on his phone.

“Your brother.”

The force of the simple reply nearly had her stumbling in her black pumps. What the hell? Before she could accuse him of anything or ask if he had been working with them all along, he promptly explained himself.

“Young Jae contacted me the day after Ju Won’s birthday. He gave me a number to reach him and said that whenever I was ready to talk, I could call him anytime.” His shoulders lifted into a shrug. “It seems befitting that I do so right now.”

“Why would he give you a means to contact him? What does he want with you?”

“Why do you think?”

Soo Jin inhaled sharply, suspecting that Young Jae gave Tae Hyun a means to contact him because he wanted to work with Tae Hyun—to possibly work out an agreement or form an alliance. Either way, it didn’t comfort Soo Jin to know that there was a chance that Tae Hyun and Young Jae were working together.

“Were you planning on calling him and working with him?”

He raised a brow at her, his expression unimpressed with her question. “After my spiel to you about winning you back, you think I’d stoop so low as to work with your brother? If you truly believe that, then you’re not the geeky computer genius I labeled you to be.”

There was humor in his voice, but she didn’t miss the offense in it. Tae Hyun was too prideful to ever consider working with the likes of her brother—or Ji Hoon for that matter—and the accusation was just insulting.

Unwilling to offer an apology, Soo Jin kept her lips sealed while Tae Hyun placed the phone on speaker. Soon, the ringing of the phone infiltrated the office room.

Her brother’s voice came on the line after the third ring, and Soo Jin could swear she felt her heart clench and the air around her dissipate. Regardless of how much she hated her brother and wanted to kill him, she couldn’t deny the heartache she felt hearing the voice of the person she grew up with and loved. However, she hadn’t forgotten that he murdered their father. She hadn’t forgotten the promise she made to avenge the Siberian Tigers family, she hadn’t forgotten that he was prepared to kill her when she was Yoori, and she definitely hadn’t forgotten that she had plans to kill him. Complications of the heart aside, she knew when to get down to business. At the moment, Young Jae was a cancer in her life that needed to be eradicated.

“Tae Hyun,” Young Jae’s warm voice greeted, acting as a stimulant to the boiling of her already heated blood. After bearing witness to her father’s death a moment ago, the fact that he was so carefree infuriated her. “I’m glad you called.”

“I’m with your sister,” Tae Hyun said swiftly, getting right to the point.

God, the guy is too much of a straight shooter at times,
Soo Jin thought with annoyance. She had hoped to eavesdrop on their conversation before she planned on revealing herself. Now, obviously, that plan had been shot to hell.

“I know you are,” Young Jae said serenely, shocking both Tae Hyun and Soo Jin with knowledge that he already knew they were together before the phone call. “I was planning on calling both of you. Luckily, you called me just before I could dial you.”

Soo Jin smirked, amused that this entire city was seemingly under Young Jae’s surveillance. “You still have your spies all over the city, don’t you,
oppa
?” Soo Jin said sweetly into the phone.

She laced “oppa” with as much venom as she could. She was positive her brother caught every bit of that venom. After three years apart, it still felt like yesterday that they had last spoken. It still felt like yesterday that she hated his guts.

He elicited a cool, mocking laugh that angered every nerve in her body. “I know enough,” he said simply. “I always knew it was only a matter of time before you regained your memories. I still kick myself when I think about the moment you kneeled before me during your amnesia, begging me to spare your life.” Soo Jin bit back a curse at the reminder of this, and Young Jae went on. “If only I had killed you, then you wouldn’t be such a thorn in my side now.”

Ah yes, Young Jae, despite his political correctness at times, was also a straight shooter. The Royals in the Underworld were truly people who hated beating around the bush.

“Ji Hoon is with you, isn’t he?” asked Tae Hyun. He, as well as Soo Jin, could sense other presences over the phone.

“And your wife?” added Soo Jin. The words were posed as a question, but they already knew the answer.

Young Jae laughed again, impressed with both Tae Hyun and Soo Jin.

“Yes, they’re both here with me,” he confirmed. “I was having a . . .
business
meeting with Ji Hoon before you called. This is great, actually. Since we’re all in our offices right now, we might as well have a videoconference, don’t you think?”

Tae Hyun smirked, eyeing Soo Jin as he had already anticipated that Young Jae would suggest this. “My computer is already on. Just do what you need to do, and we’ll be connected.”

“Very well.”

Click.

Shortly after they hung up, Tae Hyun turned on the videoconference program on his computer and instantly, the monitor changed to a bright, live video of Young Jae. He wore a gray suit and was sitting beside his wife Anna, who wore a flowing black dress. Both were seated behind a long conference desk. In the background stood Ji Hoon, who was wearing a white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his forearms and gray pants. He was leaning against the gargantuan window that looked out to the city life of Tokyo. It was obvious they were in a high-rise building of their own.

“It makes sense that you’d be with your new boyfriend,” Ji Hoon stated acidly, looking from Tae Hyun to Soo Jin. His eyes were rippling with rage.

“You worked with Young Jae and Ho Young, helped them kill my father, and betrayed me, you piece of shit. Stop playing the victim,” Soo Jin snapped, wishing she could reach into the monitor and kill the backstabbing fucker. “I should’ve killed you at Ju Won’s party when I had the chance.”

Soo Jin stood in the middle of the room, her face stern and her arms folded. She was glaring at the monitor like she was about to declare war upon them. In the back, Tae Hyun was seated calmly on the edge of his desk, his legs stretched out and his dress shirt revealing the three missing buttons that Soo Jin had unhooked. With the long sleeves of his shirt pulled up to his forearms, Tae Hyun exuded nothing short of cool elegance as he stared at the monitor.

Unlike Soo Jin, Anna, and Ji Hoon, all of whom were wearing their feelings on their sleeves, Tae Hyun, much like Young Jae, kept his emotions to himself.

Ji Hoon scoffed disbelievingly, looking at her like she had just rattled on and on about the most ridiculous of things.

“Three years of amnesia really fucked up your head, baby. First, you sleep with your biggest enemy, and now you’re accusing me of killing your father when it was clear that it was Kwon Ho Young and apparently Young Jae?” He grinned deceptively, glancing at Young Jae. Her brother was smirking without remorse. “Let me guess: Kwon Tae Hyun gave you the idea that I was working with them?”

Tae Hyun laughed with hilarity, not even entertaining Ji Hoon’s poor acting skills as merit for him to reply. Soo Jin would’ve also laughed if she weren’t so offended that this pathological liar was still trying to play mind games with her.

“You two are working together now?” Young Jae incited instead, his calm eyes on Tae Hyun. He did not bother to look at Soo Jin, and this had Soo Jin biting her lip in fury.

“No,” Soo Jin answered for Tae Hyun, offended that anyone would think that she would collude with Kwon Tae Hyun. Work with the guy she had to kill for her throne? Why would she partner up with him? “We have never worked together, and we will never work together. I don’t need to work with anyone to get anything done.” Her eyes cooled. “Unlike some people.”

“You know what?” Young Jae remarked airily, discounting her comment. He looked around the room and casually changed the subject. “I think this conversation would be more appropriate if all of us convened in one place and spoke—in person.”

Soo Jin smirked, amused with this sudden proposal. “You would like a live reunion, brother?”

Tae Hyun folded his arms in interest. His eyes became alight with intrigue. He liked the sound of that. “That actually sounds very fun.”

“They will kill you the moment they step foot in the same room as you,” Ji Hoon gritted to Young Jae from the back.

Despite her silence, even Anna looked disturbed by her husband’s proposal.

“Now, now, Ji Hoon,” Young Jae said lightly. “We may have been born humans, but we were raised to be Royals. Regardless of the feelings they harbor for us, I am confident that Soo Jin and Tae Hyun would agree to a momentary ceasefire if we all reunite in one place.” He looked directly into the camera lens. “Don’t you two think that would be nice? If all of us convened and continued this conversation appropriately?”

“I know just the place in Seoul,” said Tae Hyun, his voice not hiding his keenness for an in-person meeting.

Young Jae chuckled, leaning forward with his arms on his knees. “I think it would be more appropriate if the two of you came here.”

“You want to continue this meeting in Japan?” Soo Jin let out a disbelieving breath, displeased that this possible meeting would take place on enemy territory instead of her own. “What happened to agreeing to a ceasefire?”

“I’m diplomatic, but I’m not an idiot, Soo Jin. It would be a cold day in hell before I allow you and Tae Hyun to choose the place of our reunion. We’ll meet in Japan; we’ll meet on neutral grounds.”

“I’m sorry, aren’t you a shadow Underworld King in Japan?” Tae Hyun stated sarcastically, voicing what Soo Jin was thinking.

Japan was not a neutral ground; it would be a gravesite for Soo Jin and Tae Hyun if they weren’t careful.

Young Jae shrugged lackadaisically. “I am, but that doesn’t mean that this ground isn’t neutral. As the host, I promise you safe passage. As long as you do not break the ceasefire pact, then everything is golden.”

“Your promises mean shit,” Soo Jin stated spitefully.

“As do yours,” Young Jae said just as spitefully to her. A fleeting flicker of anger doused his normally cool visage before he reined his emotions in. He exhaled to regain his composure and added, “I’m giving you my word that as long as you keep your end of the agreement, then no harm will come to you in Japan. What you choose to believe is up to you.” He leaned back in his chair, gazing at them with indifferent eyes. “I mean, let’s face it, kids. This in-person meeting means more to you than it does to me. You have nothing but questions, and we have nothing but answers. Regardless of our current war, I do not see why we cannot come together to address everything. What fun is a war if you are not appropriately informed of all aspects of your enemies’ pasts?”

“Why do you want to see us in-person so badly?” Tae Hyun questioned.

Young Jae grinned coldly. “Regardless of my ill feelings towards both of you, even I have to admit that I am intrigued with the idea of the most powerful crime lords getting together in one venue. I was not able to bear witness to my sister’s return to the Underworld—Ju Won was the one who had that honor. Now, I want an honor that supersedes his—I want all four crime lords to come together. I want the King of Scorpions, the King of Skulls, the King of Serpents, and the Queen of Siberian Tigers in the same room where we are simply . . . chatting.”