The War of Gods (A Welcome to the Underworld Novel, Book 3) (73 page)

The silence came, the tides changed,
and then the mountain inevitably moved
. . .

She
didn’t know if the tears in her eyes came because she was overwhelmed with betraying her own brother, if she was subconsciously acting, or if it was because she actually felt remorse for killing all of them. Her lower lip quivered. This was never supposed to happen to her. She was never supposed to feel remorse. She was never supposed to feel remorse for any of them. They were all supposed to be worthless. They weren’t supposed to mean anything to her. This was never supposed to happen
. . .
yet it did.

Against all the orders that
came out of her prideful body, and against a decade of fighting to be a God, her knees buckled and for the first time in her life, the great Queen fell to her knees and kneeled. She kneeled before the dead victims who surrounded her. Despite the screams that resonated from the better part of her prideful mind, a dazed Soo Jin could only focus on the silent part of her that stood in the corner of her mind. It was a quiet part of her that she had locked away and hadn’t let out since her inception into the Underworld—the human part of her that would forever be her weakness.

“
Only for a moment,” the quiet and grief-stricken voice begged. “Stop being a monster and please let me out for a moment. Please let us do what’s right. Please.”

For that suspended moment, Soo Jin listened to no one else but her
human counterpart. For that frozen moment, as she bowed her head in respect for those she cruelly killed, Soo Jin allowed her human emotions to run free. The pain held in her chest exuded out and the tears began to blur her eyes once more.

“
I’m sorry,” she whispered, kneeling and bowing down to the blood-soaked ground. “I’m so sorry for everything.”

She kneeled and bowed
thirty-four times, the pain elevating every time the number increased. Her despondent eyes settled onto Eve and her two children, the ones who were the catalyst for all of this and the ones who haunted her most. The look in Eve’s eyes
. . .
the voices of the two children
. . .
and the fatal gunshots
. . .
they all tormented her.

“I will make things
right,” Soo Jin promised, bowing three more times in apology to them. Resolution flooded into her eyes. The pain, as crippling as it was becoming, was not going to be a deterrent for her. She still had a plan to enact. In honor of them. In respect for them.

Soo Jin rose to her feet. T
he soles of her boots pressed into the puddles of blood while she walked around the dozens of dead bodies in the room. She maneuvered around the bodies of the dead children and reached down behind the pillar where the jade knife lay.

With t
he knife in her hand, she numbly went to a corner where she could initiate the second part of her plan. She hid the knife in her pocket, took out her cell phone, and dialed Ji Hoon’s number.

In the Underworld, for every King, there
were different politics that one had to abide by to establish themselves as legendary, feared, and respected. Young Jae wasn’t a King who could take credit for killing an innocent family because his reputation had always been that he was the “kindest” out of all the Kings. He couldn’t break out of this mold without losing the support of those who stood beside him because of this reputation. Ho Young, who could kill innocents without blinking an eye, was seen as the most ruthless one. He could do anything and his reputation would not be compromised because the people who supported him loved for him to be ruthless. And finally there was Ji Hoon. Although he had always been viewed as a powerful King, he was also seen as a heavily distracted one. He adored Soo Jin and this society knew that.

Soo Jin
was also aware that “love” would never be widely popularized in their world. Ji Hoon would always be punished for being “distracted”—that was unless she made their love notorious. Even in her semi-broken state, Soo Jin was clearheaded enough to watch out for her boyfriend. She planned to make things right for him. Ji Hoon was all she had left and she would be damned if she didn’t help turn him into one of the most powerful and notorious Kings in this world, and thereby help them as a couple. She was going to make them infamous in the Underworld.

“Ji Hoon?” The message she left him was one that she had never left anyone before. She had never felt so weak and so hum
an in her life as she sat there, waiting for him to come and get her. By this time, she knew that gang members were out stalking the streets, loitering about, and she wanted them to see Ji Hoon and herself come out of the club. For this crime, she wanted to give Ji Hoon the credit.

While she waited,
Soo Jin couldn’t help but hear the screams in her head. Oh God, the screams. They were getting louder and louder in her head. She couldn’t hear anything else. She couldn’t control anything. She couldn’t control her tears, couldn’t control her misery, and couldn’t control her inhumanity. She struggled to maintain her sanity. Why? Why was it so hard for her to be inhuman right now? Why the fuck was it so hard all of a sudden?

She smirked morosely to herself.

This was her price to pay for allowing her humanity to shine through. This was her punishment for being weak and this was her ultimate punishment for becoming human again. The Gods reside in heaven and humans go to hell.
This
was her hell.

S
oo Jin was so lost in her thoughts that she didn’t even realize Ji Hoon had arrived until he was right in front of her, holding her to his chest while he stared at her. He was saying things she couldn’t hear because she was so overcome with the screams. She wasn’t sure what she said to him, but she knew it probably sounded crazy. The bewilderment on his face told her he was perplexed by her unusual behavior.

“It’s okay, baby. I’m here,” h
e whispered despite his confusion.

He held her close to his arms and w
ithout a moment of delay, they were inside his car and driving off. Ji Hoon only stiffened when he spotted some gang members peeking into the club from his rearview mirror. He knew that they saw them leave the club. He made a move to stop the car and reverse back to kill them, to stop them from spreading rumors until Soo Jin, who had enough sense to snap out of her daze, lifted her hand up and held a firm grip on his wrist.

“They must spread the rumors
,” she told him with conviction. The confusion in his eyes did not cause her resolve to falter. “Your reputation has been tarnished in this world because of your love for me, Ji Hoon. But I’m making things right. After tonight, when people hear of your ‘involvement’ in the Club Massacre, you will be the most infamous King this world has ever known. We have to let them live; we have to let them spread the rumors.”

“Soo Jin, what’s
going on?” he asked, bewildered.

U
nable to lie to him, she told him everything. She told him about Tony. She told him about the tape. She told him about the jade knife. She told him about the Siberian Tigers. She told him about what happened in the club and finally, she told him about her plans and how she needed him to give her a formula that would help fake her death.

“Have you lost your mind?” Ji Hoon asked
after she was done talking. His eyes scrutinized hers. “Your brother? After all that you told me about what the fucker did, you want him to be the one who injects you with the formula?”

“It’s
the only way!” Soo Jin gritted out as thunder started to rumble outside. “I need to disappear, and I need time to resurrect the Siberian Tigers!”

“How fu
cking hard is it?” cried Ji Hoon. “I’ll kill Young Jae, and we’ll get this over with! You don’t have to risk your life!”

“
Young Jae will be
my
kill!” she snarled through clenched teeth, infuriated that he couldn’t see where she was coming from. “He will be
my
kill in the war that
I’m
bringing him! I want him to feel the same betrayal he gave to our father when he murdered him, and you can go fuck yourself if you think you’re getting in the way of that!”

“You expect me to sit here, listen to your ridiculous plan, and help give you the very formula that m
ay actually cause you to die?”

“I don’t have time for this,” Soo Jin
uttered impatiently. She still had to figure out a place to hide the jade knife. Everything was time sensitive now. She didn’t have time to convince Ji Hoon.

“You’re
making a mistake,” he told her, watching the stubbornness sweep out of her.

“No,” she contended.
“My mistake would be going through all this shit and not having Young Jae’s head and my own throne to make me feel better. In the span of the last few hours, I’ve become so fucking human that I feel like I’m going crazy. I did not just cry and feel the effects of hell just to let this epic moment pass me by.” She stopped to breathe and gather her wits. She momentarily calmed down, knowing that he was only trying to watch out for her. “You’re all I have left, Ji Hoon. I need this right now. I need this revenge and I need you to help me get it.”

When he opened his mouth to combat her wishes, she interrupted him by op
ening the door and storming out.

“You
think about it and let me know,” she stated, not wanting to hear him oppose her plans.

She slammed the
door shut, leaving him to stare at her in disbelief.

Despite b
eing broken and arguing with her boyfriend, Soo Jin was unwilling to allow any of this to thwart her plans. She refused to experience hell without coming out with her plan being intact.

Hide the jade knife
, she told herself as she began to walk away, feeling disgusted with everything the knife represented.
Hide it and let’s set the plan in motion
. . .

“
And you will regret ever being born.”

29: The Human Queen

“Oppa!” the young girl screamed when her older brother tugged at her arm. He proceeded to drag her through the sea of dancing people at the masquerade ball they were attending. “Oppa! No, no, no!” she repeatedly shouted. “I don’t want to dance with you! You’re so weird! I want to dance with that cute boy I saw!”

A newly turned ten-year-
old Soo Jin, who was dressed in one of the prettiest pink princess gowns for her Uncle Ju Won’s party, looked around vividly, searching for the cute boy she saw. Her heart fluttered when she spotted him in the corner with a teacup in hand. He was so handsome. She wanted to run after him and talk to him, but her stupid big brother wouldn’t stop dragging her away from the cutie.

“Come on
, you dumb-dumb!” the young Young Jae shouted. He was dressed in a black tuxedo of his own. He continued to tug her into the middle of the dancing crowd. “I need to practice so I can dance with my future wifey! After that, you can go find your future husband and dance with him.”

“Why me?” Soo Jin whined petulantly. “
Why do I have to dance with you?”

“Becau
se you’re my baby sister. That’s what siblings do for each other!”

“Do what?”

“Have each other’s back!” Young Jae preached like a shepherd on a mission. “I got yours and you got mine!”

He laughed, pinching his baby sister’s nose
who, despite her own bitterness, would do this stupid favor for him and dance with him. He was, after all, her brother and she loved him.

“You got my back right, lil sis?”

■■■

“What I’m about to share, you will speak about to no one else. If you dare to breathe a word of it to anyone, then I will hunt you down and make you pay for everything,” Soo Jin said sternly, standing in a private room filled with over two dozen of her Scorpions, all of whom were personally trained by her.

Jae Won and Kang Min
were standing in the crowd, staring at her with immense curiosity.

“We understand, boss,” one of the Scorpions conceded. “
You have our word. We won’t repeat what goes on here.”

Other voices murmured in agreement, assuring her that she had their unwavering loyalty.

It had been days since the “Club Massacre” and the rumors had already circulated about her and Ji Hoon. The rumors were whispers of horror and fascination with the couple who were deemed as the most notorious couple in Underworld history.

During this time
span, Soo Jin avoided calls from Ji Hoon because she no longer wanted to hear how much he hated her plans. To everyone else, she made a point to show how “broken” she was. In truth, that didn’t take much acting on her part because she was actually feeling depressed. She could not stop thinking about what happened at the club. Remorse continued to pelt over her like rain. Such a feeling was becoming unbearable for her. It was so crippling that she didn’t know how to stow it away and reclaim the inhumane side that she loved so much. It also didn’t help that, even after countless hours of deciphering, she still couldn’t figure out what the riddle Eve gave her meant.