Chapter 9 - Blood Debts
Min-jae Lee had many enemies.
Some wanted his money.
Some wanted his routes.
Some wanted revenge for fathers, brothers, bosses, and lies he had buried on his way to the throne.
But only one enemy knew about the woman in the alley.
Park Jun-ho had once been Min-jae’s closest friend.
Before betrayal.
Before Baekho.
Before the night in the rain when Min-jae discovered that the ambush had come from someone who knew his habits, his exits, his guards, and his trust.
Jun-ho reappeared three days after the Velvet Ember burned.
He sent a gift to Jasmine’s office.
A bottle of Amber Nectar perfume wrapped in black paper.
No note.
Jasmine stared at it on her desk until the air left her lungs.
Her coworker Maya frowned. “Secret admirer?”
“No.”
Jasmine called Daniel.
She did not call Min-jae.
Daniel arrived in eleven minutes.
His face darkened when he saw the bottle.
“Do not touch it.”
“I already moved the box.”
“Wash your hands.”
“Mysterious and comforting.”
He called someone in Korean, then looked at Jasmine.
“You need to leave.”
“I have a client presentation in twenty minutes.”
“Cancel it.”
“No.”
Daniel stared.
Jasmine stared back.
Finally, he said, “Please.”
That word worked better than any order.
Jasmine grabbed her bag.
Outside the office, a black SUV waited.
Min-jae sat inside.
Jasmine stopped walking.
Daniel muttered something that sounded like a prayer.
Min-jae stepped out.
“I know,” he said before she could speak. “You told me not to come.”
“And yet.”
“This is immediate danger.”
“Convenient.”
His face was grim. “Not convenient. Jun-ho knows about the alley.”
The name meant nothing to her.
The fear in Min-jae’s eyes meant everything.
“Who is he?”
“The man who tried to kill me eight months ago.”
Jasmine went cold.
Min-jae opened the SUV door.
“This time, please choose safety first and hate me after.”
She should have refused.
But the perfume bottle had been too precise. Too intimate. A message to both of them.
Jasmine got in.
Min-jae sat across from her, not beside her.
The space mattered.
She noticed.
Daniel drove.
“Why would he target me?” Jasmine asked.
“Because he cannot reach me directly.”
“So I’m leverage.”
Min-jae’s jaw tightened. “No. You are a wound he noticed.”
“That is not better.”
“No.”
They took her to a townhouse in Brooklyn Heights under a name that belonged to no one real. Inside, the windows were reinforced, the kitchen stocked, and the guest room prepared without feeling like a cage.
Jasmine hated that too.
“You had a safe house ready for me?”
Min-jae did not lie.
“Yes.”
“Before I knew you existed?”
“You knew I existed.”
“As a bleeding man in an alley.”
He looked away.
She sighed.
“Min-jae.”
He looked back.
“I am not a fragile thing you store behind locks.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
His voice lowered. “I know you tore a dress to keep a stranger alive. I know you faced Nathaniel Crowe while drugged. I know you looked Arthur Crowe in the eye and made him small. I know fragile things do not frighten men like that.”
The anger in her chest shifted.
Not gone.
Changed.
“Then stop treating me like glass.”
“I am trying.”
“Try harder.”
For the first time, the corner of his mouth moved.
Almost a smile.
“Yes, Ms. Brooks.”
That night, Jun-ho released a video.
It showed Min-jae in the alley eight months ago.
Bleeding.
Barely conscious.
And Jasmine kneeling beside him, her hands pressed to his side, her purple dress torn open at the hem.
The caption read:
Ask her what kind of woman saves a monster and then pretends she is innocent.
By morning, Jasmine was no longer just the woman Nathaniel Crowe had targeted.
May you like
She was the woman connected to Min-jae Lee.
And America loved nothing more than putting a woman on trial for a man’s sins.
