The War of Gods (A Welcome to the Underworld Novel, Book 3) (13 page)

As she felt the knife press a dent onto her shaking cheek, a
commotion burst into the club.

Sounds of heavy footfalls rang across the room.

“Get off of her!”

Ace’s
foot suddenly lifted from her throat while the knife was pulled away from her cheek. Once free, Yoori was left to instinctively gasp for air.

“You have some fu
cking nerve touching boss’s woman like that.” Kang Min’s furious voice swam into her psyche.

Moments later,
she felt someone lift her and pull her against their chest.

“Hey boss.” Jae Won
gently shook her, trying to keep her awake. “You’re okay, you’re okay now. We’re here.”

The blurs in her eyes were beginning to dissipate when the eye-patch guy appeared out of nowhere and kicked Jae Won
across the face, causing him to crash to the side.

“We knew you co
uldn’t be trusted when we told boss that you were one of An Soo Jin’s elusive right-hand men,” the blonde girl said heatedly, glaring at Kang Min before she ripped out a knife from her back pocket and aimed it for his neck.

Kang Min
was not only quick enough to avoid the weapon, but he was also skilled enough to grab on to the handle of the knife. He propelled his hand forward and threw the knife back. The knife pierced into the shoulder of the girl like a bull’s eye. The girl screamed, nearly collapsing to the ground when she tended to her wound. Too distracted with the girl, Kang Min did not see it coming when Ace jumped up, used the pillar as a prop, extended his leg in mid-flight, and kicked Kang Min across the head. Kang Min flew across the room and landed on the pile of broken wood that still had remnants of Yoori’s blood on it.

Consciousness returned to Yoori at the sound of his pained groans.

Indignation started to breed inside her.

She would let them hurt h
er, but no one was allowed to hurt Jae Won or Kang Min.

Sounds of
skulls being slammed into walls emanated from the background as Jae Won tumbled on the floor with the guy wearing the eye-patch. Fists as hard as iron dented floors, penetrated into walls, and shattered tables. The punches they threw at one another were severe, utterly merciless.

“Enough!” Yoori
ordered, feeling the blood seep out of her leg as she finally regained full consciousness.

No one heard her.

The fight grew worse. Gunshots started to fill the room. Chaos broke out. The world around Yoori became a kaleidoscope of confusion as she fought to clear the fog from her vision.

“Enough!” Yoori screamed. She grabbed a Cobra by the back of his neck and threw him to the ground when she saw that he was about to knife Jae Won.

Boom!

The Cobra crashed
against several chairs when he fell to the floor.

Yoori did not stop there.

She was no longer in pain; she was seeing red.

She wanted this anarchy to end.

She dodged around the bullets flying through the club when she saw that the blonde Cobra girl was aiming her gun at Kang Min’s back.

“Enough!” Yoori cried again. She body-slammed the girl to the ground, elbowed her in the face, twisted her hand back, and ripped the gun from her grasp. Yoori stood up and ejected the bullets from the gun while the girl tried to stop her mouth from bleeding.

“I said, ‘
ENOUGH!
’” Yoori roared at the top of her lungs, causing everyone in the club to stop fighting.

The bullets ceased, the sounds of destruction stopped, and the fighting came to a standstill. They stared at Yoori, bewildered by the sudden authoritative role she emitted.

Yoori stood still, breathing intently for a few seconds. Unable to withstand the pain mounting in her body, she fell back to the ground. The Serpents in the room were left stunned, paralyzed in silence until they heard the sound of the club doors being kicked down.

The atmosphere in the club morphed from rage
. . .
to unmatched fear.

Trepidation seized the Cobras’ voices when they addressed the one who walked in.

“Boss—”

A bone-crushing punch was heard when one of the assassins fell down,
his hands clutching his face in pain. Another sound of scuffling was heard. Yoori could’ve sworn she felt the entire room shake after a body was thrown against the pillar of the club. Sounds of groaning arose from the violent impact. She heard a few more bone-crushing punches, sounds of people being thrown against walls and chairs broken over them reverberate into the club.

And then, amid
the confusion, a whiff of the cologne that she loved so much swam up her nostrils, acting as a defibrillator for her once weakened body. The anarchy Yoori experienced was vanquished instantly. She felt someone lay a palm across her face and next thing she knew, she was gazing up at the one person she had been avoiding for so long and the one person she missed the most.

Tae Hyun.

She was quiet as his captivating brown eyes held hers, his palm framed over her cheek, and his lips locked together in silence. His face glowed like an angel’s under the swaying light of the club. Yoori’s heart pumped desperately against her chest. It was as though it was fighting to leap out of her in order to be with him. After more than three weeks of trying to forget him, Tae Hyun was in front of her and he was as breathtaking as ever. Then, she recalled the horrible thing she said to him before she left him, the reminder of his betrayal, and the hurt she felt when he ignored her on the street. The reminders were enough to ruin the euphoria she felt from seeing him again.

“Fu
ck, these bruises are going to last me a couple of days
. . .
”

Yoori
snapped out of her reverie when she heard Kang Min and Jae Won mutter curses to themselves. They had found a seat on the steps of the club. She sighed. Evidently, the problems between Tae Hyun and Yoori would have to wait until other things were dealt with.

She averted her
gaze from the brothers and found Tae Hyun’s assassins. Yoori’s eyes grew wider. The rest were kneeling. She hadn’t even realized they were kneeling until now. All nine, battered assassins knelt in front of Tae Hyun and her, their heads bowed down in shame after their King made his appearance.

“Ahhhh!” A sudden scream issued from Yoori when
Tae Hyun moved her closer to inspect all her wounds.

Thrown
by her scream, his irate eyes narrowed onto the blood coating around her thigh and the small shards of glass in her skin. There was an inhalation of wrath before he stood up.

“She’s bleeding,” he told Kang Min and Jae Won. “Wrap her leg up and call H
an. Tell him it’s an emergency and that I need him to see someone immediately.”

Jae Won got on
to the phone while Kang Min ripped a white cloth that had been covering a table. He wrapped the cloth around her thigh to prevent the blood from seeping out any further. Tae Hyun directed his attention to his kneeling assassins.

“Do I even
have to tell you your fates?” he asked darkly.

He was e
nraged with Yoori’s condition. He was so angry that he didn’t give them any warning. Tae Hyun extracted his silver guns from behind his back, cocked his guns, and aimed at them.

“
Wait, no!” Yoori cried, pushing past Kang Min.

S
he staggered over to Tae Hyun, who pulled the trigger. Yoori reached him just in time. She pushed his aim away and the gunshots missed the heads of Ace and Mina, both of whom didn’t even attempt to dodge the bullets. As the bullets lodged into the wall behind them, Tae Hyun’s assassins remained in kneeling positions, all obediently waiting for Tae Hyun to punish them as he wished.

“Don’t kill them!” she shouted, trying to push Tae Hyun’s forearms down. She couldn’t allow more people to die for her in this club.

H
is furious eyes were locked on the assassins. “They should’ve never touched you,” Tae Hyun gritted through clenched teeth. “They deserve this.”

T
here was no mercy in his gaze. He gently pushed her away and prepared to aim again.

“Please! For me, for me!” Yoori
begged hysterically, nearly tripping over in an effort to take his guns from him. “Please don’t kill them.”

“Are you fucking serious?” he asked in exasperation. He turned to her in bewilderment.
“After all they did to you, you want them to live?”

He wasn’t the o
nly one staring at her in disbelief. Kang Min, Jae Won, and the rest of the Cobras were staring at her in astonishment too.

Yoori nodded earnestly. “
Please. No more. No more deaths here. Just give me this much.”

Tae Hyun
let out a frustrated breath. He cursed out loud, acquiesced with her request, and bitterly placed his guns behind his back. He may have spared their lives for Yoori, but he was still intent on punishing them.

His
furious eyes stabbed into Ace. “What the fuck were you thinking?”

“Boss,
” Ace started, his eyes glancing at Yoori. He looked uncertain with how to regard her now. “We wanted to avenge Kimmy, save our gang, and protect you—”

“
So you think all of that justifies murdering someone who means the world to me?” Tae Hyun roared, shocking everyone in the room.

Wrath amplified his voice
, and his assassins were stupefied by this admission of truth. They hadn’t realized how deep his affections for Yoori went. Yoori, herself, was not exempt from the shock that came from this admission. Her only saving grace was that there was no time to mull over his heartfelt words. Business had to be tended to and Tae Hyun was wrapping everything up.

“She’s not who you think she is and I’ll
be damned if any of you get off scot-free. No matter how much she pleads for your welfare, you will pay for your offenses. Now take out your guns.”

“What?
” Yoori uttered. “Tae Hyun, no!”

He pointed at her leg. “Her thigh is bleeding.
”

That was all he had to say.

In unison, eighteen gunshots blared through the club.

Yoori’s heart almost collapsed at the thund
ering sounds until she realized that he wasn’t ordering them to kill themselves—he was ordering them to shoot themselves in the leg to make up for what they did to her.

They had all shot themselves twice in the
ir left thighs.

Yoori was puzzled. She didn’t understand why they didn’t just shoot themselves once. Whatever the reason, she had a distinct feeling that this procedure was a significant one for them. It was clearly a punishment that Tae Hyun had given in the past and one with which they were accustomed to
.

Groaning
voices speared across the room. In spite of their pain, the assassins remained kneeling, trembling while their silver guns shook in their hands.

Tae Hyun
, though angry, also looked pained by the fact that he had his own assassins shoot themselves. Nevertheless, he remained cool, collected, and unforgiving.

“If you ever touch her or come near her again,
the next bullets will be in your heads. Are we clear on that?”

All nine
nodded in understanding.

“Leave the country tonight,” Tae Hyun ordered. “I never want to see any of you again.”

“Boss,
please
,” Ace pleaded. Rivulets of sweat dripped over his forehead from the pain he was experiencing. Despite the direness of his wound, Ace, along with the rest of the Cobras, displayed nothing but reverence and love for Tae Hyun. “We can still be useful to you.”

“You’re done here, Ace,
” Tae Hyun dismissed quietly. “You were kicked out. There's no coming back in
. . .
especially after what happened here tonight.” His gaze roamed over them. Disappointment cloaked his eyes. “You’ve all disappointed me to no end and now you’re done for good. Leave the country. If I run into any of you again, I won’t be as forgiving.”

“But we
can help you find Seo Jin Ae!” the blonde girl cried, clutching her hands over her gunshot wound. “You trained us for this. You know we’re the only ones who can find her.”

Tae Hyun did not budge.
“That’s not enough to make up for what you did tonight, Sue.”

When it looked like he was ready to leave
, Mina suddenly shouted, “We know the names of the people An Soo Jin brought here!”

Tae Hyun—along with Yoori, Kang Min, and Jae Won—stilled. It felt like the entire world had stopped spinning to listen to the words coming from Mina’s lips.

“Say that again, Mina?”
Tae Hyun voiced in astonishment.

Noting the inte
rest searing out of her King’s eyes, and with the approval from her fellow assassins, Mina continued. “Before you kicked us out, you had us investigate what took place here during the ‘Club Massacre.’ We couldn’t find much over the course of those years, but after you kicked us out of the gang, we grew relentless. It took a long time, but we were able to find out the name of the family.”