Cai ran his fingers up and down her arm. “Give him a chance.” The words were so low, she barely heard them over the sounds in the neighborhood.
“I am,” she replied. He’d given her more info today than she expected, but she also didn’t know what she didn’t know. Ugh. Nice reasoning. In other words, he could have told her the extent of his past, or he could have skimmed the surface.
She studied the man who had just been inside her. From the way he was acting, she had a feeling there was a lot more to the story.
Chapter 8
Seok: Eighteen Years Old
Seok stared at his reflection and winced. Some colors just didn’t work with his coloring and the gold of Saint Martin’s blue and gold was… off-putting.
The blue was good, but the streaks of gold had come out more orange and he had the distinct impression that all the bleach was going to cause his hair to break. He’d probably end up having to shave it.
Chuckling, he turned away from the mirror to trudge back to his room. Imagine the look his parents would have if he returned with a bare skull. His father would have a coronary.
It was raining today, not unexpected for this time of year in Vancouver, but the gray, heavy clouds gave the entire campus a feeling of being closed in.
He grabbed his umbrella, slid his cell phone in his pocket and left. Dylan, Jace, and Bai were already gone, but they had crew before the sun was up. Seok had done that for about a month, but all it took was one regatta through a tiny channel around Raccoon Island and he was done. Not worth it.
Outside it wasn’t raining so much as spitting water. Despite his umbrella, Seok was immediately damp. The hem of his pants. His socks. All of him just felt mushy.
Head down, he hurried across campus to his class. The few times he lifted his head, the other students—even ones he didn’t know—greeted him with big smiles. It was the hair. He was getting a lot of badass points for this hair.
At the stone steps leading to Campbell Hall and his advanced English course, his phone vibrated in his pocket. Later on, Seok wouldn’t know why he decided to check it. He had about a minute to get to class and there was no reason to linger outside in the wet and cold, but he pulled it from his pocket.
It was his brother.
A call from home wasn’t unexpected, but there was about a sixteen-hour time difference between here and Seoul, which meant it was around one in the morning. Sure, his brother could have been up, but why would he be calling Seok?
“Hello?”
Seok flicked his bangs out of his face. How did his hair get wet? What the hell was the point of an umbrella if the water was going to come up from the ground?
“Seok.” His brother’s voice was quiet. “I need to ask a favor.”
He couldn’t have heard him correctly. Seok had nothing his brother could want, but what he did have Baek could take. “Sure. Whatever you need.”
“Your trust.”
“I trust you.” Was this a joke? It suddenly all made sense. Baek had had too much champagne. “But I have to go to class.”
There was a quick, humorless laugh on the other end of the line. “No. I need to go into your trust. I need money.”
Seok’s stomach clenched as all the reasons his brother needed money flooded his brain. Drugs. A woman. An accident. “Are you all right?”
“I can’t tell you,” his brother said. “Not now. But I’m going to empty it. I need your signature. It’s the only account I can’t access.”
Something about his brother’s words sent the alarm bell already ringing in Seok’s head to a ten. Empty his trust?
“I’ll pay you back.” Baek’s words spilled from his mouth, tinged with desperation. “I promise.”
He didn’t have a choice. This was his brother. His family. He owed them his loyalty, so whatever they needed… “Take it,” Seok told him. “Send me the paperwork. It’s yours.”
The rest of the day passed, no different than any other, but his world had shifted. His brother’s call signified a change, but of what, he had no idea. He knew the revelation would come. His father, or Baek, would call. He hoped it was something easy, something fixable, but to want his entire trust?
His trust… Seok had been raised knowing the money his grandfather and father had put into his name had a purpose: the family business. It was a safety net to keep the business running, or God forbid, start up a new one.
That money was gone now. If Baek needed it, then he would take every penny. There were millions of dollars in there.
Gone.
He had never counted on it, never thought of using it for himself, but the idea of not having it to fall back on quite honestly frightened him.
Safety. Responsibility. Loyalty. Those were the ideas drilled into him. While he’d certainly lived up to two by transferring the money, he was left without the first.
“Seok!” Bai, his roommate, hurried after him. It was their last class, and Seok hadn’t even noticed his friend was there. “Didn’t you hear me?”
“No,” he answered honestly. “Sorry.”
Bai, an international student like Seok, studied him. “Are you ill?”
He shrugged. It would depend on Baek’s explanation. “No. Just tired. I have a lot of work to do.” He turned and began down the cobblestone paths back to their dorms. Bai strode next to him, but didn’t say a word. Of all his roommates, Bai was the easiest to get along with. His quiet steadiness was a relief compared to Jace and Dylan’s exuberance.
“There’s a senior class meeting this afternoon.”
He’d forgotten all about that. His brain just wasn’t capable of thinking of anything besides his brother right now.
“I’ll tell everyone you weren’t feeling well. They’ll give you way more leeway since you became the school mascot.”
Stopping abruptly, Seok glared, but Bai only shrugged before laughing.
“You’re the one who said it!” Bai held out his hands. “Not me.”
True enough. “Thanks.”
Bai elbowed him before turning down the path that led to the student center. “Don’t worry about it. See you tonight. I’ll bring you soup.”
“Ha.”
Seok stood, watching his friend run away. The rain had stopped, but the air still held a dampness that chilled him. Shivering, he jogged back to his dorm and ignored everyone who waved.
The best way, he discovered that evening, to pretend everything was fine, was to bury himself in work. Unfortunately, the work he had to do only took half his concentration.
Headphones on, music turned up, he did his best to distract himself. He tried to drown himself in calculus and the Russian revolution, but then he’d remember Baek’s call and all the things he’d read flew out of his head.
Then he’d buckle down and try it again. By the time his roommates stomped back into the suite, Seok’s nerves were frayed. He’d given up homework and was shooting Nazis in Call of Duty.
Dylan rapped on his door, the sound sharp even over the gunfire. Spinning around in his computer chair, Seok pulled his headphones off his ears. “What?”
“You okay?”
Seok shrugged. “Better.” Lie. “Thanks.”
He rapped his knuckles on the doorframe, apparently satisfied with his answer, and shut the door.
Why didn’t Baek call?
Eight in the evening in Vancouver was around one in the afternoon back in Seoul. Seok was done waiting. He snagged his cell phone from its spot on his desk and dialed his brother’s number.
It rang. And rang.
Then went to voicemail.
Annoyed, he rang again. Still no answer.
Flinging his phone on his bed, he let out a breath. Baek was avoiding him, that much was obvious.
It took hours for him to fall asleep that night. His eyes burned as he stared into the darkness, the only sound: the music filtering through his headphones. Every so often there was a crash or raised voices, but those things barely got his attention anymore.
Why didn’t he call?
His brother’s behavior this summer suddenly took on darker overtones, more sinister ones. He tried to remember how drunk Baek got, what his eyes looked like, if he’d been associating with anyone shady. Shady?
Seok grabbed his pillow from beneath his head and brought it over his face, yelling into it. For the first time since leaving Seoul, he hated being so far away and at the mercy of whatever people wanted to share with him.
He reached for his phone, squinting when the blue light shone in his eyes. He checked his email, his texts—nothing.
Dropping it onto his chest, he stared at his ceiling and waited for dawn to come.
There was no word from Baek the next day, or the next. But there was nothing from his father either, so that was good. If his father called, Seok knew they were fucked.
On the third day, he started to relax. Surely if something were wrong, he’d know about it by now. The tension eased from his chest when he came to that realization, and he could finally breathe again.
He hated how apart from everyone he’d felt. Everyone went about their days, pranking each other, playing lacrosse on the green, but he couldn’t participate. At any moment, he could be dragged back to Seoul. At least, that was how he felt. Like his days in Vancouver were numbered.
“Seok!” Jace made a soft pass to Dylan. It was nice out, sunny and warm, which was rare for October, and everyone was taking advantage of the weather. Guys hung out on the green, faces turned into the sun. Seok planned on doing the same thing as soon as he put his backpack in his room.
He stopped when Jace called him, waiting as he jogged over to him. “I need your notes from advanced English. I slept through class Wednesday.”
“And we have a test tomorrow.”
Jace rested his lacrosse stick over his shoulder and snapped his fingers. “You got it.”
“I’ll throw them in your room, okay?” he asked, walking backwards toward the stone steps leading to the dorm.
His roommate was already headed back to his spot, stick lifted, waiting for the ball. “Thanks!”
He hurried inside, stripping his tie from around his neck and shrugging out of his jacket. Everyone was in casual clothes, and he was ready to get out of his button-down shirt and the rest of his uniform.
Finally, he was in comfortable jeans and a t-shirt. Before he left, he grabbed a kerchief from next to his bed to tie back his hair. It had gotten long, and he didn’t want it in his face when he was passing the ball with Jace and Dylan.
He grabbed his stick from its spot by his desk, opened the door to the suite, and froze.
“Father?”
Seok blinked, certain he was imagining the rumpled, tired man. But then he spoke. “Seok. Son. May I come inside?”
Never, never had his father made a request of him. He commanded. Demanded. And Seok obeyed. That was their relationship.
He opened the door wider, stepping aside to make room for him. As he passed, his father’s gaze raked him from head to toe before he grimaced.
Blue and gold hair. Ripped jeans. A t-shirt with a graphic of She-Hulk. This wasn’t a side of himself he ever showed to his father.
The weirdest thing was his father didn’t even seem to notice his hair. He went right to the sofa and sat down, placing his head in his hands.
“I’m sure by now you know.”
“No, Father.” But he’d been waiting.
Dropping his hands, his father pinned him with a gaze. “After he emptied your trust, I was certain you knew.”
He wanted to be sick, but he swallowed hard and sat across from Father. “No. He asked me to sign over the trust, and I did.”
“No questions?” His father’s gray eyebrows lifted into his hair.
“He’s my brother.” Family. He was loyal to his family.
Sighing, his father leaned back against the couch. “I considered calling you back to Seoul, alone, but there is so much press right now. My passport could be confiscated at any moment, so I decided to tell you in person. News like this needs to be told face-to-face. Like your brother should have done.”
With each word, Seok’s anxiety rose. “Where is Baek?”
His father dragged his hands down his face and then rubbed them over his knees. “Under house arrest for now. His bail is paid.”
Seok had suspected it was something bad, but jail? “What did he do?”
The sound of his father’s hands over the material of his pants stopped, and he glared at Seok. “He’s shamed all of us. He has lied and stolen, and if we are able to salvage our company, then I will be amazed. Our name, however, we can never get back.”
Chapter 9
Nora
In the distance, a car horn blared, but the guys didn’t so much as twitch. They sat, waiting for Seok to elaborate.
He ran his hands through his hair and then stared at his palms, like they held the answer. “My father wants me to come home and take over the business. I am the only one who can—or so he claims.”
His family business. “Is it engineering or architecture?”
“No. It’s importing lumber. Very technical, and not very interesting.”
It sounded complicated, and except for it having to do with trees, nothing like what he did so far. “But you have jobs here, and they’re what you’re interested in, right?” He was always building and creating, and those times he left for meetings, he certainly didn’t act as though he dreaded them. But just talking about this business seemed to fold Seok in on himself.
“It isn’t,” he replied. “I was never interested in the business, but for a long time, I expected it would be my career. I was raised to believe it.”
Inside the house, the landline began to ring. Matisse jumped up. “I’ll get it.”
Ryan suddenly reached into his pocket, eyes narrowed as he removed his phone. He read quickly, then shoved the phone back into his pocket. “It was Bismarck. He wanted—”
“Nora!” Matisse called. His footsteps thundered on the wood floor before he slid the door open. “That was Lucy. Your interview is airing tonight. She wanted you to be prepared.”
Nora peered at Ryan, who nodded. “Yeah. That’s what he wanted me to tell you as well. Expect more media.”
And now she wanted to puke. “I thought it would be a one-off. They ask me the questions, mystery solved.”
Matisse came outside and sat on one of the wooden steps. “That’s not how it works.”
“That’s rarely how it works,” Seok added.
She knew that Matisse had some experience with getting bad press, and Cai, too for that matter. Their stories were online for anyone to look up. But Seok, too?
It hadn’t occurred to her to search for Seok.
“If you know what I’m supposed to do, or what I should expect, would you mind telling me? I really thought this would help everything die down.” Maybe that was naive. People were clamoring for answers, so she gave them what she could. So why did they need more? “I don’t have more secrets.”
“You didn’t see what that interview looked like.” Matisse stretched his long legs out in front of him. “You were so beautiful and honest. And the story?” He shrugged. “No one can make up a story like this. Hero to villain to innocent victim.”
Yuck. “I’m not a victim.” She sat up straighter, and Cai kissed the back of her neck.
“No one thinks that.”
She peered at Matisse who held his hands up. “I’m talking about perception, chére, not reality.”
“So what do I do?” she asked.
“Don’t panic,” Ryan replied. “We’re only guessing at this; Bismarck could be completely wrong.”
“He’s not wrong,” Seok muttered so quietly she could barely hear him over the traffic. “Matisse is right.”
She glared.
“Except for the victim part.”
The conversation devolved to discussions about dinner and school after Bismarck and Lucy’s calls. Nora sat listening, h
appy to just be an observer to the guys, but the sun started to get hot on her neck.
“I’m going in to shower.”
Cai helped her as she struggled to get to her feet. “Are you okay?”
This wouldn’t last forever. One day, Murray would be a distant memory and they’d look back on this time and how ridiculous it was. But today wasn’t that day. Today, she was moderately okay, so she held her hand out and tipped it from side to side.
Cai stood and dropped a kiss on her cheek. “We’re here for you.”
Nora smiled. And thank goodness they were, because without them, what a nightmare all this would be. She wasn’t convinced she wouldn’t be in jail right now.
With a wave to the others, she trudged inside and upstairs to the bathroom. She hadn’t showered after she and Seok had been together, and the longer she sat in the sun, the more aware of it she became. Especially after Cai had mentioned her scent. Call her paranoid, but it was a line she didn’t want to cross.
The water heated up as she stripped out of her clothes and kicked them into a pile. God. How things had changed. When she’d first arrived here, she only had the things the guys gave her. Now, slowly but surely, she was starting to build her own stock of treasures again.
Snorting at the word, she stuck her hand under the shower to gauge the temperature. So jeans were one of her treasures, so what? She’d never need a lesson about appreciating the smaller things in life.
Nora climbed into the shower and stepped under the spray. One thing she still hadn’t gotten used to was her short hair. She was used to her long curls and the way her hair soaked up all the water. Now, she put a little shampoo in her hand, rubbed it over her scalp, and that was it.
Her fingers found the scar beneath her hairline automatically. It was well healed, but still raised.
Finding Unity Page 4