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

by Con Template

  Others from the outside looking in would be fools to assume that discovering her brother’s betrayal would mean that she would become the “good guy” in this equation—that somehow, a decade of killing and being heartless would dissipate and she would see the errors of her ways.

  The mere thought was comical to her.

  Soo Jin was loyal—fiercely so. Nevertheless, her one good trait was violently overshadowed by the fact that she was also self-serving, power hungry, vindictive, and cold-blooded. She did not spend years perfecting her skills and sacrificing her blood to have it all fall to ruin. She did not give up her soul to become a God just to become a feeble human again. All of that was simply . . . unacceptable.

  She had to fix it.

  She had to rectify it if she wanted any chance of saving herself.

  Her decision was set two nights later.

  At eight that evening, Soo Jin led four other Scorpions into the various homes inhabited by the extended Siberian Tigers’ family. While she shot at innocent people and brutally dragged them from their homes, the conversation between herself and Ju Won invaded her mind.

  “How are you going to play this out, Soo Jin?” Ju Won had asked moments after Soo Jin made the agreement to bring war upon Young Jae. “What are your plans?”

  “I need time to resurrect the Siberian Tigers,” Soo Jin answered, already formulating her strategy. There was determined conviction in the eyes that used to be blurred with fragile tears. She was a woman on a mission. To be distracted with human emotions was not something she would allow. Too much was riding on this very moment.

  “It’s been two years, and they have dispersed throughout the regions of this country.” She stared at Ju Won, fierce resolve shrouding her visage. “I’m going to need time to regroup them. In this timeframe, I also want my trusted trainees to leave the Scorpions and either form their own gangs or infiltrate other ones. I want more numbers on my side, and I want to break apart other gangs when everything comes full circle . . .”

  “Get the fuck over here!” Soo Jin shouted, grabbing on to the collar of a seventy-year-old man who was trying to tend to his fallen wife. Soo Jin had just punched him in the gut and elbowed him in the face.

  His wife, a frail little old lady, was coughing up blood as she writhed on the floor. Soo Jin stood with dominance in a white semi-truck that they were piling the family members into. In the background, other Scorpions were beating and tying the family members up as well.

  As she barked orders at the Scorpions in the truck, her mind continued to relive her conversation with Ju Won.

  “How are you going to do all this without arousing suspicion from Young Jae?” Ju Won had asked her.

  “I will not be around to be suspicious,” she shared, already thinking this part through. “My brother is a smart man. If I’m under his rule, then there’s not much I can hide if I’m trying to resurrect a gang of my own. He’ll kill me before he gives me that chance.” Something glowed in her eyes, a glint that hinted at her motives. “My only way out is to disappear under his hands and his hands alone.”

  Ju Won’s eyes narrowed onto her. “You’re going to fake your death?”

  “Please!” the old man in the semi-truck cried. He dropped to his knees before Soo Jin. “Please, why are you doing this?”

  Soo Jin did not respond. She merely pulled his collar, dragged him up, and then threw him hard on to the floor beside his wife. Once his head collided with the wall of the truck, Soo Jin took out her gold gun and pointed it at him.

  “Tie her up,” she commanded, throwing him the ropes to do it.

  When the old man hesitated, an impatient Soo Jin, who was not willing to use up her bullets yet, took out her knife. She sped over to him. With great force, she snatched his hand and viciously sliced off two of his fingers. A portion of his pinky and the tip of his middle finger plunged on to the floor.

  His guttural screams drenched the truck while Soo Jin smirked. Shaking her head without remorse, she said, “I asked you nicely before, but don’t fuck with me, old man. Now hurry and tie her up before I cut off the rest of your fingers.”

  Her own words to Ju Won echoed in her mind as the man painfully did as he was told.

  “When we were younger, I always told him that if I were to kill myself, then it would be through injecting myself with a drug to die. I wanted to die in the cleanest of ways, without foam coming out of my mouth and without blood seeping out of me. He has to be the one to do it to keep my plan intact; he has to inject the poison into me if I want to fully disappear without him trying to track me down.”

  Concern entered Ju Won’s gaze. “What would the Queen of the Underworld commit suicide over?”

  Soo Jin thought about the age-old curse that had plagued humans since the beginning of time. In every killer’s life, there is said to be a moment in time when, after years upon years of killing, an altering of tides occur in which the cruelty you lived by fades under the return of a soul once given up to become inhuman. This moment is said to be the downfall of killers who find themselves falling to ruins when their soul—their humanity—returns to them and demands retribution for all the lives they cruelly stole.

  Soo Jin had heard stories of this curse falling upon the once “immortal legends” of this world and about the radical state these former legends spiral into when they had to face the curse of a lifetime.

  This curse had never happened to her (and for this, she was thankful). However, she imagined it would be the perfect excuse to give and the perfect road to take if she wanted to be absolutely believable to her brother. She knew enough about the standards of limitations when it came to fucking around with one’s humanity, and she knew what to use as her “breaking point.”

  She was going to use the Siberian Tigers’ extended family, namely the mother and her two children, and she was going to perform the human equivalent of the unforgivable: killing innocents and killing children.

  The genius of her plan brought pride to her sadistic eyes.

  They were it—they were the ones who would help her on the road to glory. They were the ones who would help keep her inhumanity—and ultimately her power—intact.

  Killing two birds with one stone, Soo Jin thought triumphantly, feeling no dread in the evil she was about to commit.

  The Queen of the Underworld would commit suicide because she became embarrassingly “human” again . . . Genius.

  Standing inside the moving truck, while keeping her eyes on the family members who were now sobbing together, Soo Jin felt nothing but anticipation for what was to come.

  She had no reservations about killing innocent people prior to finding out about her brother’s betrayal and continued to have no problem killing them with or without that information. As far as Soo Jin was concerned, they were merely casualties in order to obtain information about taking over the Siberian Tigers’ throne. They were simply tools used to make her brother believe the act she was about to pull.

  Soo Jin waved her blood-hungry knife and slashed off the ears of any of the family members who dared to fight her while they were being transported to the club.

  Wiping off blood splatters from her face, her emotionless eyes involuntarily shifted over to Eve and her two children, all of whom were hiding in the back corner of the truck, shaking relentlessly. Eve was tied up and bound with sturdy ropes while the small boys, the only ones untouched by the Scorpions and herself, were tending to their mother. Their innocent brown eyes were wide with fright while they looked at their aunts and uncles. The extended family may not have been related to the children by blood, but it was clear to Soo Jin in the way they would whisper comforting words to the boys that they loved them nonetheless. It was also obvious to Soo Jin that the boys were fighting between the need to stay with their mother and the desire to run over to one of their aunts and uncles to help tend to their wounds as well.

  Their fear of Soo Jin when she raised her bloodied knife to motion for them to sit still, however, cemented
them in their positions. Helpless, they wrapped their small arms around their mother, shaking with her while she cried at the sight of her deceased lover’s family getting beaten to death by the Scorpions who stood behind Soo Jin.

  Remember to “cry” when you kill those three, Soo Jin reminded herself when the truck came to a halt.

  The terror in the enclosed space thickened when the entryway of the truck was wheeled up. The cold night’s breeze crawled in. A collective hush came over the truck. Everyone knew what was to come. They were going to meet the one behind all of this.

  Young Jae.

  Standing before them, dressed in one of his impeccable black suits, Young Jae had on his signature expression. It was an expression that held severity, yet also hiding a hint of warmth as if to fabricate the verity of his true intentions. Even under the eyes of his soon-to-be victims and his Scorpions, he was still acting it up for them. It was a wonder to Soo Jin that she only now caught up with his act.

  Though less than thrilled with seeing him, Soo Jin manufactured a smile and silently greeted him with a wave of the knife.

  Pleased that he had the entire extended family in his grasp, Young Jae gave Soo Jin an approving look before he motioned with his fingers for the Scorpions to bring the family members forward and take them into the club.

  “I want to kill two birds with one stone and do something else while we’re here,” Soo Jin said, jumping out of the truck. The rest of the family members had quietly been filed in. It was just Soo Jin and her brother standing out on the desolate street.

  Young Jae didn’t appear to be paying attention.

  “We’ll discuss it later,” he said distractedly. He lifted a knife that he was holding by the blade and handed it to her. “But before that, torture them and find me Tony. After that, you can do whatever you want.”

  A smile graced Soo Jin’s lips. She was ecstatic to hear her predicted answer from him. Soo Jin grabbed the knife by the blade and walked into the club with her guns behind her back. The end justified the means, and if torturing them meant she would become the Lord of the Underworld, then she was all too happy to bestow hell on to them.

  An hour and a half was how long it took for Soo Jin to singlehandedly torture thirty-one family members, kill sixteen, and then leave the remaining fifteen to writhe on the floor like dying worms. The three left—the mother and her two children—sat in the corner unharmed. But not for long.

  “I don’t trust him,” Young Jae whispered. His eyes roamed the room from the balcony while he spoke to her.

  The floor was littered with blood, amputated fingers, disembodied flesh, and corpses.

  After finding out Tony’s location—useless information given that her brother was the one who had him—Soo Jin went up to the balcony. She brought up finding a “prized” heirloom for Ju Won in order to get his favor on their side. It was a lie that she started to perpetuate while she was torturing the family members by asking them where the infamous jade knife was. Unfortunately for Soo Jin, Young Jae had never gotten along with Ju Won. He was anything but cooperative when it came to procuring something for the eldest Advisor. But fortunately, Soo Jin was a cunning and persuasive individual. If she wanted something, then there were few who could deny her.

  “What could it hurt if we continued to torture them?” she placated diplomatically. Splatters of blood stained the jeans and black jacket she wore.

  Soo Jin would be damned if she couldn’t get the jade knife and the riddle. She had to get to the mother and the two children. She knew that the only option was to openly interrogate them in front of her brother. It was the only way to avoid suspicion.

  “Nothing matters anymore,” she continued, her mind already wheeling the plan into motion. “The moment they stepped foot in here, they were going to die anyway. Why not try to find out something for Ju Won while we’re at it?”

  The vindictiveness of her own words made her proud.

  What a blessing to be above crippling human emotions.

  “You trust him too much, lil sis,” said Young Jae. His eyes on her were severe. “Ju Won is a snake and the worst possible kind. Nothing he offers you should be taken lightly.”

  “He’s offering our family his empire, oppa,” Soo Jin lied, raising her voice, yet keeping it respectful to avoid pissing him off. “You know the pendulum of power that comes with that exchange. The Serpents are becoming stronger. Kwon Ho Young not only has the support of China’s Underworld, but he also has a trump card—his younger brother. His brother is on his way to ruling over the 1st layer. You know how influential that layer is when the Corporate Crime Lords are united. If we don’t move Ju Won over to our side, then all the power will shift to the Serpents. Is that what you want? For this world to kneel under the rule of the Serpents? The fuckers who murdered our father?”

  There was poignancy in her eyes that flickered for a split second. It was one that almost betrayed her knowledge that it was her brother who killed their father.

  “Don’t speak to me as if our father’s death affected you more than it affected me,” Young Jae warned, detecting her bitterness even when she tried so hard to hide it. “You have no idea what I’m going through.”

  Soo Jin bowed her head as her apology, mentally chastising herself for giving her emotions away. “I’m sorry,” she lied. “You know how much I hate them whenever I think about our father.” She persevered, refusing to give up. “Our world is changing, oppa. The three gangs are growing stronger and stronger everyday, but there’s a shifting of power now. Pretty soon, once things are in order, there will only be one Lord of the Underworld to rule over this entire layer and the two layers above it. I can’t stand here and allow the Serpents to have that power, especially when all we have to do is find out whatever it is Ju Won wants from the family below.”

  Her eyes fastened onto the floor where the unharmed mother and twins sat huddled in the corner, their faces paled from fear. She had been eyeing them the entire night with dwindling patience. She had to get information and she had to get it from them now.

  “You’re not touching them, Soo Jin,” Young Jae warned softly, though she knew by the dark undertone of his voice that he wanted her to. He wanted her to kill them, he wanted her to take the blame, and he wanted her to kill the entire family for the sake of his reputation.

  In that moment, the stage was set with two performers: An Young Jae and An Soo Jin.

  Soo Jin was determined to be the best performer of the two.

  “Look at how they shake,” she directed coldly. “That woman was Hwang Hee Jun’s girlfriend, and although the children aren’t his, I’m sure he loved them like his own. From the fear in their eyes, how they shudder, and how they looked at me when I tortured and shot those sixteen people, I know that they are the ones who have the answers we’re looking for.”

  “You’re entertaining the idea of torturing a mother and her two children?”

  “In every war there are casualties,” said Soo Jin. The emotions in her eyes were unreadable because she made it that way. “I plan on interrogating them, and I’ll do what’s necessary if they refuse to tell me the truth.” She turned to him. “Have the others leave, oppa,” she told him, wanting as few people in the room as possible. She didn’t want to risk the other Scorpions being in close range. “It should only be the two of us who hear any of this.”

  “You’re not invincible, baby sister,” said Young Jae, though he made no effort to physically stop her from going after them. “Murdering gang members is very different from hurting innocent people.”

  Or killing our father? She wanted to add, but bit down the urge.

  Instead, she passively said, “She should’ve known better than to get involved with the King of Siberian Tigers then.” Soo Jin held his eyes with hers, knowing exactly what to say to get him to give in. “What happens tonight will be placed under my name and my name alone. I killed those sixteen people, and I’ll finish the rest. What I do to the mother and her children will have no
effect on you. I don’t want to do this either, but if it’s for the good of our gang, then I’ll torture them all night if I have to.”

  Young Jae took a long, thoughtful moment to deliberate everything. He acted as if he cared, yet she could see it all so clearly now. He wasn’t deliberating—he was rejoicing.

  “Don’t hurt them too badly.”

  “You were always the kindest of the two of us.” It disgusted her to say this because she had once truly believed it. She knew better now. As she jumped over the balcony, prepared to do what was necessary to be the one standing in the end, she was more than willing to be the more ruthless out of the two.

  Her boots landed on the floor, crushing two amputated fingers beneath her before she raced over to the mother and children.

  And then . . . it began.

  “Get the fuck over here,” Soo Jin growled, grabbing the mother by the curls of her black hair. She forcefully dragged her over to the corner of the club where stairs and a white pillar stood.

  Something set off in Soo Jin the moment she heard Eve shriek in pain. A tormented scream from a distant past played in the backdrop of her memory, reminding her of a life before her reign as a Queen. Agonizing flashes of Ju Won ruthlessly pulling her hair while she cried and begged him for mercy on the first night of her training swarmed her mind, nearly causing her to collapse where she stood. She had to take a preparatory breath before the images dispersed from her mind, bringing her back to the present.

  Soo Jin swallowed uneasily, unnerved from this awful memory of her lowest point in life. Though thunderstruck by this peculiar event, she struggled to focus on the task at hand. It was an endeavor that proved to be a difficult task. While she continued to drag Eve across the room, the blood that pumped in her veins wasn’t that of usual excitement from hurting people. Strangely enough, it was one of dread. Dread of hurting an innocent person; dread of hurting someone who was as innocent as her before she lost her soul to the Underworld. It was an emotion she did everything in her power to suppress, no matter how nauseous she was beginning to feel. She had a job to do, a plan to keep, and a future to maintain.