The Fall of Gods (A Welcome to the Underworld Novel, Book 2)

by Template, Con

  He narrowed his fierce eyes onto her. “We gave you back your gun. This is your second chance from all of us, Soo Jin – from all three Advisors. We can forgive you for everything, as long as you finish the deed we assigned you that fateful night. Get rid of Tae Hyun and finish what you started that night in the club.”

  “Wh – What do I have to finish?” Yoori asked, now more curious than ever about what the fuck Soo Jin was doing in that nightclub. She sat back down, her eyes dimmed with anticipation.

  Jung Min stood up. He threw a stash of cash on the table and gazed ominously at Yoori. “You wasted 3 whole years. All you have to know is that you were a disappointment 3 years ago and if you don’t finish what you have agreed to finish, then the next time you die, it will be a sure thing.”

  “Wait,” she spoke before he walked away. Desperation teemed in her voice. “Don’t go yet.”

  Jung Min sighed and sat back down. When he was settled in his seat, Yoori continued tentatively. “Can…can you tell me more about Soo Jin?”

  Despite knowing that it was a bad idea to go down this route, Yoori still wanted to learn more about Soo Jin.

  The corner of his lips lifted. “You haven’t been enlightened by your boyfriends?”

  “Tae Hyun did not know her, he has only heard rumors about her. Ji Hoon was her boyfriend, his view on her is tinted.” She regarded him intently. “I want to hear it from you…the one who was there when she was born – the one who trained her all her life.”

  Jung Min pondered her words for a few moments before saying, “Do you know why she was Ju Won’s favorite?”

  She shook her head.

  “Because out of all the Underworld Royals, she lost her soul the quickest.”

  When Yoori remained quiet, he went on. “She was a natural born killer. Even with no training, she knew what she had to do to survive.” His eyes grew brighter. It was as though he was reminiscing a warm memory of his own child. “During the 8th month of her training, Ju Won decided to pit her against three well-known assassins in the Underworld. She was only 10 and she had yet to be fully trained. There was absolutely no chance she’d come out victorious in that battle. Yet the night before the match, Soo Jin did something that surprised all of us. Whereas other young Royals took their chances to be beaten by these three killers, Soo Jin decided that she wanted to win. She did not want to lose to them; she wanted to conquer them.”

  Yoori swallowed tightly. “What did she do?”

  “She put rat poison in their food and poisoned them before the match.”

  Yoori pushed her teacup away, suddenly losing her appetite.

  Jung Min did not share the same distaste. If anything, he seemed to grow fonder of the story he was sharing. “When I asked her why she cheated, she said it was because she was their Queen. ‘The Queen always wins.’”

  He looked at Yoori. “That is the type of person Soo Jin was. Even at a young age, she was merciless. She does not play by the rules. Her only goal is to conquer and win. If she cannot beat someone the conventional way, then she will find other ways to be victorious.” He smiled, his eyes becoming mocking. “How do you think she will play if she was to fight your beloved Tae Hyun for the Underworld throne? Do you think she will play fairly…or will she revert back to her old ways?”

  When Yoori exhaled painfully, Jung Min shook his head. “You will never get to keep him. If and when your memories ever return, Soo Jin will never let you keep him. You said that Tae Hyun will never hurt you, but Soo Jin does not have the same qualms. She will hurt him and in turn, he will forget about you and wage a war against her as well. ”

  He leaned in, his eyes never straying from hers.

  “Your love will never conquer what this society raised them to be. There is no happy ending for you…but there is still your second chance. Like I said, get rid of Tae Hyun and finish everything you started.”

  “I do not know what was started that night,” she voiced with anguish. Pain ripped through her. All of his words were echoes of the thoughts already percolating in her mind. He didn’t have to tell her that it was inevitable Soo Jin and Tae Hyun would wage a war against one another if they “met” – she already knew that. She took in a weary breath. “How can I finish it when I do not even know where to begin?”

  He looked at her with pity. “The answer lies in your memories. The concoction given to you is strong, but no doubt it has weakened with time. All you have to do is let go of the walls you’re holding up and let Soo Jin out. You do not need to know how it started, you just need to let her finish it.”

  Realization dawned over Yoori. She examined him with clarity in her eyes. “This is the true reason for your visit, isn’t it? To resurrect Soo Jin?”

  Jung Min smirked before making his true exit this time.

  “You may not realize it now, but a war is coming. The stadium for this war has been set. Soon, Tae Hyun will appear in that stadium and you will join him. You will not fight beside him; you will be his adversary. There will be a war of the Gods and when it ends, one of you will become the Lord of the Underworld and one of you will die. Which would you prefer, Yoori? Would you rather become an eternal God in this society, or finally know true death?”

  “When you will have to step down from being a God. . .”

  22: Dinner Party

  Yoori couldn’t stop thinking about her unexpected meeting with Jung Min when the following night came around. Tae Hyun hadn’t come home after he left that day. This fact did little to calm her nerves about what type of things Ju Won and Dong Min may have told him when he met with them.

  She was disjointed with concerns that were founded and unfounded. If Jung Min’s primary goal was to make her paranoid, then he succeeded because Yoori was more worried than ever. She sat around in the apartment, mulling over everything he said. She was worried about all of this and she was concerned about Tae Hyun’s safety.

  Yoori was only reassured that things were possibly still fine when Jae Won and Kang Min stopped by to check up on her. They informed her that Tae Hyun was busy catching up with Serpents business. They told her he wouldn’t make an appearance at home until the night of the dinner gathering. Yoori had hoped that she would at least be able to converse with Kang Min and Jae Won about what happened. The need escaped her when she saw how tired they were and how quickly they had to leave to deal with Serpents business. She made the executive decision to not tell them. She was afraid they’d share that she met with Jung Min with Tae Hyun. She didn’t want him to worry.

  Everything else aside, Yoori still had to vent this entire thing out to someone and she knew she couldn’t vent out to anyone else but her best friend. Chae Young and Yoori had been constantly on the phone since their meeting at the grocery store. As such, it wasn’t atypical when Yoori invited Chae Young over the next night to catch up. She caught Chae Young up on everything that happened: the movie date, the park date, the seduction, the morning after and the meeting with Jung Min.

  Of course, she conveniently left out incriminating information about anything pertaining to her being An Soo Jin. She just vaguely told Chae Young that Jung Min told Yoori to stay away from Tae Hyun because she was a distraction and that if she didn’t, Tae Hyun would eventually get rid of her himself. It wasn’t that she didn’t trust Chae Young. Yoori would trust Chae Young with her life. However, there were just some things that Chae Young, for her own safety, didn’t need to be privy to. Yoori being Soo Jin was one of those things.

  “What a paranoid old man. Tae Hyun would never hurt you!” Chae Young cried after hearing Yoori’s story.

  She was lying across the sofa in the living room, covering herself with Yoori’s purple blanket. All that was visible was the faux lined hood of her white jacket and her black pajama pants.

  “You should’ve seen that boy when he came into the diner and asked me where you were. He was chalk white. You couldn’t tell he was a crime lord until he started glaring at me after I yelled at him for making you cry.”
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br />   Dressed in a white sweater and black silk lounge pants, Yoori frowned protectively on the nearby couch. “What an ass. He gave you ‘the glare’?” she asked angrily, pissed that Tae Hyun would dare disrespect her friend like that. She shook her head. “I’m sorry for that. He’s someone who is used to getting his way. Just continue to speak to him as you would to anyone else. He needs to be grounded. In the meantime, I’ll yell at him for you.”

  “No, no, he was nice,” Chae Young mediated with a wave of dismissal. “I think he was just shocked when I told him you were crying. But you should’ve seen how antsy he was when I wrote my address on a napkin for him and offered him the spare key. He just grabbed the napkin, said he didn’t need the key, and sprinted out.” Chae Young shrugged. “What I’m saying is that it’s obvious the guy is in love with you. When I’m with Jae Won, Kang Min, and Hae Jin, all they would talk about is how obvious it is that he’s fallen for you. I mean, it would be stupid of him to take what those old men tell him to heart. Just because you resemble this An Soo Jin, it doesn’t mean anything. I mean, you had a life. You’re from Taecin for heaven’s sake!”

  Yoori smiled meekly at the lie that Chae Young still believed to be the truth. “Well, I haven’t seen him since he left to meet them. Jae Won, Kang Min, and Hae Jin have been busy with the Underworld stuff too. He had Kang Min and Jae Won come check up on me briefly but that was it…” It was silly, but Yoori couldn’t help but venture onto the darker trails of possibilities. “What if…what if he actually takes them seriously and – ”

  “You enslaved the guy for a week, Yoori,” Chae Young assured, catching on to where Yoori was heading with her question. “He’s a ‘King’ in this society. He has a lot of stuff to catch up on. Don’t be stupid and think anything else of it. Right now, you’re just walking into a trap. These Advisors sound like they’re instigators. You can’t allow them to affect you. You’re the only one who has been with Tae Hyun. You’re the only one who knows who he truly is. You can’t allow someone else to mess with that knowledge because once you do, everything will just fall to shit.”

  Yoori nodded vehemently at Chae Young’s advice. This was why Yoori loved speaking to Chae Young. Yoori always had the voice of reason reveling in her mind but Chae Young was always the ultimate voice of reason. Though she was a year younger than Yoori, Yoori was almost sure that Chae Young was older and wiser than her. She truly believed Chae Young was a 95-year-old woman who was stuck in a beautiful 22-year-old’s body.

  “You’re right,” Yoori conceded thankfully. “It’s always so easy to get off track in this world. I’m glad I have you to keep me in line. I would be going crazy right now if I didn’t have someone to talk to about this.”

  Chae Young smiled, giving Yoori an air-pat on the shoulder. “Now let’s move the topic along to something more fun. I’m really excited for dinner tomorrow!”

  Yoori shared in this genuine excitement. It was the only thing she had been looking forward to…spending time with her good friends and seeing Tae Hyun again.

  “I am too. I’ve never had a dinner gathering with friends before.”

  It was a true story. Yoori didn’t have any friends in Taecin and only had Chae Young as a good friend before she met Tae Hyun. Now her group of good friends had expanded and Yoori was immensely grateful.

  “Speaking of which, I have something for you,” Chae Young announced in a sing-songy voice. She reached behind her for one of the shopping bags she brought in when she came to visit Yoori. She pulled out a sparkly red gift bag.

  “From Hae Jin and I,” she said happily, reaching across to hand the bag over to Yoori.

  Yoori was floored by the gesture. “But I didn’t get anything for you,” she said faintly, grabbing the bag with hesitation.

  Chae Young waved her hand as if she was warding off a fly. “Don’t worry about it. It was just something that we saw while shopping. We just wanted to get it for you. Wear it for the dinner tomorrow, okay?”

  “What the hell, this is so nice!” Yoori shouted, her eyes blossoming at the sight of a pair of diamond earrings and a diamond bracelet. The gorgeous jewelry layered over a silk, chiffon white dress that sat humbly beneath it. “The two of you just decided to buy me a beautiful dress and diamonds?”

  Chae Young shrugged languidly. “Well, Jae Won and Kang Min picked out the diamond set. We all chipped in.” She laughed, jumping over to hug Yoori, who was gazing at the items with disbelief. “No tag-backs, okay?” Chae Young exclaimed. “You have to keep all of it and you have to wear it tomorrow!”

  “But—”

  “Uh!” Chae Young raised a silencing finger to Yoori, who was trying to pack everything up and give it back to her. “Don’t bother because I’m not taking it back. We shredded the receipt already. Now you better wear it tomorrow and be the pretty hostess that you are.”

  Despite the beauty of the diamonds sparkling before her, she was more entranced with the short dress that sat below it. Yoori rasped her fingers over the dress in awe. “Do you think—”

  “Tae Hyun will like it?” Chae Young finished for Yoori, her smile conveying that this was the plan. “He’ll fall to his knees once he sees you in this.”

  ■ ■ ■

  Yoori’s hair was swept up the next night. Diamond pins held her hair up like clouds, leaving only a few loose strands to swim close to her ears. She glided across the living room, placing the fine China on the enormous dinner table that Tae Hyun had shipped in specifically for this little dinner party.

  Yoori had never styled her hair in this manner. It had always been too stylish for her. Yet, as soon as the white sleeveless dress came over her chest and fell to her thighs, Yoori knew she couldn’t do justice to the beauty of this dress, or the diamond earrings and diamond bracelet that her friends bought for her, if she had allowed her long black hair to stay down as she usually allowed it to. So she placed her hair up and magic happened.

  Even as she stood in front of the full-length mirror, she could see how the light adored her and the outfit she wore. Her bare shoulders glowed in the light, giving off a purity shine of sorts. She even wore diamond-encrusted heels to match. It was silly to say, but she felt like a princess. It was irony to the situation she found herself in. She was in anything but a fairytale story. Regardless, she smiled gently and twirled around, lost in a world where she felt like she was dancing on clouds.

  No matter how blissful this moment was, it couldn’t have matched the feeling she felt when Tae Hyun, after about two days of not seeing him, walked into the apartment just as she was lining the champagne glasses.

  His expression was weary when he walked in. However, as soon as he laid eyes on her, Yoori could see the light shine through his eyes. He stopped in his tracks and gazed at her like she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

  Feeling her breath lodge itself in her chest, Yoori discounted the assumption that he was actually looking at her like he had never seen such beauty. Needless to say, it was a bit conceited of her to acknowledge that, but it was honest to how she really thought he felt. Or was it what she hoped he felt? Yoori wasn’t sure. The only thing she was certain of was that she had never felt more beautiful until Tae Hyun walked in and stared at her like she was a dream.

  “Thanks for leaving me with all the work, jerk-face,” Yoori casually greeted, breaking the unearthly silence that suspended over them. She hoped there wouldn’t be any tension from his meeting with the Advisors that would transpire here. “This was your dinner party to set up and now, I’m stuck doing all the work.”

  “Isn’t that the duty of an assistant?” he asked with warm amusement.

  Yoori felt her heart lift. At least he was still in a good mood when he was talking to her. His expression still had remnants of awe sprinkled over them. His lingering gaze fell on her. Shortly after, he broke his attention away. He placed the boxes of dessert on the kitchen counter.

  “Speaking of which, I think we have to talk about your job,” he announced
, nearly causing Yoori to knock over a champagne glass because she was so thrown with his words.

  “As fun as this has been, I think it’s time for us to end this ‘working relationship.’ I’ve already decided that your last day would be tomorrow.”

  Despite the casualness of his voice, trepidation still swung inside her. The meeting with Jung Min flashed through her mind, along with the concern about things changing between them because of all these external factors.

  Yoori attempted to hide the disappointment in her voice. She doubted she was too successful. “You decided all of that after you met with Ju Won and Dong Min?”

  Tae Hyun tensed at the soft accusation in her question. He shook his head. His gaze never left her as he continued to speak. “I’ve been thinking about it for awhile now.” His steady voice made her believe that this statement was true. “I’ve stolen you from your world for long enough, and you’ve already helped me with more than I could ever imagine. In saying that, I think it’s time for you to go onto bigger and better things.” He smiled reassuringly at her. “I’m doing that thing where I push the bird away from the nest, I guess. Plus, I’ve already spoken to Hyun Woo and Daniel.”

  “Your best friends in the 1st layer,” Yoori provided when it seemed like Tae Hyun was about to remind her who they were.

  He nodded. “Hyun Woo and Daniel are pretty much the Princes in the 1st layer. Their empires extend everywhere. I spoke to them and I told them about you. I told them how you were interested in the business field and told them how great you are. Whatever field you want to work in, wherever you want to get started in, they can make it happen. And if you’re worried about being further associated with the Underworld, you don’t have to worry. The Underworld association for the 1st layer only pertains to the executives at the top. They never seep down to the employees. Their empires are still legit. It’s just that some of the executives have ties and investments to the 2nd and 3rd layer too.”