Sweet, Sweet Revenge

by Nia Arthurs

  Joon Gi barely waited for the taxi to pull out of traffic and park before he flung the money at the driver and stormed out of the car.

  The moment he stepped inside Kim Electronics, a worker spun. “Sir, we’re not open…” The clerk’s voice went faint and faded into silence when he recognized Joon Gi. “Mr. Kim.”

  “Where is he?” Joon growled.

  The kid pointed up. “In his office.”

  Joon Gi didn’t bother with a response. He marched past the rows of speakers, outlets, and light bulbs. The steps vibrated beneath him as he bounded up the stairway and into a closed off section that overlooked the store.

  Sun Gi’s secretary wasn’t in yet, but he found the door to his brother’s office open. Curving his hand around the knob, he thrust the door aside and stepped in.

  A low chuckle filled the room and a voice rumbled, “You’re right on time. How is it that you’re so easy to predict, Joon?”

  Joon Gi narrowed his eyes as his brother stepped around the massive mahogany desk in the middle of the room. Sun Gi wore a T-shirt, cargo pants and tennis shoes. Though the outfit was simple, Joon knew that each piece of clothing was designer.

  Sun Gi cared more about what people thought than he’d like anyone to know. While their father had dressed and worked humbly, the son took after his mother in spending loads on brand-name items.

  It was just one of the many differences between them.

  Sun Gi’s dark brown eyes—just like his—focused on him. “You got out of jail and didn’t think to tell your family? I’m insulted”

  “Don’t push it, dongsaeng.”

  “Little brother.” Sun Gi tilted his head. “Are we back to that?”

  Joon loped across the room in three giant steps and grabbed his brother by the shirtfront. “You want a fight? Let’s fight.”

  “Come on now.” Sun Gi smirked and firmly threw his hands off. “Let’s talk like civilized people.” He rounded the desk and pointed to a tray. Pulling back the cover, he gestured. “It’s tofu. Mom said you should eat some since you were in the slammer.”

  Clenched fists rigid at his sides, Joon Gi frowned. “Why’d you do it?”

  “Do what?”

  “My business wasn’t in competition with yours. We agreed to go our separate ways with our halves of Dad’s inheritance and I never went back on my word. Why’d you stab me in the back? That was underhanded. Even for you.”

  Sun Gi shrugged his lean shoulders and bent over to pluck a cube of tofu from the soup on the tray. “Maybe it’s because I wanted Hanna.”

  His reply sparked a laugh. “You think I’d buy that? The only person you care for is yourself.”

  “It doesn’t matter what you think about me. All that matters is I win and you lose.”

  “I’m only knocked down. Don’t count me out yet.”

  Sun Gi laughed. “Your business went belly up and you’re never getting your hands on another loan.” He grinned. “Don’t get me started on the rumors.” Sun Gi blew out a breath in false concern. “I’ve been hearing things. Horrible things. No one wants to touch you with a ten-foot pole. Mom was so sad. Poor thing. You broke her heart, you know.”

  “You wanna keep talking?” Joon Gi wound his arm back.

  Sun Gi’s eye twitched but he held steady and raised his chin. “Would you really hit your precious dongsaeng?”

  “I should teach you a lesson. Remind you of your place.”

  “My place?” Sun Gi’s eyes darkened and a sneer crept across his handsome face. “Where exactly is that? Beneath you?” He straightened, pushing forward so that Joon Gi skated back a step. “Are you better than me because you’re older? Who made that stupid rule?”

  “I know we’ve never been close, but I honestly don’t understand.” Joon Gi shook his head. “Tell me the reason. Tell me why you called the feds.”

  “Because I wanted to.”

  Pain flashed in Joon’s chest. He knew that wasn’t completely true, but his temper went off like a keg anyway.

  Joon Gi’s fist swooped through the air.

  A second before it made contact, Sun Gi covered Joon’s knuckles with his palm. Dark eyes sliding into his, his brother hissed, “Unless you want to get flung back into prison for assault, I wouldn’t suggest you do that.”

  Joon Gi’s hands trembled, but the truth in his brother’s words held him in a chokehold. One by one, his fingers loosened until he released the shirt in his grip and stepped back.

  As much as he couldn’t stand Sun Gi, it wouldn’t do him any good to get sent back to prison. The Korean community had already turned their backs on him. If he got arrested again, the entire nation of Belize would side with his brother.

  Sun Gi would look like the victim and Joon would be the heartless monster.

  Ex-con Punches Sibling In Cold Blood. He could see the headlines now.

  Joon had to think bigger picture here.

  Curbing his irritation with the very last, tattered threads of his self-restraint, Joon Gi asked, “Why’d you summon me?”

  “Can’t two brother’s just catch up? I haven’t seen you since before the police dragged you off.”

  “Get to the point.”

  “Mom’s worried.” Sun Gi trailed his slender fingers over the surface of his desk and walked toward Joon, his expression calm and collected. “She wants to know why you haven’t contacted her since you’ve been out.”

  “Mom has a cell phone. This works both ways.”

  “Do you still have money to pay the phone bill?” Sun Gi raised his eyebrows as if shocked.

  Joon wiped his brow with the back of his hand. “Get to the point or I’m leaving.”

  “Okay, okay. Hold your horses. I have something for you.”

  “I don’t want your money.”

  “You think I’d give you—ha!” Sun Gi bent over and clutched his stomach. “That’s hilarious.”

  Joon’s fists clenched at his sides.

  Sun Gi returned to his desk and pulled an envelope from beneath the folders scattered on top of it. “Here.” He rubbed his nose with a finger. “What I’m about to do isn’t pleasant for me either. Trust me. But Mom insisted.”

  Joon snatched the envelope and pulled the flap. Inside was a sheet of flimsy paper with a dainty floral scrawl.

  It was an invitation.

  To his brother’s wedding.

  The paper crumbled in his hands. “Are you kidding me?”

  “Is that your happy face?” Sun Gi leaned over, his pink lips stretching. “I can’t tell because it looks like your angry face.”

  “You think I’ll let you walk down the aisle with Hanna?”

  “You’ll let me? I’m not asking your permission, hyung. This is an announcement, not a request for your blessing.”

  “You can’t marry Hanna,” Joon snapped.

  “Why is it a big deal?” Sun Gi waved his hands flippantly. “It’s not like you loved her.”

  “And you do?”

  “Hanna is a beautiful woman. She’s everything a man could want in a wife.”

  “That’s not what I asked.”

  Sun Gi planted his palms flat on the desk and looked up, his black hair framing his forehead and sweeping above his eyebrows. “I have an offer.”

  “I already told you I don’t want anything from you.”

  “But this offer… you might want to listen to.”

  Joon scoffed. “Go ahead.”

  “It must have been hard on you.” Sun Gi’s brown eyes filled with pity. “Going to jail. Losing everything. No one wants you. No one trusts you. Your business is done. Don’t you just want to get away from it all? You can live off of—I mean with Mom.”

  Joon Gi gritted his teeth. “Thanks for wasting my time.”

  “Where are you going? I went to all that trouble to buy tofu.”

  He strode toward the door. “Tell Mom she can reach me on my cell phone.”

  His brother’s voice sounded behind him. “I can help you, Joon. Right now.
I’ll buy your ticket back to Korea. No strings attached.”

  Joon Gi spun. “What did you just say?”

  “You know this is a good offer.” Sun Gi smirked.

  Joon Gi’s resolve to avoid violence cracked. He shook his head, his mouth parting and then snapping closed as his brother’s words soaked in.

  What exactly was Sun Gi’s angle here? Take everything away and then dangle a plane ticket from his fingers like a savior?

  Joon Gi stared straight into his brother’s eyes and held the wedding invitation up. “I’m keeping this as a souvenir. You can keep the plane ticket.”

  “Joon, be reasonable about this. It’s not the time to play stubborn…!”

  Joon Gi strode outside and slammed the door behind him. On his way down the stairs, he pulled out his cell phone and dialed Tyler’s number. As soon as the line clicked, he barked, “I need you to open a file for me.”

  “Joon? What’s going on?”

  He paused on the last step. “I’m going to sue my brother.”

  9

  VINCE WAS A STUBBORN JERK.

  This was the same guy who, six months ago, promised her the moon and the stars. Went on and on about her lips and her eyes. Acted like no other girl in the entire world existed for him, as if he’d waited all his life just for her.

  He played with Sky’s heart the way Phillip used to play with his chewing gum, stretching it out of his mouth and pulling it as long and thin as possible until there was no way the poor thing would ever be back to its full shape.

  Full disclosure, Sky had always known she and Vince weren’t going to last.

  He had that thing, the wandering eye, the naturally flirtatious swag, and that restless spirit that refused to be content with one person.

  She saw it.

  So did her friends.

  Many of them had warned her.

  “Sky, that guy is too smooth.”

  “There’s something about him. I don’t know. It doesn’t feel right.”

  She’d rejected their cautious murmurs with excuses, brushing it off to jealousy or the fact that they just hadn’t given Vince a chance. In reality, she was turning off her own brain as well as her better judgment.

  And now I’m paying for it.

  Sky sucked in a deep breath and shoved the thought away like an annoying mosquito buzzing around her head.

  Fixing her gaze on Vince’s familiar and gratingly handsome face, she clenched her fingers together and strode forward. “Thanks for finally picking up your phone.”

  “Anything for you, beautiful.”

  Sky sighed even as the little thrill in her heart increased. Gosh, she couldn’t stand herself sometimes. Had it really been so long since she’d had a serious relationship that she was ogling her new employee and harboring feelings for her slimy ex?

  In a desperate attempt to get a handle on her emotions, Sky slid her gaze around Vince’s favorite establishment. Grimy neon lights. Saloon-style wooden counter filling the length of one wall. A glass mirror behind the shelves of mugs. Frames and calendars boasting scantily-clad women.

  Harold’s Bar.

  Sky had always had a problem with the name. Calling this place a bar was misleading. The shrieking dancehall music and general aura of sleaze leant itself to a title far less polished than that.

  Harold’s was the place people came to make drunken mistakes and conceive children they couldn’t pay for.

  Sky should have known from the way Vince loved spending his nights here that he was bad news.

  Oh well, hindsight is always twenty-twenty.

  “Have a seat.” Vince stroked the bar stool directly in front of him. Sky noted the way he had his legs spread wide open. She hesitated. Vince took note. “What? You scared.”

  As the smirk on his face grew, so did the snap in her tone. “Couldn’t we have met somewhere more quiet? I closed the store early so we could talk.”

  Vince’s eyes twinkled. “Did you want to do something in private? There are rooms upstairs…”

  Sky almost choked. Forcing herself forward, she took the bar stool two seats behind him and dropped her purse on the chair between them. “Let’s get to the point, shall we? I want you to delete the video.”

  “No thanks.” Vince knocked back the beer in his mug.

  Applause and whoops of joy resounded from the dance floor. She looked that way. The wriggling throng in front of the platform reminded her that most people her age were out there having fun rather than arguing with their ex about their old sex video.

  Sky struggled to keep her tone even and quiet as she competed with the booming thud of the bass. “I’m really trying to keep my patience, but you’re crossing a line, Vince.” Her voice rose along with the chorus of the popular dancehall track. “I’m tired of being held hostage. If you don’t delete the video, I’m going to the authorities.”

  Vince chuckled. “Really?”

  “You think I’m joking?”

  “I think”—he set his beer aside and leaned in close to speak in such a low timbre that Sky had to tilt her head just to hear—“you don’t have the guts.”

  Her eyes widened. “Excuse me?”

  Don’t panic, girl. Just stay strong.

  Unfortunately, she was the type that caved under pressure.

  “Don’t worry,” Vince said with a charming smile. “I’ll delete the video.” He eased back and lifted his hand, confidently gesturing to the bartender.

  “Really?” Sky let out a piercing breath. “Good. I’m glad we could settle this like adults.”

  “Of course. I don’t want to hold you hostage. I’ll give you the hard drive, my phone, tablet and access to my cloud along with any other device you want.”

  Her brow furrowed. Vince wasn’t usually so accommodating. “What’s the catch?”

  “Stay with me tonight.”

  Her breath caught in her throat. “W-what?”

  “Come on, Sky.” Vince’s eyelids went to half-mass in what he probably thought was an expression of mass seduction. “Don’t you miss me?”

  “No. No, I don’t.”

  “You’re lying.” He pointed to her trembling lips and wrongly assumed it was a symptom of her passion.

  Disclaimer, it was not.

  “I know you’ve been thinking about me. And I’ve been thinking a lot about you. I made a mistake when I let you go.”

  “Vince, I—”

  “Hear me out. Back then, I didn’t know what I had. You were so easy, so eager to please. I got bored and let that Tasha girl distract me. I was wrong. These other heifers out here,” he shook his head, “it’s a different game with them. They don’t know what it means to serve their man, you know? It’s all about what they can get, what I can buy them. They’re all damn gold-diggers”

  Her nostrils flared.

  The dancehall song moved to the bridge and the bass reverberated in the room, trembling the walls.

  The crowd roared.

  “You’re out of line, Vince.”

  “Come on, baby.” He eased forward and ran his thick, blunt-tipped fingers up her thigh. “Sleep with me.”

  Is he serious?

  She stared into his brown eyes.

  Yes. Yes, he was.

  Vince couldn’t have been so disgusting the entire time they’d dated, could he? Sky couldn’t have been so blind that she’d fallen for someone who’d demand sex in order to delete a sex video he never asked to record?

  Heat flashed in her chest.

  I’m a fool.

  She slapped Vince’s hand away.

  His jaw dropped and shock dripped from his lush brown lips. Did he seriously think she would find his half-disguised blackmail arousing?

  She almost gagged.

  Back then, his shining good looks left her a stuttering mess. She’d been so eager to keep him and his interest that she would have done anything, ignored everything, just to have his approval.

  Hurt crept into her heart as she thought of that girl, the one who co
ntinuously found herself in these stupid, embarrassing positions.

  Sky refused to give Vince an opportunity to hurt her again.

  But what if he releases the video?

  Panic kept her frozen, kept her mouth pinned shut. She should curse him out and slap him with her purse until he felt the brunt of her pain and embarrassment.

  But she couldn’t.

  Vince quietly observed her. The moment was thick with tension. The over-the-top soca number playing in the background seemed to mock her.

  “Sky?”

  “How do I know you aren’t just pulling my leg?” Sky whispered. “How can I be sure that you haven’t stored the video somewhere else, somewhere you haven’t told me?”

  Vince shrugged. “I guess you’ll just have to trust me.”

  The bartender arrived with two drinks in hand. He set them in front of Vince, who slid one over to Sky. She caught it nimbly and stretched her fingers around the circumference of the glass, soaking in the coolness.

  Vince’s hand was inching up her jeans to her inner thigh.

  Sky ran her tongue along the back of her teeth as she wracked her brain for a way out of this stupid mess—something that didn’t involve getting naked with the man who’d been threatening her for over six months.

  Nothing came to mind.

  Sky dug her fingernails into the mug and knocked back her beer in one long guzzle. Vince watched her with a smile on his face. She could read his thoughts as if they were the neon signs posted all over Harold’s.

  He thought he already had her in his bed, that he’d already won.

  At least his fingers couldn’t go any higher.

  Thank God she hadn’t worn a skirt today.

  Jaw ticking with helplessness and hurt, she shook her head. “Can’t you help me out here? We can work something else out. Something that doesn’t involve you strutting into my store and cleaning the shelves. I can’t keep giving my products away. My business is still struggling to get off the ground. You know that.”

  “Hence, I’m offering a generous solution.” He spread his arms wide. “One and done. And it’s not like you wouldn’t be getting anything out of it.”

  Her heart thumped painfully. She could go to the police and admit her mistakes, but fear held her hostage. It was bad enough that this was only between her and Vince. Could she handle a bunch of lawmen digging into her sensitive issues?