"Sit down," Jimin took a deep breath, resting his laptop down on the table in front of him, along with a couple of folders, waiting for Taehyung to oblige.

They were at his place, Jimin had waited impatiently to get Taehyung to come home after work finally. Knowing his best friend, he would have stayed at work for as long as possible to get his mind off Jiah.

It was so difficult to get him to come home after all that, but he didn't want to discuss it all at work, not in a professional environment. He needed to be in a space where he could be comfortable and free to do or say whatever he wanted.

And while Taehyung was trying his best to move on from her, here Jimin was about to effectively cause him even more heartache stemming from that same woman.

"This better be good, I would rather be in my bed listening to some Chopin right now. I bought a new vinyl."

Jimin opened his laptop silently, showing Taehyung the still from the security footage that he had identified to be Jungkook. And he waited.

Taehyung's eyes were lazy; he merely glanced over it once and looked to Jimin.

"What?"

"Does this person look familiar?"

"I can't really see this person at all, Jimin, he's wearing a mask, and his clothes are covering his whole body."

"But not this," Jimin then pointed to the tattoo on his neck.

"Yeah not that, so what? I still can't recognise him."

"Do you remember Jiah's friend, Jungkook?" at the mention of her name, Taehyung's eyes lit up. It was as if he just walked around to talk about her, to think about her.

"Yeah, that day we went to our lookout, that guy?"

"That's him."

"What?"

"This is the tattoo he had," Jimin nodded, "I know it seems stupid, but I know I'm right; this is Jiah's friend."

"Uh... okay, what does that mean?" his mind was whizzing now, heart inches away from falling through his ribcage.

"This is the footage from that day my house was broken into," Jimin told him, rewinding the tape a little and out of his house came the feminine figure, wearing all black as well, a mask covering half her face and not an inch of skin showing from below her neck. She looked around the hall, and before Jimin could pause the clip, Taehyung jumped forward, hitting the spacebar.

She was looking in the direction of the camera, head tilted upwards so that he could see her eyes.

Jimin saw the shock register on his face before he felt it. The usually silver eyes Taehyung had now turned almost black, it was as if his irises had turned into shards of metal if he got too close, he would have been cut so much that he would have bled out.

"Jiah," he whispered, he would have recognised those eyes anywhere.

"Okay, now listen," Jimin started, before Taehyung could get riled up any further, "She was-"

"What does this mean? Why did she break in? This can't be true, is this fabricated?"

"It's not fabricated, Tae," he breathed out in despair, "It's true, I already talked to her about this."

He almost pushed the sofa backward with the way he jumped up, "You what? How long ag-"

"Just earlier today, Tae," Jimin reached for Taehyung's wrist and pulled him back to sit down on the couch again, "Listen, okay? You need to know this because, not only are you my best friend, but you're the CEO of the company, this is your job. So be professional."

He huffed, plucking his hand away from Jimin's.

"I'll tell you what she's done to the extent of my knowledge, and then we'll decide what to do from there, okay?"

Taehyung didn't speak.

"Okay, cool," Jimin nodded, opening the folders in front of him and scattering them around the coffee table. "Now all these accounts are linked to that Italian mafia account we discovered earlier, they're the accounts we had been monitoring for any suspicious activity that we could associate with being in the mafia. These are the accounts before Jiah was hired, and these are the accounts now," he put them side by side for Taehyung to compare.

"Oh my God, all these transactions are missing," he pointed at a couple and Jimin nodded.

"Was it..."

"It was Jiah," Jimin sighed, pulling his laptop closer again, "Also-"

"That's enough," Taehyung shut his eyes, and Jimin felt the anger radiating off him in waves.

Oh no.

Maybe it wasn't a good idea to tell him here.

At least at work he wouldn't have acted out.

Here he could.

"Okay, Tae, listen to me-"

"I can't believe she'd do that!" was the first thing he yelled, standing up and starting for the door, but Jimin ran after him.

"Wait, Tae, li-"

"I fell so fucking hard for her, Jimin, I fell in love with a fucking member of the mafia?" his laugh then was humourless, full of disbelief and disappointment in himself, "Am I in some sort of soap opera?"

Jimin held both Taehyung's wrists then, pulling him away from his door and back to the couches, while he did his best to resist.

"Jimin, if you don't get off me you don't know what I'll do-"

"Tae, you don't want to do anything that you're going to regret. Listen to me, yes, she's hurt you, and I can't even imagine how tough this is for you, but she's not worth it. She's not worth you going out there and potentially putting yourself in danger because of her; you deserve so much more than that."

"She-"

"I know it sounds dumb to hear this after all I've just said, but listen to me. I'm just as mad at you, if not, more. I hate that I have to see my best friend experience one of the world's most beautiful emotions; love, and just get his heart trampled on over and over again, and not be able to do anything about it. I hate that too, Tae," shaking his head, he continued, "But believe it or not, that girl loves you too. I know that doesn't excuse anything, but she loves you, and she would never want to hurt you. When I talked to her about this today, she told me that she was going to tell you first. So please, I know it's so hard, I know it's going to sound stupid, but please if she's telling the truth, wait for her to tell you. Maybe that'll mean we can trust her just the tiniest bit."

"What will that do? How is me trusting her going to make any difference? She still-"

"Because it's the mafia, Tae," he cut him off, "If she's not even the slightest bit trustworthy, we're dead, Tae, we can't mess this up."

He sighed, defeated. All the tension in his body left at that moment, he just felt so weak. He already hated that he had wanted to be vulnerable with Jiah; he wanted so badly to have her in all the ways possible, and share every part of himself with her. But was she just playing with him this whole time?

"I'm giving her two days," he muttered under his breath, "Only two."

"What if she-"

"She takes more than two days, well then kill me I guess," he lifted his gaze to meet Jimin's, and he almost jumped back to protect himself from getting scraped by the metal pieces in his eyes, "She did this to me, she has to pay."

--

"Jungkook!" Jiah was storming through their apartment, opening all the doors in search for him. She needed someone to talk to; she needed someone to yell at. And she needed to yell at that boy for being so careless.

But who was she to get mad? She still deceived Taehyung; she still deceived the man she now loves. She let him fall for her, too, without any warning.

Food packet labels usually have disclaimers, in case you were deathly allergic to peanuts.

Yet, she didn't alert him of any side effects of loving her, and now here they are, bruised and breaking even more. All because of her selfishness.

Opening Ji Young's door, she was surprised to see him sitting on his bed, watching something on Netflix, spinning a basketball on his finger.

"Oh? You're home."

"So are you," he replied, a big grin gracing his face, "When was the last time we were home together?"

Why was it that when he said that she felt her chest tighten? He was right. Was it normal that a brother and sister who live in the same house saw each other as little as they did?

"Did you bring that from one of your friends?" she asked, joining him on his bed and nodded at the basketball.

"What do you mean? Didn't you order this for me?"

"Huh? No? What are you talking about?"

"This was in a postal box outside the door when I got home; it was addressed to me with your name as the buyer's information."

"Where? Where's the box?"

Jiah reached for the receipt on the table, and surely enough, there it was.

Lee Ji Young as the recipient and their address right underneath.

"It's literally the best design out there, noona! Thank you so much for this, I'm honestly going to play with it every day!" he was gushing, and it might have been the first time she had seen him like that, "All the others on the basketball team are going to be so jealous of me."

"Wait, repeat that? Did you make the team?"

He beamed, and it wasn't hard for that smile to spread to Jiah's face as well. With all that was going on, she was glad her little brother was able to be happy.

"Yep!" dancing a little in his spot after putting the ball on the bed, he continued, "You're looking at our school's newest shooting guard!"

"That's amazing Ji Young! I'm so proud of you," she put her hand on his shoulder, and he furrowed his eyebrows a little, confusion flashing over his face but was gone in a millisecond. Of course, he wasn't used to seeing this side of her, but he loved it.

"And thanks to this ball, I can practice getting even better, thank you so much!"

Ahh, yes, the ball.

Looking down to the receipt again, she read the buyer's information.

There it was, her name large and clear.

Lee Jiah.

But the address. The address wasn't hers this time.

A frown fell on her lips when she realised what it was.

Taehyung's penthouse.

--

Taehyung was staring at the four walls encasing him in his living room. He was going to go crazy. He just wanted to run out of that house and drive up to Jiah's house, ask her all the questions that were running around in his mind; he just wanted to be free from this torture.

He looked around the room for something to do.

The first thing he laid his eyes on was the couch, and a miserable kind of anger filled him as he remembered Jiah sitting on his lap, crying into his shoulder as she mourned the death of her best friend.

He rolled his eyes. I guess I know how he died now.

Shaking the memory from him, he ripped his eyes from the couch and turned away, immediately stopping his gaze at another spot in the living room. And there the image of him and Jiah dissolved into view, his hand holding hers tightly and the other arm wrapped around her waist as they waltz around the living room.

He bit his lip as tears threatened to fall when he remembered the sweet giggles that had left her mouth and the brilliant smile she had plastered on her face for that whole night.

Amidst all the hatred he felt for her right now, he just wanted to hug her again. He just wanted to cry into her shoulder and pour out his heart to her.

Yes, he despised being vulnerable. But he wanted to be vulnerable with her.

Still.

He hated himself for this, lifting a hand, he was about to throw it right at the marble countertop in front of him; he needed to let this out.

But the doorbell ringing stopped him.

He looked to the door and then turned back. It wasn't Jimin because he knew the passcode and would have just let himself in.

So it didn't matter.

He wasn't going to answer.

However, as he turned back, the image from the door camera caught his eye, and he did a double-take.

Without hesitation, he ran up to the door, hand reaching for the handle, just about to open it.

But stopped, hovering over the knob for a split second.

Taking a deep breath, he slowly opened it.

There she stood, a million suns held in her hair and poured out onto her skin. She was having difficulty finding his eyes, and despite the tear-stained cheeks and bloodshot eyes, she looked as she always did; beautiful.

When he noticed how she must have been crying before she got there, he had to close his hands into fists to stop himself from reaching out to wipe her cheeks and pull her into a hug.

It was just his instinct to do so.

"Hi," he mumbled, and she finally matched his gaze, causing him almost to fall back. The gold cyclones in her eyes made him uneasy.

"I have something to tell you, Taehyung."

This whole time he was cursing at her in his mind, playing out this conversation a million times. How was he going to react? How did he expect her to tell him? How was he going to show her how mad he was?

But now that it was happening, he couldn't form words.

Instead, he just stepped back, and she walked inside, slipping her shoes off and turned to him.

"I-"

"Water," he cut her off, pointing to the kitchen, and she furrowed her eyebrows.

"What?"

"Do you want some water?" he barely managed to croak.

"I- no, that's fine," she sighed, "Taehyung there's no right way to say this."

"Want to sit?"

"Uh... okay," she led him to the couch, and they sat down.

Now it's time.

Taehyung enclosed his fists again, trying his best to forget the last time they were both on that couch.

"I need to start by saying I'm sorry," worry now filled her eyes, and Taehyung abandoned all reason then, he just wanted to hold her.

"Why?"

"I'm so sorry Taehyung, if I had known you were such an amazing person, that you were kind, caring, hardworking, and just such a wonderful person before all this, I wouldn't have agreed to it. If I had known I was going to love you more than I love myself, if I had known that seeing anything harm you was going to hurt me more than getting stabbed, I wouldn't have done this."

Those words took him by surprise.

If I had known I was going to love you more than I love myself.

Jiah's gaze never left his, even when the hurricane swirling in her eyes overflowed the borders and tears were streaming down her face.

Please let me hold her.

"I'm so sorry for everything Taehyung," she continued, not letting anything stop her, "I'm sorry for gaining your trust but betraying you from the beginning. I'm not who you think I am; I'm not some innocent secretary who likes shopping and going on brunches in the weekends, Taehyung, I'm so much worse than that. I'm literally all things evil, and I don't deserve to love you, I don't deserve even to know such an incredible man like you."

He didn't say anything then, either.

"All I did during my time at work was cover up my mafia's activity in your company, and that's not it, I even shot your old secretary to get the job."

That made his eyes widen, and now he honestly didn't know what to say.

"You deserve the world, you deserve to be happy and to be loved, but all I will do is bring you pain, you're worth so much more than that."

The words coming from her mouth were contradicting every emotion in her eyes. Her eyes were pleading him to hold her; her words were the opposite.

"I'm so, so sorry, Taehyung."

"You shot him?" was all he could say, "You shot my old secretary?

"And I hate myself for it," she nodded, "But I did do it."

There is a common saying about the calm before the storm. But no one ever talks about the deafening silence after the storm hit.

But that's where they were - deafening silence.