There were reasons why you couldn't give up your business after marrying Jungkook. They were simple and yet valid. You had no faith in the world. You didn't believe the marriage would really last, despite the love you felt for this man. You always felt it, that tinge of unease lurking around your neck like the hands of a grim reaper sent to take away the only thing of value that life had given you. It was maddening. A feeling of impending doom. It drove you to the brink of madness in the three years you spent with the man you wanted to keep by your side at all costs. And you knew you had to keep him in the dark — lulled into hypnosis. Oblivious.

You could have closed the store if it had been a hair salon, a café, or even a grocery store. You would have given up the business, sold your shares to your partners, and said goodbye. But you didn't have a coffee shop, a hair salon, or a grocery store. You made meth and sold it to retailers who sold it in dimly lit alleys and loud nightclubs. It was a different matter in size and weight. Different terms and conditions. Because while a normal business can be ended by selling your shares, a business like yours is only ended by bloodshed.

Not your blood. No. That wasn't in the contract. Although there was no tangible draft or signature, for that matter. It would be your beloved's blood. And you only had one. Well, only one who wasn't involved in any way, shape, or form in this so-called business.

It was maddening. Really. The fact that Jungkook got involved in your shit and allowed himself to be soiled by the filth that surrounded you in a way that ensured he would never be clean again. Fuck this twisted fate, and fuck his stubbornness. You wished you could beat some sense into his thick skull. Make him pray for his sister every Sunday and bury the memory of her in his heart, not his mind. You wished that after all these years, he would be blessed with the ease of grief and choose to live for himself instead of living for the revenge that consumed him. But after careful consideration, you came to one conclusion: the man had lost his little sister. His blood. And although you didn't know what it was like to have a family bond with someone cemented by blood, you were sensible enough to form a rough picture of what that meant in your mind.

But even though you made an effort to understand, it was still infuriating to see how far he went with his grief and hatred when you snuck into his office at an ungodly hour while he was sleeping and searched through the drawers of his office until you found the broken half of the credit card that contained only two syllables: Hyung.

The gasp that left your lips would have been almost audible if your palm hadn't shot up to cover it. The fire spread quickly, and you were sure your skin would soon be scorched. For a moment there, you felt dizzy. You could feel your skin sizzling from the heat, which was still considerably tamed but not so much. You dropped into your husband's office chair, lungs heaving and heart pounding. You had no idea what to do with this piece of junk. You couldn't steal it, because he'd already seen it, and the way it was kept in the locked drawer you'd opened with the code that was nothing but your wedding date, he was already connecting the dots and figuring out all the information an incomplete name could give him.

It was morbid, really, the amount of trust he had in this marriage. It was almost disturbing how much faith he had in you that he set the combination of his passwords with either your wedding date or your birthdate. If you hadn't been upset about the discovery you just made, you would have thrown up in the trash can next to your feet. Jungkook loved you. There was no doubt in this regard. And fuck! There was no doubt that maybe you loved him even more, and that's exactly why it was eating you up inside to switch between the masks you wore to face him. If he had been a bastard who wagged his tail when you couldn't give him offspring, maybe the guilt would have been less. If he had reminded you of your roots every day, the pain in your chest might never have arisen. But of all the bad things a man can do to a woman, Jungkook had chosen to put his trust in you, and what did you do with it?

You plunged a dagger into his back and twisted it so viciously that you knew he would bleed to death if you took it now. It was too late.

It had been a week since Taehyung told you about the broken piece of his credit card, and every second since then, you prayed that it would land far away from your husband's hands. Whenever he came home, you greeted him with warm kisses and even warmer meals. You'd force him to watch a movie and talk over a bottle of wine to get the words out of his mouth. He would fend off your subtle questions about his job with passionate kisses and deep thrusts into your walls, and you would greet them with fake moans until the feelings took over, and you writhed beneath him from the intense pleasure of his love.

But tonight was different. Jungkook didn't speak to you when he got home, except for the perfunctory kiss he gave you alongside a dry "Hi, babe." He refused to eat, justifying his absence from the table by saying he'd eaten a sandwich with Namjoon while working on a case. You didn't want to insist, lest your nervousness become obvious, so you ate alone, accompanied by your anxiety and relentless speculation about what he was going through. When the dishes were already in the dishwasher and the living room was spick and span from the evening cleanup you'd taken upon yourself to avoid being in your bedroom where he was staying, you finally mustered up the courage to face him and begin the usual interrogation.

"There's nothing, Cass. I told you." He snapped when your questions about what was wrong with him didn't abate. He was done, and God only knew you were done too. This stifling feeling of walking on eggshells was getting into you, and your subtle demeanor morphed into the kind of nagging he wasn't ready to deal with tonight.

"How can you say there's nothing when you've been locked in the room since you got home? You're making a habit of keeping secrets, Jungkook, and I'm not sure what to make of it."

If there was a master's degree in gaslighting, you would have gotten it by now. Christ! You wished to go out of your clothes from the sheer disgust you felt at hearing your words. How could fate ruin something so beautiful, something that compensated you for the miserable years you spent on this earth, and turn it into a wool of lies and projections? How could it tangle the innocence of your bond with the poison of a life you didn't choose? One would think that at the end of the tunnel, there is light. But some tunnels are endless. Desolate. Life picks a person to pour its evil on, and no. It wasn't quantified and limited to a specific duration. If life put you in its head, it would be forever.

"I'm under no obligation to report to you, Cass," he hissed, "I'd keep my secrets to myself if I wanted to; what part of 'I need a minute' can't you understand?" He grabbed his vest and stormed out of the room, leaving you with his indignation.

"Where do you think you're going?" you ran behind him, shouting words that didn't convince your mind in the slightest. You grabbed him by the wrist before he could turn the doorknob, halting his steps. "You can't run away just because you feel affronted, Jungkook. We're having a conversation, and I have the right to know what's going on with you."

"Don't ruffle my feathers, Cass. I don't want to hurt you. I need my space, so drop it."

And he had apparently found his space after closing the door and going to a bar you didn't care to know about. He came back late and very tipsy, barely managing to get his shirt off before collapsing on the bed. You pretended to be asleep, even though you were sure he wouldn't notice your condition. When some time had passed and you had made sure he was fast asleep, you snuck into his office and began your hunt.

Now, you wished you didn't.

He also wished he hadn't done what he did, just like you. He wished he hadn't investigated. He wished he hadn't found out what came before the syllables. He reckoned he would still have some semblance of ration if he hadn't gotten so close to his sister's killer. It was different when there was no name to associate with that noun. It was hard, for sure, but it wasn't tangible. It was a faceless, nameless monster lying in wait. Maybe the name he found was the species of animal he wanted to shoot to death. Or maybe he was another animal in the same wolf pack he was after. He wasn't sure. That's what drove him to the madness he showed you earlier.

Jungkook worked hard with an ex-convict he helped after he had spent so much youth in a cell with ugly criminals. To be fair, the man was also a criminal, and Jungkook didn't get his sentence wrong or anything like that. The ten-year sentence he received was just. The man had sneaked into the presidential election and falsified votes under the command of a corrupt party. However, what made Jungkook empathize with the man and help him after his release was the fact that he did what he did for his mother. Being poor is a weakness that spurs vileness. And the man was made to give up his principles and proper thoughts to pay his mother's hospital bills.

Jungkook experienced a lot during his career as a judge. He experienced how psychosis could destroy loving families. How drugs can lead to decisions that are difficult to reverse. And how innocent people can turn into demons when cornered. He saw it, condemned it, and kept the demons behind bars for as long as the law would allow. But sometimes, and even if he would like to deny it, he empathized with the defendants. Most of the time, he shook off this feeling, but case number 2012613 stayed in his mind for days after the trial ended. At the time, he was a left-wing judge, fresh out of law school. He would have rationalized his feelings if he had been experienced in his profession - as he was now - and would have avoided looking at the defendant's personal details. But he did, promising that he would be the only one to remember the day of the man's release when the time came, for the mother had died only a year after her son's conviction.

And to his promise, he was true. At the prison gate, he stood, watching as other convicts stepped out of the fenced compound into the warm embrace of their lovers. When he saw the man in jeans that were no longer fashionable and a T-shirt that no longer suited his figure, he approached him and asked him if he was hungry.

It wasn't friendship. At least, it wasn't the typical kind of friendship that entailed outings and vacations. It was more subtle. A bond based on a promise to help the other person if they needed it. He had done his part. He had helped the man open an internet café and adapt to society. And a week ago, the man had returned the favor.

"What should I look for, Jeon?"

"A name. I need a match for this card, but I don't have enough information. Is there any way we could figure this out?"

"Nothing is impossible. I'll run a data match on the bank's system. See here," he pointed at the corner of the broken card, "we have the name of the bank. That's enough information. I'll call you when I'm done."

He did. He called him earlier this evening, a couple hours before six. He told him he had found a match. He had actually found the digital copy of the card. The one usually seen on mobile wallets. The version he had found was intact. It contained the sixteen digits and the expiration date right above the holder's full name.

It took Jungkook less than twenty minutes to arrive at the uncharacteristically empty internet café. Then he went into the back room, where the whirring of computers and typing on the keyboard indicated where the owner was.

"Glad you came quickly. I have a date tonight and actually wanted to close early."

"And I'll fuck off just as quickly when you show me what you've found, Yoongi. Don't want you to be late for your date."

"Your guy is rich. Kim Taehyung has a fat bank balance. Here's the card. Take a picture or print out the document. Whatever you want to do with it, be quick."

Kim Taehyung.

Fucking Kim Taehyung with the fat bank balance. Fucking Kim Taehyung who he didn't know who he was or how he was related to his sister. But Jungkook had a name, though he didn't know if that was a good thing or not. He had a name and he had yet to figure out what to do with it and how to get more information out of it. But tonight, he got one step closer and had to figure out what to do next, and you decided to cloud his mind and push him to the edge until he pounced on you.

Heartbeat was still erratic when you felt the buzzing under your butt, still squatting on Jungkook's office chair. It was very late. Three and a half, to be exact. No one would be calling you at this hour. Scrap that. No one would call your official number at this time of night. It was different with your burner phone, so you always turned it off before Jungkook came home or put it on silent.

Tonight, you put it on vibrate because Taehyung was hot on your line, calling almost every hour to get updates about his situation. You thought it was him before you reached into the back pocket of your pants, and figured that it would have been better if it was him calling you this late, despite the annoyance and pent-up rage you felt towards him.

Your heart picked up a faster pace as you glanced at the display, which showed a number you didn't want to see with all the complications you were going through at the moment, and a name that reminded you of another reason why you couldn't pull out of this business and leave the darkness that came with it behind to live a simple, normal life with your husband. Yes. There were reasons why, despite the security your marriage and the presence of Jungkook had brought into your life, you couldn't get out of this shitty business, and greed wasn't one of them. Ironic as it may be, love was.

"Cassandra, sweetie, aren't you a little late for our monthly delivery this time?"

There was a certain feeling with which the voice that rang out from the phone always managed to stifle your words. It was a feeling of imprisonment. A trap in which you were held by the ankle. Fingers around your throat, cutting off your air supply. You ran a hand through your curls, trying to steady your voice before it showed weakness. The moonlight seeped through the glass wall into the dark room, managing to channel the light that refused to illuminate your path and making out the shape of the objects surrounding you more clearly. You looked up, directing your gaze to the mirror Jungkook often preened in front of before leaving the house and saw how you looked. You were visibly tired. Internally fatigued from this constant game of hide and seek. The game of chase. The rat and a cat game. And suddenly, you turned your accusations to the moon because why should it shed light on all these flaws? Why would it be so eager to show you exactly what you looked like, even in a dark room?

Why, why, why?

"I'm working on it," you countered, "there are still a few outstanding problems with the logistics, but I'll make sure it doesn't take longer than a month to ship it."

"A month?" There was a laugh at the other side of the line that you thought was out of place. Was everything but amused. You closed your eyes and felt the sweat running down your forehead and hands, beginning to collect at the base of your spine as well. It was dangerous. It was so risky to have this kind of conversation on the premises of your home in your husband's office. You were playing with fire.

Those who play with fire get burned.

"Two weeks. You have two weeks, Cassandra. Either I get my delivery, or you get your dear husband's head delivered to your doorstep. Your call."

And you got burned.