Twisted Love (Winrina Ver)

JIMIN[CHAPTER 33]

I PAID AND LEFT THE RESTAURANT IMMEDIATELY AFTER MINJEONG. SHE HADN'T
gotten far, and I followed discreetly to make sure she got home safe before I
drove back to D.C.
I hated seeing her upset, especially on a night when we should've been
celebrating instead of fighting. I wanted to run after her and apologize for
being an ass, but the clock was ticking, and I needed to finish what I'd
started.
Only then could I put the past behind me, once and for all.
I stared at my computer screen, watching the minutes tick by. 11:55 p.m.
I'd given the man a midnight deadline.
11:56 p.m.
I hadn't told Minjeong the truth...about many things. I didn't have urgent
business to take care of before dinner, at least none relevant to Archer Group.
Instead, I'd been talking to my family's killers' killer.
The police had ruled my parents' and sister's murders as a home invasion
gone wrong, but I knew better. The men had said it was a job and mentioned
a "he," someone who knew I was supposed to be at camp that summer,
though that was something anyone with internet access and a bare modicum
of computer skills could figure out-the camp posted a list of its attendees
online every year.
I'd kept the knowledge of their true motives to myself though. I'd been
young, but old enough to know the criminal justice system wouldn't deliver
the type of justice I craved: total annihilation.
So I'd waited.
11:57 p.m.
My uncle was the only person I'd told. He, too, hadn't believed it was a
simple invasion.
But the police caught the culprits a few days later thanks to street security
footage that ID'ed their license plate, and they'd confirmed it was a home
invasion. The "burglars" said they hadn't wanted to leave witnesses, so
they'd killed everyone. They also hadn't made it to trial before they
"mysteriously" died in jail.
My uncle did some digging and found the man who'd hired the killers'
killer. Apparently, he was one of my father's business rivals and had a history
of shady dealings and ruthless practices. By logic, he had to have been the
one who'd ordered the hit on my family too.
I'd spent every second of my life since plotting his downfall.
11:58 p.m.
I'd been a kid, and I'd trusted my uncle, but what I'd read in the library
threw everything I knew about him out the window.
Minjeong was right-I'd been distracted this past week, busy with my chess
game. Not the unfinished one with my uncle in the library, but the one
playing out in real life.
I'd had my tech guy hack into Taehyung's financial records dating back to my
family's deaths and paid him a hefty sum to work day and night until he
found what I'd expected to find all along. A large sum of money had been
wired from one of my uncle's secret offshore accounts to an anonymous
account two days before my family's death, and another equal sum had been
sent the day after. An even larger amount had been sent to a second
anonymous account the day after the "burglars" died.
I'd paid the hacker another eye-watering sum to track down the second
killer. He'd contacted me when I was on my way to meet Minjwong, saying he'd
located the person, a notorious killer for hire who went by the name of
Heesung. They'd apparently retired, but I didn't need their "skills." I only
needed a name.
As a gesture of goodwill, I'd wired Heesung twenty-five percent of the fifty
grand I'd promised them if they would confirm who hired them to kill the
burglars.
Now, I waited.
11:59 p.m.
I stared at the blank black screen of Vortex, a fully encrypted messaging
site popular amongst those in the criminal underworld. Unhackable and
untraceable, it was where most of the world's seediest transactions took
place.
A chill whipped around me.
I hadn't bothered to turn the heater on. I'd bought this house in D.C.
under a shell company name because I wanted a place where I could carry out
my more illicit activities without anyone knowing, not even my uncle. It
boasted a security system the Pentagon would be jealous of, including a
hidden jammer that disabled all electronic devices inside the house unless
you had the code, which only I knew.
12:00 a.m.
A new message flashed onscreen.
Midnight on the dot. Gotta appreciate a punctual killer.
I read the message calmly, my blood colder than the chill creeping along
the floorboards and bare walls.
No greeting, no questions. Just a name, like I'd requested.
I wired the rest of the money to the Heesung and sat there in the dark,
mulling over the news.
I knew. Of course I knew. All the evidence had pointed to it, but now I
had my confirmation.
The man responsible for my family's death wasn't Min Yoongi, Minjeong's
father.
It was Kim Taehyung, my uncle.