Caught In The Shadow [Jenlisa]

Chapter Twenty-One -

Jungkook tried very hard to concentrate on the computer screen in front of him, but as he typed, his mind couldn't help but wander off. Jennie Kim was most certainly suffering from Stockholm's Syndrome, pining over her lost lover, her kidnapper and abuser. Jungkook didn't care for abusers – not one little bit. They were all the same. His mother used to try and apologize for beating him by taking him to the park. The best abusers could make you believe they felt guilty for what they'd done, right up until you got in their way.

Still, he would be lying if he didn't admit, at least to himself, Jennie's storytelling abilities were quite...compelling. For four hours he'd listened to her talk about her relationship with Lisa and he'd watched as her cheeks had colored and her skin flushed with what he knew was arousal. How could he not be affected?

Yes, he'd grown hard, painfully so, but he didn't like it. What kind of person got a hard-on while listening to a victim talk about her abuse? It made him feel sick. He was sick.

And it wasn't necessarily a new problem. He had a long history of strange sexual proclivities. It was the reason he was thirty-one and still single with no viable prospects on the horizon. He was afraid of someone seeing him for what he was. Being alone didn't mean he was lonely, not really. He kept very busy with work at the Bureau. However, he often thought it would be nice to have someone to come home to, someone he could talk to that wouldn't make him feel like a freak – even though he knew he was. And like, attracted like.

He was attracted to damaged and fractured women as much as they seemed to be attracted to him. Jennie Kim seemed to be no different. She was drawn to him for some reason, he could intuit that much, but he knew it was an attraction that could only run the one way. He would never compromise an investigation, never take advantage of a witness, and never try to save someone who was so obviously broken. He'd learned his lesson all too well.

He would do his job. That's why the Bureau kept him on board; because at the end of the day he could be counted on to do what needed to be done. He was a closer. Nothing got in the way of that. No one got in his way.

Bringing his attention back toward his screen, he continued to type up Jennie's statement about her time in captivity. He tried to remain impassive as he typed, but certain sentences continued to jump out at him:

"She made me beg for food..."

"Spanked me repeatedly..."

"...forced me to come."

His report was reading more like an erotic novel than a case file. His mind was beginning to wander again, this time toward his last girlfriend, the one who couldn't come unless he called her a whore. He was starting to get hard again—Stop!

He saved the file and decided to take a much-needed break from Jennie and her relatively useless memoir and opened his browser to search for more information on Choi Muhammad Jiyong. He was the lynchpin of the entire investigation.

According to the witness, Lisa had reported her involvement with Jiyong began because they needed to kill Vladek Rostrovich, A.K.A. Demitri Balk.

"Why?" Jungkook whispered to himself and then remembered the comment about Jiyong's mother and sister. Were they dead?

Doesn't matter, he thought. The important thing was the auction, everything else was inconsequential. So why couldn't he get it out of his head? Why did the story seem relevant? It was motive, sure, but how did it lead to the location of the auction in Pakistan?

Jungkook let out a deep sigh and got up to pour himself another cup of coffee. He'd heard the local cops gripe about the coffee on an almost daily basis, but unlike them, he actually enjoyed the coffee in the office. It was likely true the coffee machine had never been cleaned, but maybe the grit added something. He smirked. Back at his desk he grabbed his notepad and started digging through his notes to find a starting point for his research.