Ulterior Motives | Lim Jaebeom

three

I felt a cool, damp cloth on my forehead. It felt nice against my pounding head. Even with my aching body, I felt like I could just drift back to sleep....

No.

I struggled to open my eyes as the morning's events flooded my brain. My heart raced as I finally opened my eyes, waking up to a small dimly lit room and a face peering down at me.

The room started to spin as I pushed myself into a sitting position, but I never took my eyes off of the man before me.

I wanted to throw up. As Jaebeom crouched in front of me, it was all I could do to keep myself from vomiting on his shoes. Instead, I leveled a cold scowl at him, not backing down as he scowled right back at me past the strands of hair that hung in front of his eyes. He really was quite handsome, now that I had a good look at his face. His defined cheekbones and jawline, the sharp eyes and lips ... they all made him look like he was made for a position of power. The only thing interrupting his otherwise attractive features was a dark bruise blooming across his cheek where I hit him.

"You've really been a pain in my ass these past 24 hours."

I smiled wryly, "Nice face."

A muscle in his jaw twitched, "You should take a look in the mirror." I scowled at him, but he continued before I could speak, "What should we call you, anyway? You have quite the reputation for fake identities; Kennedy, Darya, Lucía... which do you prefer? Or should I give you time to come up with a Korean name?"

I feigned nonchalance, but he had done his research. Those were my most recent identities when I lived in the States, Russia, Spain....

"Let's just cut to the chase." I said, skating past his questions, "I'm assuming you already rescued your friend, so what am I doing here?"

"You're gonna sell us those shares at 50% of their worth-"

"Not happening," I interrupted.

He looked a bit taken aback, "You're not really in a position to negotiate."

I raised my eyebrows, "You don't think so? I have people and connections all over the world, including South Korea. The moment they realize I'm missing, who do you think they'll go after?"

I hoped he didn't see through me. I hadn't exactly planned on coming to South Korea, or staying very long. I hadn't made connections within the country, and mostly did international work from abroad. I had no one close by in case anything happened, no one who even knew about Got7.

"You're so full of it," he said, "But even if you weren't, it wouldn't exactly be easy to track us down."

"I literally kidnapped one of your members, got a list of your shareholders, and convinced them to sell to me overnight. You're overestimating yourself."

He looked me up and down, "Then maybe we should just take you to Yongchan. I'm sure he'd offer his protection against your little connections in exchange."

The very mention of that man's name sent shivers down my spine. But outwardly, I didn't even blink at his words.

"That's not how he operates." I said, shaking my head, "I don't know why, but Got7 is powerful enough to cause him some problems down the road. He'll use this opportunity to take us both down."

"Then what would you have me do? Let you go? I'm not letting you walk away with our business."

So he really was worried about those shares. I didn't blame him though; contacting those investors and buying their shares was definitely a bold move. They didn't give me any direct power over Got7, but allowing your enemy to get too close was never a good idea. It wouldn't be very difficult to build a presence for myself in Got7's insurance company and sabotage them from the inside.