BLOOD MONEY || bts mafia au

fourteen.

The moment the building erupted in a plume of smoke, Jimin felt like his world was sliding sideways. He could barely hear Taehyung's broken shriek over the blood roaring in his ears, every centimeter of his body threatening to shatter beneath the weight of the ocean of questions that crashed over his head.

Joining this gang had been the life boat that had propelled him up from the waves he'd been drowning under, had given him a purpose in the midst of an endless expanse of pain and self-hatred. There had never been a doubt in his mind that he'd made a mistake, not when the high he got from watching grown men crumble before him made him feel more alive than he'd ever felt in his life. 

But without Jungkook...

No.

He couldn't be gone.

He just couldn't.

Jimin rocked slowly back and forth on his heels, waiting for the second where the smoke curtain would peel back to reveal his boss, bruised but intact, but it never happened.

And the drugs. Yoongi, Namjoon, Jin.

"Hoseok!" Jimin shouted through the comms. A piece of his heart broke at the sound of Taehyung's sobs echoing in his ears, but he forced himself to block them out. Jungkook would have wanted him to focus on the mission, to not let everything be in vain. "Tell me you have eyes on the Cobras."

"Jin and Namjoon made it out this way," Hoseok replied, his nerves bleeding through his tone. "Have you seen Jungkook?"

"No," Jimin whispered. "I haven't seen anyone."

That's okay, Jimin tried to convince himself. Namjoon had been the one with the drugs and he'd made it out. Yoongi and Jungkook couldn't have been much further away from him since they all went in together. They weren't injured, they couldn't have been. Unless-

Glimpsing the flash of black hair near the entrance, Jimin leapt to his feet immediately, scrambling to descend the side of the building as quickly as his limbs and gravity would allow him. The second his boots hit the ground, he was already launching into a run.

"Yoongi," he gasped, skidding to a stop in front of the boss, assessing him for damage. A cut on the side of his face was leaking a steady stream of blood down the side of his face, but it appeared to be a surface wound, and he was limping slightly. "What happened? Where's Jungkook?"

Without waiting for an answer, Jimin muttered a soft curse and leaned forward, dabbing at the blood with his sleeve. "You're going to bleed everywhere."

Yoongi's reply froze in his throat as the silver-haired boy leaned closer, his brows drawn in concentration as he tenderly cleaned away the blood. The words that he'd held in his mind just moments earlier evaporated. Even bathed in the excess smoke, Jimin was beautiful. And despite the years of learned hatred, his touch on Yoongi's cut was gentle.

When Jimin stepped away and released Yoongi from his trance, it was guilt that lingered at the back of the boss's mind.

A shrill siren sliced through the silence.

Realization finally dawned in Jimin's gaze as he looked from the burning building to the male in front of him, only a thin cut on him despite the blistering explosion. Namjoon and the drugs... "You... Jungkook... The explosion... This was your plan."

"For the best gang on the streets, you're a little slow, aren't you?" Yoongi drawled. In the shadow of moonlight, his grin looked feral.

"You son of a bitch!" Jimin screamed, slamming Yoongi into the brick wall behind him so hard that Yoongi's head bounced off the stone. He could barely think past the fury bubbling up within him. "What did you do?!"