Chapter 2 - The Final Pulse
"She’s burning up, boss. Pulse is fluttering like a trapped moth. Sepsis, maybe pneumonia. She won't survive the night down here." The enforcer pulled his hand back as if the fever might burn through his thick skin.
Su-ah’s head snapped toward the bed, a jagged gasp ripping from her throat. She dropped the cans of milk, the metal clattering across the wet floor, and scrambled on her hands and knees toward the cot. "Mom? Mom, wake up! Look, I got the food. Mom, please!"
She shook the limp shoulder, but the woman didn't stir. Only a ragged, wheezing sigh escaped her dry, parted lips. The twin infants stirred at their sister’s cry, their feeble whimpers blending with the steady, rhythmic drip-drip-drip of condensation falling from the ceiling crack.
Min-hyuk watched with an unreadable expression. He remembered this smell. Thirty years ago, in an alleyway behind the Busan fish markets, his own mother had grown cold under an identical gray army blanket while loan sharks hammered against the plywood door. He had sworn never to feel that suffocating powerlessness again. Power was the only currency that mattered.
"Load her into the back of the sedan," Min-hyuk said flatly, turning on his heel toward the exit stairs. "Call Dr. Han. Tell him if she dies before sunrise, I will audit his private clinic's offshore accounts."
The thugs hesitated, exchanging an uneasy glance. "Boss... what about Chairman Song? He’s waiting at the docks for the manifest. If we miss the midnight exchange to play ambulance drivers for a deadbeat's family, he'll think you've gone soft."
"Chairman Song can choke on his own greed," Min-hyuk muttered, his gaze dropping once more to Su-ah. She was staring at him, tears carving clear pale tracks through the mud on her cheeks, her small chest heaving with disbelief.
Min-hyuk reached down, his large, scarred hand wrapping around the collar of her oversized shirt, lifting her effortlessly to her feet. "You said you’d pay me back when you grow up."
"I... I will," she stammered, trembling like a leaf in a gale.
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"Then remember this face, girl. Because starting tonight, your soul belongs to my ledger."
Before they could reach the concrete stairs leading up to the street, the heavy iron door above slammed open with a deafening bang, followed by the unmistakable rack of a shotgun slide.
