Chapter 3 - The Ambush at the Threshold
Gunfire shredded the damp stillness. Plaster and concrete chips rained down like hail as heavy buckshot splintered the doorframe above them. Min-hyuk reacted on pure instinct, shoving Su-ah down behind a rusted water boiler and drawing his suppressed Sig Sauer before his knees even hit the wet floor.
"Min-hyuk! You treacherous dog!" a voice roared from the top of the stairwell, accompanied by heavy boot steps echoing through the stairwell. "Song said you were skimming off the district! Didn't expect to find you playing babysitter in a sewer rat's nest!"
It was Park Tae-jin, one of Chairman Song’s most vicious lieutenants, accompanied by half a dozen armed thugs. They hadn't stumbled onto this basement by accident; Min-hyuk had been tracked. A setup. Song had suspected Min-hyuk’s ambition for months, and tonight had been the chosen moment to prune the syndicate's rising star.
"Cover the cot!" Min-hyuk shouted to his men.
His lead enforcer dragged the cardboard box with the screaming twins behind the metal bed frame, pulling his sidearm to return fire. Muzzle flashes strobed through the subterranean gloom, illuminating the terrified face of Su-ah, who curled into a ball behind Min-hyuk, covering her ears as deafening cracks reverberated against the concrete walls.
Min-hyuk leaned around the boiler, firing three precise shots upward. A man shrieked at the top of the landing, tumbling headfirst down the metal stairs, his shotgun clattering through the murky floodwater.
"There’s an emergency drainage tunnel behind the generator," Min-hyuk hissed to his remaining soldier, ejecting his magazine and sliding another into place with mechanical efficiency. "Take the mother and the babies. Go now."
"What about you, Boss?"
"I’ll buy you two minutes. If you lose those brats, don't bother coming back."
The enforcer hoisted the unconscious woman over his shoulder like a sack of grain, scooping up the cardboard box with his free arm, and dashed into the dark recess behind the humming generator. Park’s men were pouring down the stairs now, their shadows looming large and distorted against the cracked walls.
Min-hyuk glanced down at Su-ah, who remained huddled at his feet, clutching the ivory handkerchief he had tossed her earlier. She hadn't run.
"Get up," Min-hyuk growled, grabbing her wrist. "Run with them!"
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"No!" she cried out, her small voice piercing through the cacophony of gunfire. "Look out!"
Min-hyuk turned just as Park Tae-jin stepped around the stairwell pillar, a heavy caliber revolver pointed squarely at Min-hyuk's chest, his grin baring gold-capped teeth.
