Chapter 4 - The Debt Begins
The hammer dropped, but before the bullet could tear through Min-hyuk’s chest, Su-ah threw a heavy, unopened can of baby formula with all the desperate strength in her tiny body. The metal can struck Park squarely in the temple, throwing off his aim.
The shot went wide, shattering a ceramic water pipe inches above Min-hyuk’s ear. High-pressure steam hissed into the air, blinding the corridor in a scalding white fog.
Min-hyuk lunged forward through the vapor. His right hand locked around Park’s wrist, twisting it inward until the bone snapped with a sickening crunch. Park screamed, the gun splashing into the foul water below. Without breaking momentum, Min-hyuk drove an elbow into Park's throat, slamming the larger man backward against the concrete wall. Park slumped down into the water, choking and unconscious.
The remaining foot soldiers hesitated in the blinding fog, their weapons wavering. Min-hyuk didn't waste the opening. He scooped Su-ah up in his left arm, her tiny body weighing almost nothing against his tailored chest, and sprinted toward the narrow drainage tunnel where his man had vanished.
Behind them, the shouts of pursuing gangsters faded as the subterranean tunnel narrowed into a labyrinth of forgotten sewage corridors. They trudged through waist-high muck, the stench overwhelming, the cries of the newborn infants echoing faintly ahead. Su-ah buried her face into Min-hyuk’s neck, her small hands clutching his suit lapels so tightly that the expensive fabric tore at the seams.
"You saved my life, little thief," Min-hyuk murmured between heavy breaths, navigating the darkness by sheer memory of the city's blueprint.
"You saved my brothers' food," she whispered into his ear, her voice shaking from cold and shock. "We're even."
A faint, bitter smirk touched the corner of Min-hyuk’s mouth. "In my world, we are never even. Now you owe me for keeping you alive."
After twenty agonizing minutes of navigating the subterranean dark, they reached an iron grate beneath a storm drain in the warehouse district. His enforcer had already breached the hatch; the mother and the box of infants were safely loaded into the idling black sedan parked under the yellow glow of a sodium streetlamp.
Min-hyuk pushed Su-ah into the backseat next to her comatose mother, climbing in after her and slamming the heavy door shut.
May you like
"Dr. Han’s clinic, now," Min-hyuk ordered the driver. "Floor it."
As the car accelerated into the rainy night, the enforcer in the passenger seat turned around, his face pale in the dashboard glow. "Boss... we intercepted a radio ping. Chairman Song knows you survived. He’s placed a bounty on your head. And on every single person associated with you."
