"Prisoner number 510!" a guard shouted at Hyun. A van was parked outside the prison carrying twenty new prisoners. All of them were wearing casual shirts which they had brought from their homes but now that they were at the nation's infamous Aberville Prison, there was no home left for them.
One by one, the prisoners were led out of the van. All of them were in handcuffs and their feet were shackled with long chains. Hyun was sandwiched between a skinny youth who was taken in for murder and a burly man in his thirties who was giving everyone a stone cold look. The former minister wore a simple brown shirt and pants but it was about to change.
All the prisoners carried one duffle bag with their belongings but they were not going to carry those by themselves. He watched as the bags were being loaded into a crate box and sent inside the warden's office.
"510!" the guard barked again. "What the hell are ya looking at?"
"When are we getting our belongings back?" Hyun asked roughly.
"When we feel like giving them back," the guard sneered. "If we want to give them back at all!"
Hyun's lips quivered in anger. Even in the precinct cell, the guards did not dare to talk to him in a rough manner but the guards at the prison were rude and arrogant. He glared at the guard who was insulted by the prisoner. He stepped forward and hit Hyun's knees with a stick, causing the middle aged man to writhe in pain.
"Don't you know who I am?" Hyun gritted. "I'm the former Finance Minister! I inaugurated this prison! I was an honorary guest of honor last year at the twentieth anniversary-"
But the guard only hit him more with the stick.
"And you're a mere prisoner here!" the guard spat at him. "Sorry to say this but you are no longer a minister. Just a common criminal!"
Hyun glared at the guard who turned away to address the other criminals. The youth who stood next to him watched the whole exchange.
"You'll have to abandon that attitude, Minister," he sneered. "This is a prison. Not your home where you'll be treated with respect. Even dogs are treated better here."
"He's still a newbie!" another prisoner wheezed. "He'll gel into this hell hole in no time. Of course, he'll have to go through a lot of pain before that. Since he'll run into old buddies of his!"
The other prisoners snickered while Hyun gritted. He was well aware that as the national prison, Aberville held his former enemies captive. After the war, the political prisoners were locked up here and they knew he was entering their turf. In fact, it was one of the reasons why the Company wanted to free him from all charges. If he entered enemy territory, he could sell their secrets.
But Hyun was no fool. The Company did not just want him to be acquitted. They wanted him dead. He was too dangerous to their plans and Prime Minister Lee went against their orders to imprison him. Lee had his own motives, of course.
By keeping Hyun in prison, Lee's Premiership would be secured. Hyun was going up against him in the upcoming election and had the resources to topple him. So Lee used his son and that bloody lawyer to keep Hyun in prison. Moreover, Lee knew that if Hyun teamed up with the enemies to fight against the Company, Lee would be advantaged. While Hyun and the Company fought it out, Lee would swoop in to protect the country and 'save the day'.
Which is why the Company arranged to keep him in solitary confinement. It would be easy to kill him there and no one would raise a question. They could easily falsify reports of a heart attack and leave no witnesses.
Just like they did with Byungsoo.
"Get in line, all of you!" a guard ordered the prisoners. All of the prisoners formed a serial and one by one, they were being led through the large prison gates. They followed the guards to the prison ground which was separated by a long, electric fence. On one side were the uniformed prisoners who were conducting their daily activities. Some of them gaped at the newbies who arrived while others leered or simply did not care. They wore gray shirts and pants with a number tag on their front pocket.
When the old prisoners saw Hyun, they began to whisper amongst themselves.
"The Finance Minister?"
"I heard he's a homo!"
"He'll be ripped here for sure."
"Ripped ass you mean!"
They laughed out loud, pointing and jeering at Hyun who arrogantly ignored them.
"I wonder how it'll feel to fuck a minister!" one prisoner yelled. Some of them catcalled at Hyun, calling him names as he passed by.
"SHUT UP!" a guard hit the fence to chase them away but the prisoners were continuing to make faces at him. Hyun gritted in anger at the humiliation the Prime Minister was putting him through. He was sure that even in solitary confinement, prison life was not going to be easy for him. The Company would do everything to kill him and Lee would make his life hell. He was trapped from both sides and there was only one way for him.
To find the sixth and eighth seats of the Light.
"Damn it!" he cursed under his breath. Seeing them was not going to be a good thing. His enmity with the sixth seat goes far back. In fact, when the old regime was in existence, both of them vied for the position of the Finance Minister. When the monarchy fell and the war broke out, Hyun had personally charged against the sixth's faction to defeat them. If it was not for a traitor in their ranks, the Company would have lost the war but thanks to that traitor, they won and the Light lost.
Once the Company won the war, they used a smear campaign against the Light and falsely claimed that the Light fought against the monarchy by killing their beloved Emperor and his family. Lee sent out a notice that until the Crown Prince has been found, they would run the government on his behalf with Lee as PM and Hyun as Finance Minister.
So far, the Crown Prince remained a mystery but Hyun was sure that Lee was conspiring something.
But what?
As for the eighth seat, Hyun only heard rumors that he was also in prison. He was not sure who that person was but Hyun was determined to find out. If the sixth and eighth seat of the Light helped him to escape, he could ditch them midway and use his resources outside to unveil the Company and the government's lies. If the citizens rose against them, it was all over.
"510, grab your clothes!" a guard ordered. They were led into a locker room where clothes had been laid out in order of their numbers. Next to the clothes were a disposable toothbrush, a tiny tube of toothpaste, a thin towel, a small soap and a pair of old boxers. Hyun looked at these things with disgust.
These were not enough for him! The things handed to them were dirty and the boxers looked as if they had been used before.
"I can't take these!" he protested. "These are used and dirty!"
"Shut up!" the guard growled. "Either use these or go outside, naked. See how your rich ass is torn apart by the other prisoners!"
"But-"
Another blow hit him on the stomach, knocking the lights out of him. Hyun crouched in pain, clutching his stomach as the pain unraveled. The guards were not showing him mercy as they dragged him behind a curtain where all the prisoners were being stripped and searched.
His nightmare had only begun.
….
Sunye was pacing back and forth in the living room. Orea was already asleep because she had a presentation at school the next morning. She had assigned a room for Sunye which to the latter's embarrassment was right next to SD's room. In fact, it had a connecting doorway which meant they could enter each other's rooms any moment.
When Sunye asked if there was a spare room, the girl shrugged and said, "It's the only one we have."
She glanced at the clock, waiting for SD but he had not arrived yet. It was 1 am in the morning and he did not contact her all day after the incident at her house.
"Where is he?" she muttered. As if answering her question, she heard someone typing in the code at the front door. She rushed to see that SD had entered and to her slight surprise, he was wearing a different set of clothes.
"Where were you all day?" she asked when she noticed that he looked a little tired.
"Torturing your caretaker," he simply said. Sunye was shocked but before she could recover, he added, "She's an assassin for the Choi Clan. They hired her to kill you. The whole setup at your home was her doing."
He calmly sat on a couch and crossed his leg, staring at her with a smiling face.
"But I checked all her credentials and identity," Sunye stated, feeling very confused.
"The Choi clan falsified everything," SD replied. "When you were packing, I checked her fingerprints on the door knob and sent it to my men at the police station for testing. They verified her identity. The Choi's had falsified her documents very carefully because they knew you're a lawyer and deceiving you will be tough. So they used their resources to cover their hitman or rather I'd say, hitwoman's tracks well."
Sunye slumped on the couch next to him, still shocked. "And now they're targeting me," she said, exhaling a sharp breath.
SD took out a pocket knife and was playing around with it as he spoke. "You can hide here, but there's no guarantee that they won't be able to harm you," he stated. "All they'll need is one chance. One chance, and you're dead."
"What do I have to do then?" she asked. SD was still playing with the pocket knife while Sunye waited for him to speak.
Suddenly, he moved and before she could react, he grabbed her head and pressed her against the coffee table.
"WHAT ARE YOU-"
She froze when she felt the cool blade of the knife against her throat. SD was no longer playful but it felt as if he was seriously going to hurt her. Sunye did not dare to move because the knife was touching her jugular vein. One step and it would cut through her skin.
"When it's a question of survival," he said in a threatening tone. "Don't ask questions. Either kill or be killed. Doesn't matter who's holding the knife but if you let your guard down even for a second, you're dead."
Hearing his cold tone sent chills down Sunye's spine. She was not sure whether to be afraid of the knife or of him. It was a side to him she had never seen before because she subconsciously believed that SD could never hurt her. Then why was he…
She felt the grip on her loosen and he put the knife away.
"That's lesson one," he declared. "Never hesitate."
"I was just shocked that you would hurt me!" Sunye shot back.
"And yet, you didn't defend yourself," he pointed out. "Not only because you were afraid of the knife but also due to the fact that the person holding the knife was someone you knew. You hesitated."
He stood up to point at a vase which was on the coffee table and within Sunye's reach and then to a poker stick which was below the table.
"You could have picked any of them up to hit me," he stated calmly. "But you didn't because you didn't want to hurt me."
Leaning down to meet her angry eyes, he held her chin and said, "Once you learn to fight for survival, no one can hurt you. If your loved ones are your enemies, then don't hesitate to cut them down. Only then, will you find something you truly care about."
Sunye did not flinch. Somewhere in her heart, she knew that he was right but her anger was still fresh.
"Tomorrow at 5 am," he said. "We'll start your training."
He let go of her and retreated to his bedroom. Climbing the stairs, he shut the door behind him, leaving her there all by herself.
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