From: Alfred Brown *
To: Danica Clarke *
Date: 3 August 2021, 10:40 p.m.
Hello Ms. Danica Clarke,
I know it's inappropriate and reckless to email you at this hour for something as trivial as introducing myself to you, but rules aren't my strong suit. I prefer to bend rules until they break, to gamble on moments that may burn me alive, just to feel the heat of them.
Well, I wouldn't bore you with unnecessary details; let's get straight to the point.
I am Alfred Brown, the one who helped you find your purse after the World Business Summit wrapped up. (wink) I hope you remember the moment as vividly as you remember the exact shade of lipstick you were wearing that night. The one that might cause a saint to sin.
Thank you for letting me slide into your inbox. For a split second, I was half-convinced to see a little message from Xmail, notifying me that the user doesn't exist.
With sincerity,
Alfred.
Danica's bones glaciated even as heat clawed up her spine, anchoring her to the place. The words scribbled over her screen had the power to make her go through them thrice, against her will. She was half-furious and half-intrigued by the sheer audacity of the mystery man—Alfred—to deliver the message cloaked in professionalism with a brazen red bow of flirtation.
Shoving aside all the stupid sensations and conflicting thoughts, she typed the reply before leaving the Crown & Caviar. She could deal with them later or never.
Seems like Alfred Brown is going to be my 92nd prey. She exhaled plainly, igniting the engine of her Aston Martin. Good luck to you, Mr. Plenitude of Nerve. Pray that you don't end up dying by hands someday.
___________________
"Stop staring at that wineglass like it's about to sprout wings and serve you enlightenment," Tae-Hyun Kang, president of Baekho Estate and Alfred's partner-in-chaos since the dawn of time, leaned back in his chair with the kind of casual arrogance that made women swoon and men want to punch him.
Alfred blinked, and the scene before him snapped into disturbing focus, leaving him raw and agonizingly aware of how deep he'd drowned in those feral, sinful, and catastrophically overindulgent thoughts of… her.
"Judging by that thousand yard stare," Tae went on, swirling his own drink lazily, "I'd say something apocalyptic is brewing in that skull of yours." His emerald eyes—an unnerving reminder of his Eurasian bloodline—glimmered with something between intrigue and mischief. "And considering our lion hearted monster of a friend..." He raised the rim of his glass toward Alfred in a half mock toast. "...has been marinating in silence for, what? Forty eight hours straight? That's a personal best. Congratulations."
Alfred let out a jagged breath, more of a growl than a sigh. His fingers drummed against the tabletop, restless. "It's crazy…"
"Let me tell you what's crazy." Tae interrupted in his deep and rough voice. "Since the World Business Summit ended, you've spoken less than a monk under a vow of silence. And don't even start with excuses—because all you've really been doing is staring into nothing, sulking like a ghost, and playing the tragic twin roles of deaf and mute."
He dragged a hand through his wavy black-brown hair with a sharp exhale, his eyes narrowing on Alfred. "If we're staring down disaster—political, financial, personal—I don't give a shit. One word from you, and I'll settle it down."
A ghost of a smile tugged at Alfred's hauntingly perfect profile. "I know. But the situation I'm in… It isn't survival. It's destruction, unavoidable and absolute. And it won't be solved by your Band-Aid methods." He loosened his tie, leaning forward, weight pressing into the words. "It demands something stronger. Something solid."
"Funny thing," Tae let out a short, cynical laugh as he tilted the wine bottle, the deep red liquid catching the light before spilling into Alfred's glass, "In my experience, every so-called crisis can be avoided—or erased entirely—with the right method. Murder, hacking, a tidy little kidnapping… or simply mopping up the blood before it dries."
"Then this might be an exception." Alfred countered, equal parts steel and iron-willed. "Because it involves a breathtaking woman with terrifying charisma, a heart full of yearning and an unhealthy dose of attraction that I can't, won't, and dare not break free from."
Tae blinked. The inevitable frown smoothed into reluctant intrigue, edges of his mouth curling into a taunting smirk. "I should have known better. But, thanks to your desert-dry dating record and zero interest in anyone breathing, you didn't exactly drop any hints."
Alfred shot one of his dark eyebrows up before sipping the wine.
"Guess you've got a type, then." Tae drawled.
"Yeah. It's her."
"Good luck because this requires the worst solution—surrender."
"Oh, talk about it," Alfred admitted, settling deeper into his seat, ready to pour his monstrous heart out. "I'd crawl on my bloody knees for her if that's the last road left. Hell. I'd kill for her. I'd tear people limb from limb, rip apart systems brick by brick, and scorch kingdoms to ash if it meant she'd be mine."
The mischievous glint in Tae's eyes was now replaced with mild consternation. "I always knew you were a hopeless romantic, Alfo, but you had incorruptible restraint. Didn't you?" he tsked. "Now you sound like a pathetic man on the brink of obsession. And trust me—it's not pleasing."
"You can call it obsession. You can call it madness. Hell, dress it up as love at first sight if you'd like—I don't fucking care." Alfred set his glass down on the table with a hard clink. "What matters is this instinct gnawing at me, tearing at my chest, screaming that she's the one. The only. I can already see it, Kang. Kids with her eyes. A name that will outlive us both. A legacy carved in stone. A forever so vivid it's like I could reach out and touch it, like it's already mine. She's already mine. The rest of the world just doesn't know it yet."
Alfred dragged a hand down his face, as if the touch alone could steady the chaos clawing through him. But nothing could tame the vicious pull that Danica had wrapped around him like barbed wire, and it was sinking deeper with every breath. His veins tightened, coiling into a knot of aching need at the mere thought of her pressed against him, surrendering in his arms… and everything that came after. It was maddening. All-consuming. The kind of hunger that should've terrified him. Instead, he savoured it. Every merciless inch of it.
Damn! He was utterly shattered on his knees for her, and he was too aware of it.
"Now you sound even more pathetic," Tae muttered, his voice low, strained between mockery and unease. "But if your insides are screaming, then you should recheck its 's translation. Maybe you need a good release…" His eyes slid down at Alfred's groin before snapping back up with a smirk. "—not some fairytale love or delusion of perfect marriages."
"I understand that dealing with two divorces and trash relationships has reduced your peace to rubble so thick it's a wonder you can even breathe through the dust." Alfred let out a mocking grunt, biting back a grin. "But don't project your ruin on me. It takes a different kind of courage to look truth in the eye and admit it before it eats you alive."
Tae's sharp features softened ever so slightly; the familiar edge of pride and mischief in his eyes dissolved into something he despised—guilt webbed with resentment. A bitter cocktail he'd rather chop his dick off than admit aloud.
He squeezed out the air from his lungs, eyes darting everywhere—the chandelier, the half-empty wine bottle, the pricey paintings that screamed billion-dollar excess, even the crimson reflection swirling in his glass—and anywhere but the burning truth in Alfred's smoldering gaze. It was almost tormenting how his best friend always had a fucking point that would slash the wounded nerve to perfection. An ugly naked truth that he did not need.
"If you want her so bad," Tae finally broke the silence, burrowing himself back into the conversation, deliberately sharp, "then go do something that makes that fantasy a goddamn reality."
"That's the problem." Alfred exhaled, his shoulders curving inward as if the weight of his confession might crush him. "I want to get close enough to touch the bruised heart she's hidden inside that thorn-riddled cage. But she's a patch of quicksand. Every step I take forward, she retreats two. I asked for her number; she handed me an email address—like it was 1998. I complimented her, and she nearly set me on fire with that glare of hers."
Tae's mouth twitched and then broke into a laugh before he tamped it down.
"What do you think, Kang?"
"Are you seriously asking me for advice?" Tae blinked, mock astonished. "Me? The man with two divorces under his belt, who treats emotions like contagious diseases, and whose heart is about as hospitable as a desert cactus? Tread carefully, Alfo. Consult at your own risk."
"I like to think of myself as a loyal follower of that grand old theory—learn from the mistakes of others because life is too short to commit all the crimes personally."
Tae narrowed his gaze into something halfway between a glare and a squint. "Is that your idea of a compliment? Or are you just mocking me for crawling through the emotional apocalypse and living to tell the tale?"
"Honestly? A little of both."
"You're an ass."
Alfred winked, a low chuckle escaping. "Not a bigger one than you, though."
Tae pressed his lips into a thin line, like a man weighing homicide. "It is taking a Herculean effort not to suffocate you right now with the nearest velvet pillow. But, because I'm feeling unusually generous about your miserable situation, I'll resist." He let the silence stretch, deliberate, before his tone shifted. "Back to your tragic little dilemma—her unpredictability isn't rejection. It's hesitation. Whether professional or… dangerously more than professional, she's not leaning in yet."
Alfred was listening to him patiently, fully aware of the fact that in matters like this, his ride-or-die buddy was as good as a cigarette in the lungs of a dying man: worthless, destructive, yet impossible to ignore. Regardless, he was sure to find a glimmer of guidance beneath the heap of useless advice that Tae was hurling at him.
"Maybe she has trust issues…" Tae cleared his throat unnecessarily, trying to make sense of words that were slipping past his mouth. "…just like another human on this planet, or maybe she is particularly not interested in you. Or it can be both."
Not interested?
Two words hit Alfred harder than they had any right to. It felt nothing less than a sharp blade razing every bone in his powerful frame, splitting his chest open, and leaving a raw hollow where his pulse had been.
"Are you suggesting I'm not enough to tempt her?" Alfred's jaw twitched in annoyance as he battled to maintain a mask of indifference. "That I don't have it in me to break through her walls… to pull her into my orbit and not let her go?"
Tae forced a grin, the kind that was more nerves than humor. "I'm not saying that you're not exactly the type of women who risk their lives falling in love with. I mean—" he flailed a hand, "what I meant was… she's probably just not interested."
"Why the hell wouldn't she be interested?"
"I am just assuming."
"Tell me, then. Do I look undone to you? Ugly?" Alfred thundered on. "Do I look any less like a person with a god complex?"
Tae's gaze slid over him, unhurried and razor-sharp, cataloguing every detail as though assembling evidence. Alfred sat there, carved out of something heavier than flesh, his sheer presence consuming the space, absorbing the room whole until the walls seemed to shrink inward. His shoulders were broad enough to make menace look effortless, the deep navy fabric clinging to him like it feared tearing apart. His face—too symmetrical, too impeccably crafted—felt less like a gift of nature and more like a warning. And those dark eyes—demanding, punishing, waiting for judgment.
Finally, Tae's mouth tilted into a careless smirk. "Flawless. Infuriatingly so… like me." His tone was casual, but there was an edge behind it. "And all I'm saying—"
"Why did you divorce Elise?" Alfred interjected, his voice calm but tainted with steel, his hand closing around his glass before taking a slow, purposeful sip. The interruption felt closer to a strike aimed straight at the gut than a curiosity.
Vexation surged through Tae's ribcage, swallowing him whole before he wrestled it down.
"Seriously? We're digging up my first failed marriage now? And for the record—she left me. Slid divorce papers across the damn table on our third anniversary. Happy celebration, right?"
"That's tragically poetic. But you see, I'm only trying to learn what pushes the train of blissful marriage off the wrong track, straight into inevitable wreckage and ruin." Alfred arched one of his elegant dark brows up. "You're being monumentally helpful this way. Share your worst stories, Tae, and trust me, I'll absorb more from your disasters than your tepid, half-baked advice."
Tae's lips pressed into a hard line. "If you weren't my friend, I would have killed you in a hundred unimaginable ways, dumped your lifeless body thousands of feet beneath the graveyard, and slept like a baby on it."
"I know," Amusement shimmered in Alfred's expression. "Fortunately, I rank very high on the untouchable list." He let the silence pulse between them like a challenge before leaning in just slightly. "Now, start talking."
Tae grudgingly ran a hand through his hair, more defiance than nervous tick. "Well, Elise was half-American and half-Korean. Daughter of Xavier M. Romano, who was a gangster in a tailored suit masquerading as a high-society tycoon. We were forced into marriage. I was young…"
"I didn't ask for a family tree or how you got trapped into a twisted arrangement." Alfred leaned back on the couch, clearly savouring the glint of displeasure etched on the face of his friend. "I asked you to narrate what went wrong in the marriage."
"Everything." Tae emphasized. "We fought every damn day. Once, she hurled a vase at my head—I barely dodged. Another time, I was second away from her father's men putting a bullet in me. Take your pick of disasters."
"Now you are the one sounding pathetic."
Tae's brow slashed together at the cutting remark.
"You could've avoided the ugly fights by being…" Alfred continued, his tone dialing slightly into the territory of contemptuous. "…unshakable as a rock and obedient as a saint kneeling at the altar."
Tae scoffed.
"I am dead serious. If I ever marry Danica—and I will—I'll never let her go to bed angry. Not once. I'll do whatever it takes—fix it, say the right words, kiss the fight off her mouth, and rock her world apart in every way I know, making sure she never forgets how inescapably whipped I am for her. And I'll never let something as small as pride or a petty argument put space between us."
"You'd do that because you love her. My marriage was all business and hatred."
Alfred's gaze hardened, but his voice was a shade gentler. "You always have a choice, Kang."
"Whatever." Tae's voice turned more resolute, suggesting he was too cooked up to debate his ground any further. "We're not dredging up my first marriage. Or my ex-wife. Or anything in between. That grave stays buried."
A faint smile ghosted over Alfred's lips as he stood, shrugging his midnight trench coat across his shoulders with a casual elegance that felt almost calculative. "As you say. But I've already found the answer I came here for."
"You know I am just a call away. In case you ever feel the urge to strangle your future marriage with those very same hands that once swore they wanted a fairytale ending."
Alfred slipped his leather gloves on. "That will never happen, because unlike you," His gaze turned unyielding and cold. "I don't run when it gets ugly. I own the inferno, even if it feasts on ashes of what I am."
The smirk on Tae's face plummeted in a split second, exposing a seam of darkness that made him wish he could undo all choices that had conspired to drag him to this exact, punishing moment. The one where he was forever-bound to his dirty work and bloodstained business dealings, rather than the life he might have had if he was with Elise. Only if he hadn't killed….
"Va a ser un largo y tormentoso año." He forced a lungful of air out, watching Alfred leave like a finality.