The War of Gods (A Welcome to the Underworld Novel, Book 3) (70 page)

A skeptical scoff escaped Soo Jin. There were so many holes in his plan that she could not even begin to take it seriously. “How would I do that? There are Scorpions watching her every move, waiting to kidnap her. I would never be able to get close to her without arousing suspicion.”

“There’s only one thing you can do in this situation that doesn’t give anything away.”

Soo Jin slanted her head and stared at Ju Won in disbelief. She knew what he was suggesting. “You want me to torture them for the information once my brother’s men bring them to the club?”

“You and I know that the extended family is dead the moment Young Jae sets his eyes on them. He doesn’t know how many of them know about the tape and the conspiracy, which means he’s going to kill all of them to keep his secret and his reputation intact. They are merely living on borrowed time right now, and if you can’t get the information from Eve, then you will miss your chance for your war. You can attempt to kill him one on one, but we both know that victory is only sweet if you get your vengeance during a war—when you’re making history at the same time. And after this, I will give you my empire. This alone will show our society the unending support I have for you. It will also show the trust I have that you will lead this world well. In addition to your revenge, you will also be the top candidate to become the Lord of the Underworld.”

Soo Jin could not conceal the glint that twinkled in her eyes.

Lord of the Underworld.

What a powerful name.

Ju Won smiled, looking at her with promise. “What do you say, Soo Jin? Are you willing to do what it takes to avenge your father? Are you willing to become what it takes to get your vengeance? Will you become the God you were always meant to be?” The air grew stern as he asked the last words that would seal her fate for the years to come. “Are you in, or are you out?”

Soo Jin thought back to the video she watched, the very evidence that proved what a ruthless bastard her brother truly was. All along, he conspired with Ho Young to kill their father. All along, he had been lying to her, using her. Her mind ventured on
to the family he wanted her to kidnap. She realized now that the reason why he gave her this task was because he was throwing her under the bus. He wanted her to take the blame for the family that he was going to kill. He didn’t care about her father and he most certainly didn’t care about her.

A volcanic eruption exploded in her body.

A decade of constant training, a decade of killings, and a decade with a deteriorating soul washed over Soo Jin. It acted as the catalyst for the unfathomable rage that engulfed her very being.

Young Jae was never fit to be the King of Scorpions—a part of her had always known this. And now, with all that she discovered, she also knew he no longer deserved her loyalty. He deserved nothing but a cruel and painful death—the very same one bestowed upon her father.

He deserved a war.

Soo Jin said nothing for a long time.

Her eyes involuntarily roamed the room before they zeroed in on the gold coffin—her gold coffin.  An unstoppable inferno raged inside her, bringing forth images of all the blood, sweat, and tears she sacrificed to become the Queen of the Underworld. Her gaze migrated to the throne-like chair in the room. Hope heaved through her. She had the title, but now, she wanted a Kingdom befitting of her moniker.

With her ambition as her guide and her hatred for Young Jae as her motivator, Soo Jin made an unspoken promise to Ju Won. She utilized a method commonly used by the Kings in the Underworld to give their unbreakable word and effectively sealed her fate in this world.

Fire blazed in her eyes as she handed her gold gun to Ju Won.

Simply and resolutely, she said, “In.
”

“
You will be punished. . .”

28: The Changing of Tides

An Soo Jin was just like any other mountain that stood amongst the heavens, its peak reigning over its inferior inhabitants.

When untouched, she stands with towering pride and st
rikes fear into anyone who dares to cross her. However, when a certain tide changes and she feels that change, she fights viciously to hold on to the remainder of her inhumanity that had catapulted within her short, yet elongated lifespan. This was her therapy; this was An Soo Jin’s decade-long secret for her survival in a world so cruel that even monstrous beasts whimper before the society in fear. She lived and breathed power. She lived and breathed pride. She lived and breathed battles.

To fight the
occasional crippling human emotions that plagued her, Soo Jin would, without fail, resort to killing people without mercy or battling a worthy opponent who would give her the fight of her life. These two tactics had always worked because they made her feel inhumane; they made her feel better than human. It had always worked, but now, as the current magnitude of human emotions pelted over her, Soo Jin couldn’t help but feel a bit more human than she had ever felt in ten years.

She didn’t like the pit-like feeling that
made a home in her gut. She wasn’t fond of the headaches torturing her, and she sure as hell didn’t like that she was prone to tearing up whenever she thought of her father’s death and her brother’s ultimate betrayal. She was feeling a bit too human for her own taste and being this weak was simply intolerable for her.

Others from the
outside looking in would be fools to assume that discovering her brother’s betrayal would mean that she would become the “good guy” in this equation—that somehow, a decade of killing and being heartless would dissipate and she would see the errors of her ways.

Th
e mere thought was comical to her.

Soo Jin was loyal—
fiercely so. Nevertheless, her one good trait was violently overshadowed by the fact that she was also self-serving, power hungry, vindictive, and cold-blooded. She did not spend years perfecting her skills and sacrificing her blood to have it all fall to ruin. She did not give up her soul to become a God just to become a feeble human again. All of that was simply
. . .
unacceptable.

She had to fix it.

She had to rectify it if she wanted any chance of saving herself.

Her decision was set two nights later
.

A
t eight that evening, Soo Jin led four other Scorpions into the various homes inhabited by the extended Siberian Tigers’ family. While she shot at innocent people and brutally dragged them from their homes, the conversation between herself and Ju Won invaded her mind.

“How are you going to play this out, Soo Jin?”
Ju Won had asked moments after Soo Jin made the agreement to bring war upon Young Jae. “What are your plans?”

“I need time to resurrect the Siberia
n Tigers,” Soo Jin answered, already formulating her strategy. There was determined conviction in the eyes that used to be blurred with fragile tears. She was a woman on a mission. To be distracted with human emotions was not something she would allow. Too much was riding on this very moment.

“It’s been
two years, and they have dispersed throughout the regions of this country.” She stared at Ju Won, fierce resolve shrouding her visage. “I’m going to need time to regroup them. In this timeframe, I also want my trusted trainees to leave the Scorpions and either form their own gangs or infiltrate other ones. I want more numbers on my side, and I want to break apart other gangs when everything comes full circle
. . .
”

“
Get the fuck over here!” Soo Jin shouted, grabbing on to the collar of a seventy-year-old man who was trying to tend to his fallen wife. Soo Jin had just punched him in the gut and elbowed him in the face.

His wife, a frail little old lady,
was coughing up blood as she writhed on the floor. Soo Jin stood with dominance in a white semi-truck that they were piling the family members into. In the background, other Scorpions were beating and tying the family members up as well.

As she barked orders at the Scorpions in the truck, her mind continued to relive her conversation with Ju Won.

“How are you going to do all this without arousing suspicion from Young Jae?” Ju Won had asked her.

“I will not be around to be suspicious,” she
shared, already thinking this part through. “My brother is a smart man. If I’m under his rule, then there’s not much I can hide if I’m trying to resurrect a gang of my own. He’ll kill me before he gives me that chance.” Something glowed in her eyes, a glint that hinted at her motives. “My only way out is to disappear under his hands and his hands alone.”

Ju Won’s eyes narrowed onto her.
“You’re going to fake your death?”

“Please!” the old man
in the semi-truck cried. He dropped to his knees before Soo Jin. “Please, why are you doing this?”

Soo Jin did not respond. She
merely pulled his collar, dragged him up, and then threw him hard on to the floor beside his wife. Once his head collided with the wall of the truck, Soo Jin took out her gold gun and pointed it at him.

“Tie her up,” she commanded, th
rowing him the ropes to do it.

When the old man hesitated, an impatient Soo Jin
, who was not willing to use up her bullets yet, took out her knife. She sped over to him. With great force, she snatched his hand and viciously sliced off two of his fingers. A portion of his pinky and the tip of his middle finger plunged on to the floor.

His guttural screams
drenched the truck while Soo Jin smirked. Shaking her head without remorse, she said, “I asked you nicely before, but don’t fuck with me, old man. Now hurry and tie her up before I cut off the rest of your fingers.”

Her own words to Ju Won echoed in her mind as the man painfully did as he was told.

“When we were younger, I always told him that if I were to kill myself, then it would be through injecting myself with a drug to die. I wanted to die in the
cleanest of ways, without foam coming out of my mouth and without blood seeping out of me. He has to be the one to do it to keep my plan intact; he has to inject the poison into me if I want to fully disappear without him trying to track me down.”

Concern entered Ju Won’s gaze.
“What would the Queen of the Underworld commit suicide over?”

Soo Jin
thought about the age-old curse that had plagued humans since the beginning of time. In every killer’s life, there is said to be a moment in time when, after years upon years of killing, an altering of tides occur in which the cruelty you lived by fades under the return of a soul once given up to become inhuman. This moment is said to be the downfall of killers who find themselves falling to ruins when their soul—their humanity—returns to them and demands retribution for all the lives they cruelly stole.

Soo Jin had
heard stories of this curse falling upon the once “immortal legends” of this world and about the radical state these former legends spiral into when they had to face the curse of a lifetime.

This curse had
never happened to her (and for this, she was thankful). However, she imagined it would be the perfect excuse to give and the perfect road to take if she wanted to be absolutely believable to her brother. She knew enough about the standards of limitations when it came to fucking around with one’s humanity, and she knew what to use as her “breaking point.”

She was going to use the S
iberian Tigers’ extended family, namely the mother and her two children, and she was going to perform the human equivalent of the unforgivable: killing innocents and killing children.

The genius of her plan br
ought pride to her sadistic eyes.

They were
it—they were the ones who would help her on the road to glory. They were the ones who would help keep her inhumanity—and ultimately her power—intact.

Killing two birds with one stone
, Soo Jin thought triumphantly, feeling no dread in the evil she was about to commit.

The Queen of the
Underworld would commit suicide because she became embarrassingly “human” again
. . .
Genius.

Standing inside the moving truck, while keeping her eyes on the family members
who were now sobbing together, Soo Jin felt nothing but anticipation for what was to come.

She had
no reservations about killing innocent people prior to finding out about her brother’s betrayal and continued to have no problem killing them with or without that information. As far as Soo Jin was concerned, they were merely casualties in order to obtain information about taking over the Siberian Tigers’ throne. They were simply tools used to make her brother believe the act she was about to pull.

Soo Jin waved her blood-hungry knife and
slashed off the ears of any of the family members who dared to fight her while they were being transported to the club.