JIMIN POV
It was the middle of the night near the end of November, almost two more months of anxiety, worry and waiting,
when my phone rang.
Jungkook was asleep in my
arms and I hugged him
tighter to me as I reached
behind me to the nightstand where the phone rested in
case of emergencies.
There was no reason I could think of for the phone to
ring in the middle of the
night except an emergency.
My brain, that had been
attuned to bad news for over
half a year now, could only imagine the worst-case
scenario.
Someone dead.
Someone hurt.
Jiwoo gone forever.
"What's wrong?" I asked,
warily answering the phone.
I didn't bother with greetings, not at that time of night, not
with the speed of my beating heart.
"Dubois." he identified himself
on the other end of the line.
There was something in his voice.
Something I hadn't heard
before.
I pulled my arm out from
under Jungkook and sat
up in bed.
"Come to the station." Dubois continued, without preamble,
"We have him."
"We have Jiwoo."
He hung up immediately,
not waiting for any response,
which was good because I
don't think I was capable
of any.
I leaned over and looked at Jungkook before waking him.
I watched him sleep a
moment, as I began to smile
and to realize that this
might actually all be over.
I didn't want to say any
thing to him yet, though.
I knew the pain of false hope.
I'd never give that to him.
I wasn't about to risk what
we had going lately over a possible good surprise.
I got dressed quickly, thinking about how I'd handle this with Jungkook and needing to get
to the station as soon as
possible—there had been urgency in Dubois's voice.
Then I went over to him and gently kissed him awake.
He smiled against my lips, coming to consciousness
slowly, gently, just like I'd always wanted for him.
I smiled too, hoping that this really would be the day when that gentleness and that hope would be free to flourish.
"I have to go to the
Station." I whispered to him,
not wanting to jolt him awake.
It didn't matter how I spoke,
the minute I said station his
eyes bolted wide and he sat
up, holding my hand that
had been brushing his face.
"The station?" he asked.
His face asked the same questions I had.
Good news?
Or just more waiting, more
false hope.
Or even, would this be bad
news at the end of the day?
I didn't have the answers
for him. I didn't know.
I shook my head.
"I don't have any answers, sweetheart and I don't want
to hurt you with the partial information I do have."
"Can you trust me to tell you immediately when I know?"
I was holding my breath,
afraid of the spark that
always alighted when he
and I ended up in discussions
about honesty.
Instead, his face softened
and he caressed the hand
he was holding.
"I trust you Alpha."
I felt like I'd been given a gift.
I kissed him again and
reminded him to make sure
all the alarms were set, just becos Dubois thought they
had Jiwoo didn't mean
Jungkook was out of danger
yet and I left the house
quietly, letting him fall back asleep as I headed for the station.
At the station, Dubois was waiting with a widely grinning
Jih to show me a recording they'd gathered.
We watched the screen, well,
I watched as Dubois and Jih watched me.
Jiwoo walked into the frame, talking to another man
whose face couldn't be seen.
At first I couldn't figure out
what I was looking at because there was no audio but then
Jih pushed a button and
their voices were suddenly—amazingly—clear.
"Good job on the prison
hits." Jiwoo was saying.
"Damn wimps." he said
spitting and I knew, in the
way my blood turned cold,
that he was talking about
the men he'd had killed.
"I may need you again, that
kind of skill, getting to five
men in a high security prison,
it's the kind I look for in my business." he continued.
I couldn't believe it, that we
had him speaking about the
kills we'd always known he ordered but we had it on
camera now.
We had it in a way he
couldn't deny.
"Keep an eye on your Phone,
I may need you soon to take
out a cop who won't get off
my ass." Jiwoo continued
as the man turned away.
A chill ran down my spine, knowing he was talking
about me.
Knowing how close I'd
come to being gone and abandoning Jungkook.
"How'd you get this?" I asked
in a croak through a tight
throat.
"The guy who got inside was mine." Dubois explained.
"He was a plant, working up
the ranks undercover."
"Finally got called in to do
a job and he was able to
sneak in and set up the
recording equipment."
I swallowed thickly.
We had Jiwoo.
I could nail him to the wall
with a recording like this.
We could arrest him for conspiracy to commit a
felony, my murder hire
if nothing else.
But I knew once we had him,
we could add on plenty of his other crimes, to make sure
that he stayed put away a
damn long time.
He fucking deserved it.
laws were made for assholes
like him.
Finally young would have
justice.
Hobi, too.
And Tae, for young, for hobi
and Jih would have justice
for Jared and me.
And all the families of
Jiwoo's many victims.
Jungkook would have freedom again to finish his degree, to become a nurse and to have
the future we had avoided
talking about for weeks.
We'd have peace.
I looked at Jih, then Dubois, determination and uncompromising commitment glinting in my eyes.
"We nail him but we need
more."
"We need a confession for
his crimes against Jared,
Young—"
Dubois cut me off.
"We have enough to bring
him in, that's enough for
now, We'll get there."
I knew he was right, I just
wasn't thinking clearly.
I wanted him for everything.
It took a few agonizing hours before Jiwoo was brought in.
He looked so fucking calm, waltzing into the station as if
he wasn't in handcuffs and nothing whatsoever would
ever touch him.
Watch me make something
stick to his clean suit, just
watch me, I thought at him, wishing he could hear me.
As if he had heard my
thoughts, he turned as he
was led past me, winking
as he asked.
"How's Jungkook doing?"
I wanted to put my hands
around his neck and just press.
Press until I'd flattened him between both my hands,
stopped him from breathing
so he could never breathe the same air as Jungkook again, never have enough air to threaten the man I love again.
But I stood my ground.
I had to make sure nothing
I said or did could interfere
with the case.
Everything had to go perfectly.
He was entirely too confident when we led him into an interrogation room, still
chuckling about his crack
about Jungkook but I kept
my calm.
I knew we had him and I was just waiting to see his face
when he realized it too.
The minute we got into the room, he asked for his lawyer, and we nodded silently, turning around immediately to leave
the room, call his attorney
and leave him alone. Waiting.
Just like he'd kept us
waiting all these months.
We waited twenty minutes for
his lawyer to arrive, all walking on pins and needles, knowing what we had but also knowing that lawyers have a way of sometimes turning even the
best evidence into a pile of useless mush.
When Jiwoo's lawyer arrived,
she was the same one we'd
dealt with before.
It made sense, usually gangs
and criminal organizations
used the same lawyer, one
who was familiar with their criminal activity and therefore understood the best way to
get them out of trouble and
keep them under the radar.
She asked all the right
questions, trying to catch
us on any technicality.
Had we informed Jiwoo of
why he was being arrested?
Had we obtained the correct permit to arrest a seemingly lawful member of the society?
Had we informed Jiwoo of his rights when he was arrested?
And again when he'd been brought to the station?
As Dubois answered calmly,
Jih and I were unable to keep
our faces entirely clear of comment or emotion but thankfully we were standing behind her and she didn't see
as Jih looked over at me on
the last question, rolling his
eyes and mouthing at me he already knew his damn rights.
I stifled a chuckle because
jih was dead right.
Jiwoo probably knew his
rights better than we did.
That was the result of a
life in crime.
We all knew the same rules,
the same procedures, we just worked on different sides
of the coin.
After Dubois answered each
of her questions to her satisfaction, we'd been more careful than I think any of
us had ever been when going after Jiwoo, unwilling to let
him get away on a technicality
we pulled out the video.
We all waited in silence,
watching as her face froze
and her shoulders became tighter and tighter.
"How was this obtained?" she asked in a stiff voice when
it was finished.
"Legally." Dubois answered,
with a firmness in his voice
that didn't invite further
pressing on that dead point.
She nodded, looking ready to burst before she turned to us
and asked to speak to Jiwoo.
We took her to him
immediately, letting
them discuss their options.
We weren't worried, they
didn't have any.
The evidence was conclusive, and Jiwoo was going away.
We stayed outside the interrogation room anyway,
just to make sure all was well and everything went smoothly.
A wrinkle at this stage would equal losing the man none
of us were willing to lose.
A few moments later we
heard screaming from
the interrogation room.
We didn't even need to go
into the adjoining room with
the double mirror and surveillance equipment, we
could hear them easily from
the hallway.
"You damn well better fix
this, woman." Jiwoo yelled.
A slam came a minute later, followed by the clacking of shackles and I imagined
him banging the table
in his frustrated anger.
I couldn't help grinning in satisfaction, listening to him
lose and I didn't even try.
This man deserved no
sympathy, only pure gloating.
"I'll try but Jiwoo, this time
they have all the evidence
they need."
"It's likely I won't be able
to get you out of serving
jail time."
There was silence for a
moment and I wondered if
he had given up.
It didn't seem like him though, and I was a bit disappointed.
All of this, in fact, felt
suddenly anticlimactic.
Us, waiting in a hallway for
our case to solve itself.
Knowing this was all over and Jiwoo was just a man, in a
room, shackled to a table,
yelling because he'd been
caught and he couldn't
get out this time.
Suddenly he was very, very disappointingly human and
I couldn't believe one man
could wreak so much
havoc on so many lives.
It wasn't fair that one man's selfishness could make so
many others live their lives
in fear, always looking over
their shoulders.
It was a reminder of why I'd gone into law enforcement in
the first place and then
worked to prove myself
at the sheriff's office.
I knew we'd never clean the entire world but I had
committed to taking these
kind of cockroaches off the
street because it was the
best I could do.
One at a time and soon
the world would be just
that little bit better.
Crime wouldn't ever stop, I wasn't naive or foolish enough
to believe that but I did
believe crime needed us, too.
To put these men away.
Keep them away from people who deserved to live their
lives in peace.
My Jungkook was one of
them.
I tuned back into the conversation to hear Jiwoo threatening his own lawyer
and I almost rolled my eyes
right there.
She was the only one on his
side anymore, the only one trying to help him at all.
He may have the money to
buy a new lawyer but he could not catch that lawyer up on everything this one knew
enough for that lawyer to be
able to do any better for him.
Listening to him threaten her was almost humorous but
it was also awful.
She may be a lawyer to a
bad man but she too didn't deserve to live in fear.
"I swear." Jiwoo growled.
"if I step one foot in prison,
I'll make sure you disappear
just like the others."
Just as I was about to step
in and get her out of there,
Jih held my arm because
she was speaking.
"You're an idiot," she sighed, making us all in the hallway
grin widely at each other.
"Enjoy prison."
As she walked out of the room,
I had to restrain myself from giving her a high five.
She was fierce and I admired
her more than I'd admired a defense attorney in a long
time, since we were
always on opposing sides.
She nodded at us and said.
"He's all yours."
"When they start back talking
me, I stop taking their money."
"Stupid is as stupid does."
She shrugged and kept
walking.
Jiwoo sat in the interrogation room alone, clenching and unclenching his fists while
he muttered to himself.
And just like that, everything turned around.
We'd won.
We'd really fucking won.
Jiwoo was ours and we
wasn't getting away again.
The relief came so suddenly
it was painful, rushing
through my body like
when you stand up on a
leg that had gone numb.
I made my way to a nearby chair, all at once unsure I
could actually feel the floor
under my feet.
Jih sat next to me, the same
look of disbelief and awesome, floating relief in his eyes.
We sat there, just realizing
that it was over.
Case closed.
Jiwoo was going away.
We could move on.
Tae and hobi could find
closure.
Jih too.
I was safe but most of all, Jungkook was safe.
Jungkook could relax again.
I had to call him.
I couldn't leave him not
knowing another second.
As I watched Jiwoo be led
away in cuffs to be booked
and locked away, as I
watched Dubois on the phone discussing the details of the
case and the trial that would soon follow, I pulled out my phone and called Jungkook.
He picked up on the first ring.
He'd clearly been waiting for
my call, I'd never been more excited to deliver news.
"We got him, baby." I said, hearing his catch of breath
on the other end of the line.
"We got him."
"Alpha—" He couldn't finish his sentence, so I did it for him.
"Yes sweetheart, we got
Jiwoo."
"He's locked away."
"He can't hurt you anymore."
"It's over, It's finally over."
We stayed quiet for a minute
on the phone, just listening to each other breathe and feeling grateful for that sound.
We'd made it through this together.
"I love you." I said to him,
overwhelmed all over again
by my love for Jungkook and gratitude and awe that he'd picked me and stayed with
me through the hell of all
of this.
"I love you too." He said and
I could hear in his voice how much he meant it.
"Always have, always will."
I vowed then and there that
I'd always be there for him
first now. Forever.
And that was something I
was finally free to promise.
"Get home safe." he said, interrupting my thoughts
of the future.
"I will." I promised.
"I'll always come home
to you."
"Then I'll always be waiting."
Those were the sweetest
words I'd ever heard.