Chapter 4

He was a person who could do anything fearlessly without caring about other people’s lives. Red bright lights flashed in her mind like a stop light signaling a car to come to a halt. Her inner consciousness whispered to turn around and run far away from this man.Sarin regretted her words as she realised there was a huge difference between what she had heard about him and what she had seen with her own eyes.

“You better start talking now while I’m still having fun.”

The hunter whispered gently for her to come into the elevator that resembled a trap, like a small box waiting to catch her. Her sister always told her to be careful about making bad decisions, and to avoid such situations, since she had a tendency to get herself into them frequently. Whatever choice she had chosen, she had the best of luck to always choose the worst one.

Now was the time to decide what she would do.

She shook her head. The kindness in Owen’s eyes disappeared in an instant. When his expression hardened, someone forcibly pushed Sarin from the back into the elevator.

She didn’t even notice that the man that was behind Owen had moved behind her.

“While I’m being nice.”

Owen spoke dangerously in a low tone as Sarin was forced into the elevator with him.

As soon as he took his hand off the button, the door closed in front of them. There was only one button that lit up to signal which floor it would stop at.

The 48th floor.

48층.

It took less than a minute for the elevator to go up rapidly to its destination. She momentarily felt dizzy as soon as the door opened. It was directly connected to the interior of the suite. The night sky unfolded within the sight of the glass ceiling. The pilling snow melted quickly and turned into water that flowed down off it.

Sarin opened her mouth in awe as she looked at the white snow pouring off the roof as water. She looked down at the dark blue carpet, when suddenly the man from behind her grabbed her by her back and pulled her down.

“Ugh..”

Owen was already walking ahead of them.

The man dragged her to where his master had instructed him to take her.

“Let go. Let go of me!”

They passed through a glass ceiling hallway to the living room. The monotonal large space was neatly organized without any unnecessary items. It was minimalistic in design and color. The color of his floor was Turkish white marble with a dark grey buffalo leather sofa.

Owen crossed his long legs as he sat down. He calmly faced Sarin who was dragged by his subordinate to stand in front of him.

Tack, tack, tack.

Suddenly, several footsteps could be heard echoing against the white marble floor. Three Doberman dogs rushed out instantly from an open door behind her and ran to Owen’s side. The tallest dog naturally sat next to Owen on the sofa.

The dog reached out to him and quickly pushed forward his head asking for affection. The other two dogs sat side by side in front of Owen’s feet eagerly waiting for their turn.

Sarin saw with her own eyes why his nickname was Doberman. If a Doberman had a human form, it would probably be Owen himself. The black coloured skin of the Doberman resembled Owen’s dark glossy black hair. The fact that these animals with eyes similar to the color yellow were looking at Owen made her feel strange.

The man pulled off her cross bag from her body without giving any time for Sarin to react. The string of the old bag snapped and tore off making all the items in her bag instantly fall onto the white marble floor with a clatter. The contents exposed were her passport, a palm-sized wallet, and an old diary. They were the only items in her bag.

“What are you doing? Don’t touch it. It’s mine. Don’t touch…”

The man did not respond to her as he picked up her belongings off the floor, and shook off her hands on them as he delivered those items to his master. Owen petted the dog beside him with one hand and took the items with the other.

He looked at the cover of the passport and flipped through it.

He scanned the small and honest passport picture once, but his gaze fell on Sarin’s face over and over again. Perhaps she took the picture in a rush as her hair was messy. However, he found the pair of eyes he had been curious about were finally revealed.

Owen looked at all the fallen items as he looked at Sarin who was sitting on the floor. He narrowed his eyes and continued to stare at her eyes in the picture. He brought the passport up to his face and rubbed its edge against his lips.Owen finally looked at Sarin after so long only to question her.

“Where is your phone?”

“…As soon as I arrived here, I was robbed at the airport.”

“Oh my.”

His lips tilted upwards slightly. She knew she was the unluckiest person without having to be told otherwise. Sarin had hoped things would go differently, but the dirty look in her eyes reflected the luckless life she had. .

“You came from afar. Lee Sarin from Korea.”

Lee Sarin. Owen called her name with a slight familiarity. Sarin observed closely his expression when he called out her nationality, but it was hard to tell anything of it. He was the type of man that knew better than to reveal emotions and thoughts on his face because it would allow others to see right through him. It was like a game of poker where only the players with the best expressionless faces and ability to lie would win the game.

He rubbed the dog’s nose bridge gently as he put down her passport. He moved on to the diary when Sarin quickly uttered something to him.

“You won’t be able to read it anyway.”

It was all written in Korean. Her heart sank for a moment that he might find out the content written inside it, but she remembered that there is no way he could read Korean. Sarin had no intention of telling him anything, so he would need to bring another Korean person to read it for him if he really wanted to know.

She was proven right as he looked over the diary that was filled with words and letters that he didn’t know of. He lost interest in it and put down her diary faster than he did with her passport. Then he laid his empty hand on his lap.

“Okay. What are you going to tell me?”

He turned his attention towards her as he asked her a question. At the sudden change, the eyes of the three Doberman dogs suddenly turned to her.

The muscles of her legs clenched as she was ready to run off at any moment.

“If you’re not going to talk, can I do what I want first?”

His offer seemed innocent, but his actions were the opposite. Owen got up from the sofa and approached her. She was afraid to look up as he was quite tall with a huge stature like a mountain. She seemed to have forgotten their size difference, since he had been sitting on the sofa for so long. Out of nowhere the back of her hair was grabbed as a man had come close to her without her noticing him.

“Ugh. Uhh…”

She could have told Owen’s subordinates to let her go, but no words came out of her lips. She had no choice in the matter either way. All she could do was struggle like a mess as she was dragged along the marble floor. She grabbed the man’s wrist with both of her hands and tried to remove herself from his grip, but she was too weak to do much.

She could hear the sound of a door being opened in the direction she was being dragged. Her scalp was hurting like hell, like it was about to be pulled off of her skin. Once inside the room, she was forced to get up. Realizing that it was a bathroom and that there was a mirror, she looked into it.

“Stay still.”

The man took his hands off her.

She looked like a mess. Her cheeks were flushed with redness and tears rolled down her chin while she was gasping for air. Then Owen entered the bathroom with her and brought a sharp silver razor.

“Hngg.”

Sarin had already witnessed what he could with a knife. She tried to escape as fast as the whistling wind, but he was much faster. Owen grabbed her neck and pressed her face against the mirror.

“You were told to stay still. Don’t move.”

She didn’t want to listen because then she would feel like a dog ordered to stay still. However, she had no other choice.

Sarin closed her eyes as his hand moved to lift her chin from her neck. She could feel the tip of his nail against her skin. She could feel his touch through her long bangs that covered her face. She focused on taking deep breaths and noticed the smell of whisky.

She felt like she was getting dizzy.

She stuck her tongue out as she hastily licked her dry lips.

“Let me go, please…”

Thump, thump.

His breath and the scent of his odor mixed together. She could feel Owen’s breathing as his face was very close to hers. Instantly, her bangs were cut off with a snapping sound that was close enough to the tip of her nose.

“Open your eyes.”

He said that as he folded the razor blade in half and put it away.

Sarin opened her eyes shakily. The remains of her hair were on her cheeks like whiskers. Her eyes were revealed with her new haircut that removed her long bangs completely.

One eye was a dark brown that looked almost black in most settings. On the other hand, the other eye was a grey shade, light enough that it was noticeable.

She was considered a rare and odd child. Especially, being raised and living in Korea. It had been a habit of hers ever since she was a child to grow out her bangs. She didn’t want people to stare and point at her eyes. The little rural town she lived in had less than 30 students in her school. Mismatching eyes was an open joke.

Adults with conservative thoughts ran their mouths wildly. Her mother had constantly been suspected by others because of Sarin’s existence. She lived most of her life not realising what was going on until she got to middle school. Then she understood the meaning behind the mockery. Everyone spread a rumor that her mother had an affair with a foreigner and ended up alone with a child to raise.

His eyes looked at hers with such a keen interest. The melanin pigment in her eyes were light in one eye, which explained the cloudy grey eye he was intensely staring into.

“It’s pretty.”

He rarely saw broken cloudy grey eyes.