My daughter lay in a hospital bed in Queens after a six-hour emergency spinal operation, and not a single member of our community association came to see her.
Boss Kang’s lieutenant, a man I hadn’t seen before, stepped into the backroom. He moved with an unnerving calm, his polished shoes crunching softly over the broken glass. He navigated past the turned-over cutting tables, his gaze sweeping the chaotic scene.
He bent down, picking up Attorney Zhou’s forged legal documents and Min-jun’s quitclaim paper from the dusty floor. He didn’t even acknowledge the wreckage. Instead, he laid them neatly, almost delicately, on my ironing table. The stark white paper against the dark fabric.
He turned to me, his face devoid of expression. “Min-jun Choi,” he said, his voice flat, “is coming with us. He has accounts to clear, in private.”
My throat was too tight to speak. I just watched him.
Then, he added a chilling caveat. “We know about the other ledger, Mr. Park. The one he kept for his private clients.”
My blood ran cold. The ledger behind the silk bolt.
“That ledger,” the lieutenant continued, his eyes unwavering, “contains names. Some of those names are connected to Boss Kang’s syndicate. Important names.”
He stepped closer, his shadow falling over me. “If that ledger finds its way to the authorities, or if you fail to settle the shop’s occupancy terms with Boss Kang by tomorrow morning, my men will return. Before sunrise.”
He gave me one last, piercing look, then turned and walked out, his footsteps silent on the broken glass. The front door chime did not ring. He simply vanished, leaving me alone with the silence, the shattered glass, and the neatly stacked papers on my ironing table.
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