Chapter 86
Chapter 86
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: Vine
Chapter: 86
Chapter Title: Wait. I'm Coming for You. (3)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
*Vrooom!*
As the taxi drove away, a broad-shouldered, middle-aged man extended his hand to Kanghyeok.
"Good to meet you. The name's Aiden."
Kanghyeok glanced at Aiden's hand first before taking it a beat later.
"Thank you for taking this on."
Kanghyeok spoke politely, like any other office worker.
They believed Kanghyeok and Leila were employees of Milly Weapon, and there was no need to reveal their true identities.
"And this is?"
"My secretary."
After briefly introducing Leila, Kanghyeok turned his gaze to the man standing next to Aiden.
Aiden let go of Kanghyeok's hand and answered with an indifferent expression.
"Don't mind him. He's just the driver."
There was no reason to get friendly with them.
Still, Aiden's expression and tone suggested it would be difficult to get close anyway.
"Get in. I'll take you there."
Enduring Aiden's somewhat hostile gaze, Kanghyeok and Leila loaded their luggage into the SUV.
*Thud.*
As the bag landed in the trunk with a heavy thud, Aiden furrowed his brow.
"Heavy for cash. What is it?"
"A product in development."
Aiden's brow furrowed even more, his eyes filled with incomprehension.
"A weapon? You brought a weapon to negotiate with kidnappers?"
"I have a meeting with a client tomorrow."
In Aiden's eyes, Kanghyeok probably looked like a typical workaholic from East Asia.
"Good lord, I don't get it."
As Aiden rambled on unnecessarily, Leila cut in with a single remark.
"It was an unscheduled kidnapping."
Her tone, implying *who could have planned for this?*, silenced Aiden. He gestured with his chin for the driver to get in the car.
"Let's go. You seem busy, so we should get this sorted out quickly."
*Slam!*
Aiden got into the passenger seat.
Leila sat right behind him, with Kanghyeok next to her.
*Rumble!*
As the driver cranked the wheel, Leila's body swayed toward Kanghyeok.
Leila straightened up, her expression tense as if the air in the car was uncomfortable, while Kanghyeok calmly gazed out the window.
*Clunk, clunk!*
The road was paved.
But it was poorly maintained, littered with sand and gravel blown in from the desert.
Sand swirled up around the tires as they drove.
*Clunk!*
Inside the car, which bounced so high that the crown of their heads nearly hit the ceiling whenever they ran over a large rock, Aiden spoke while staring straight ahead.
"The person who was kidnapped, why were they here?"
*Hadn't he heard the details?*
Kanghyeok shifted his gaze to Aiden's profile, seated diagonally from him, and answered.
"He was here on company business."
"I'm just asking to be sure, but he wasn't here to trade weapons with the locals, was he?"
Aiden shot him a look and tone filled with hostility. Leila's face grew cold, but Kanghyeok silenced her by taking her hand.
"It's company business, so I'm afraid I can't say."
"This land is crawling with the Taliban and all sorts of armed groups. Many American soldiers are killed by those bastards every year."
The words struck a strange chord of kinship.
It was a past so distant he could barely remember it now, but Kanghyeok too had once been a soldier.
A soldier who has seen a comrade die in action never forgets that day.
*Thud.*
Aiden rested his arm on the driver's headrest and twisted his body toward Kanghyeok.
"I certainly hope the bullets lodged in their heads aren't from your company."
Kanghyeok's gaze shifted to Aiden's thick arm.
He was wearing a short-sleeved shirt, revealing his forearm.
Wavy blond hair.
Sun-tanned, dark skin.
But what stood out most were the scars covering his forearm.
*'Bullet wounds.'*
Scars from having bullets surgically removed.
From old scars to relatively recent ones, Aiden's arm bore many marks of the battlefield.
*Bzzz!*
Kanghyeok felt a vibration in his pocket. He pulled out his phone to see a text from Leila.
[He talks too much. Should I give him a little warning?]
Kanghyeok glanced at Leila in the rearview mirror, who was calmly looking out the window, and tapped out a reply with his thumb.
[No, leave it.]
Her phone must have been on silent, because it didn't make a sound when Kanghyeok hit send.
Then, as if checking the time, Leila glanced at her screen and let out a long breath through her nose.
It was the kind of difference in temperament you'd find between a former soldier and a civilian.
Kanghyeok leaned his head back against the headrest. Aiden looked forward again and contacted his base on his phone.
"Moving to the target location with the client. ETA is forty minutes. We'll be back within three hours."
Forty minutes.
A long time, and yet a short one.
Secure Jeff, return to this car, and then wipe out their base. That would be the end of it.
They would probably be quite surprised.
When the people they thought were ordinary arms company employees pointed guns at them.
Would they beg for their lives?
Probably.
The ones who commit such vile acts are always vile themselves.
Even bastards who kidnap people and open fire in a city to do it will always beg for their lives with tears in their eyes before a bullet enters their skull.
It would be a moment of hell for them, but Kanghyeok couldn't wait for it to arrive.
*'It won't take long.'*
No matter what happened, even if the sky fell or the earth split open, he would see their blood.
Kanghyeok closed his eyes gently and waited for time to pass.
*Vrooom! Clunk, clunk!*
Whether due to the driver's inexperience or the poor condition of the vehicle, the SUV shook relentlessly.
About twenty minutes had passed like that.
"If by any chance."
At the sound of Aiden's voice, Kanghyeok opened his closed eyes.
Aiden was looking straight ahead.
"If they do anything unexpected, take cover first. Don't get any funny ideas just because you have a weapon."
A solemn tone.
It was the voice of someone treating Kanghyeok as a civilian, but the sentiment behind it was undeniably heavy.
"Thank you."
At Kanghyeok's reply, Aiden gave a short nod before turning his gaze forward again.
Perhaps embarrassed by his earlier prickly demeanor, Aiden's face was even stiffer than when they had first met.
And just then,
*Thunk! KABOOM!*
A loud noise erupted from under the vehicle, as if they'd hit a landmine, and the chassis shook violently.
"Damn it! What was that!"
"The car, the car's not—!"
Aiden quickly glanced at the side mirror and saw a Stinger spike trap, painted the same gray as the road.
"Son of a bitch."
Aiden's face contorted as he saw pieces of the tire stuck to the spikes protruding from the ground.
*Screeeech!*
The SUV, its steering gone, swerved wildly like it was dancing. Kanghyeok and Leila simultaneously reached for the trunk.
*Thwack!*
All they had to do was grab the bag's handle and pull.
But they couldn't.
*Rat-tat-tat-tat! Pfft! Pfft! Pop!*
Bullets rained down on the SUV from all directions.
*Thump!*
The driver lost his grip on the wheel, and the vehicle rolled violently onto its side.
The smell of burning rubber and thick gunpowder.
And then a wave of excruciating pain washed over him, making him lose consciousness for a moment.
"Ugh, keuk."
When he came to, he saw the inside of the car, flipped upside down.
He saw the mercenary in the driver's seat, torn to shreds by bullets, and smoke rising from the shattered windshield and crumpled chassis.
"Hah, haah."
Turning his head, he saw Leila, blood streaming from her head.
"Lei... la."
There was no reply.
Kanghyeok reached out and felt for her neck. He was relieved to find a pulse.
It seemed he was the only one conscious.
Neither Aiden nor Leila responded, and the burning SUV was belching black smoke as if it were about to explode.
*Crunch, crunch.*
It was then that he heard footsteps approaching the vehicle.
*Crash!*
A crowbar smashed through the window, landing next to Kanghyeok's head, and began to pry the door open.
And Kanghyeok saw them.
The men who had attacked the SUV.
Faded military uniforms.
Rifles slung around their necks and the grips of pistols sticking out of their pockets.
Two eyes visible through the holes in the hoods covering their faces.
*Crr-unch!*
A crowbar also tore open the door on Leila's side, and rough hands dragged both Kanghyeok and Leila out of the SUV.
"Krrgh!"
Kanghyeok groaned from the pain in his knee, which had been crushed by the pushed-back front seat, and the men looked at him in alarm.
"This one's conscious!"
"Who cares? Knock him out."
"Get the others out first!"
"Hurry up. The car looks like it's about to blow."
There were seven of them in total.
The smell of burning rubber and the stench of their sweat.
The smell of the dead driver and hands slick with blood.
And, against the blue sky, a terrorist aiming the butt of his rifle at Kanghyeok's head.
*Hoo, hoo.*
Lying on the ground, Kanghyeok looked up at the man and clenched his jaw.
His body was recovering.
*'Just a little, just a little more.'*
With just a little more recovery, he could move.
As time, more precious than gold, ticked by, the veins on the back of the terrorist's hand bulged.
And at that moment, he felt that his body had recovered enough, even if not perfectly.
At least enough to finish off this bastard.
*Thwack!*
He dodged the descending rifle butt by turning his head to the side, causing a loud thud on the ground. The man pulling Aiden from the car turned to look.
"Ugh!"
The man who had attacked Kanghyeok groaned as if his hand was numb, his eyes wide with shock that Kanghyeok had dodged the blow.
*Swoosh!*
Still on the ground, Kanghyeok spun and wrapped his legs around the man's.
As the man fell, the sound of bone dislocating and ligaments tearing came from his knee.
*Crack!*
"Aaaargh!"
A desperate scream erupted from the man's mouth. Kanghyeok pulled the pistol from his pocket and flicked the safety to fire in a single motion.
Then he aimed for the man's head.
His gaze met the panicked man's widened eyes.
*BANG!*
"Sh, fuck!"
The other men hastily raised their rifles toward Kanghyeok.
*Thud!*
Kanghyeok grabbed the dead man's collar and pulled him close.
*Rat-tat-tat!*
The other men's bullets slammed into the body.
*Bang! Bang! Bang!*
Lying on the ground, Kanghyeok used the corpse as a shield and pulled the trigger on the others.
*BANG! BANG!*
How much did this guy weigh?
About 75 kilograms?
*Rat-tat-tat-tat!*
This large chunk of meat seemed to flinch every time their bullets hit it.
*Click!*
Kanghyeok dropped the empty pistol and reached across the corpse's chest to grab its rifle.
*Rat-tat-tat! Pow!*
Just as blood erupted from the heads and chests of two men, black smoke billowed from the SUV.
"Run! Run!"
"Get away!"
Kanghyeok released the rifle's trigger as he watched the backs of the fleeing men, blood streaming from their wounds.
*'Damn it.'*
He pushed the corpse he'd been using as a shield aside and got to his feet.
*BOOM! Fwoosh!*
Then he turned his gaze to the SUV, which was spewing black smoke and flames.
The SUV looked like it could explode at any second.
The heat tickling his face brought back a damn memory.
The burning bus he had seen before he died.
Even now, he sometimes saw that bus in his dreams.
He would wake with a start, clutching his pounding chest.
*Grind!*
Gritting his teeth, Kanghyeok moved toward the SUV.
Every time, the traumatic memory grabbed him by the ankles.
But Leila and Aiden were still near the SUV.
So a mere memory had no right to get in his way.
Kanghyeok strode forward like someone trying to escape quicksand and grabbed the collars of Leila and Aiden with one hand.
*Clank!*
With his other hand, he opened the trunk and grabbed the handles of the bags all at once.
"Hoo!"
Then, keeping his eyes fixed on the SUV, he backed away.
The heels of Leila and Aiden, and the bottoms of the bags, dragged along the ground.
And the moment Kanghyeok thought he was a safe distance from the SUV,
*KABOOOM!*
The flames reached the fuel tank, and the vehicle exploded.
Kanghyeok reflexively dropped the bags and shielded his face. He slowly lowered his arm and stared at the completely destroyed SUV.
If someone were watching, he would want to ask them.
When could he finally escape this damn memory?
And did it look like he had, just now, escaped it for a moment...?