"Stop right there." The man yells as he take out a gun and points to my direction. "I will shoot only when you try to make a move. You'll be fine if you just stay that way." He adds, moving his legs slowly as if trying to catch a deer in a forest. "Good girl, just stay there and don't try anything stupid."
His voice makes my wild instinct to scream at me like it wants to force me to jump up and start running for my safety. It will be hard for him to target me in the darkness when I'm in motion. It sounds like a nice idea, although it's very risky and I don't have enough confidence.
I'll surely be done for, if he accidentally shoot me in the butt.
I freeze in my spot, my brain navigating in and out to search for better options. I don't realize that the man has make his way towards me until I feel the sting on my left cheek.
Aish! Everyone seems to enjoy slapping me lately.
I spit across the staircase railing as I bite hard on my jaws when the man painfully tugs and pull at my hair, laughing so hard. "Such a cutie. Come here, you have to say hi to my boss if you want to live through this." He says, and continues laughing.
And that's all I can hear. His annoying laughter that is trying to destroy my eardrums. He throws me across his back and begins to descend down the stairs.
When we reach down floor, the man pushed his way through the door and enter into the corridor. I can see an upside down figures of men with guns but I'm loosing focus because I feel like all my blood is now concentrated into my small head which is about to explode at any moment from now.
"Put her down separately." I hear a familiar voice says, and I know who exactly has just spoken. It's Federico. "Hello putta. You made everything much easier than I expected. It's been a while, I'm here to take you back to where you belong."
I wait for the bulky man to drop me until my feet touched the floor, and I glare at Federico, seething on the inside.
"What do you want from me again? You already lost me at the exchange scene. I hope you're not here because you don't know how to accept the fact that you have been defeated?"
A laugh rolls out his chest as if what I have just said was the most funniest joke he's heard before. "Impressive. So you're finally learning to talk back at me huh? That shamelessness. . . you must have learned it from your superior brother, Kai. Where has he gone to? I learned that he has left the estate some minutes before we got here."
"What are you talking about?" I ask, failing to understand what he's suddenly talking about. Kai came to where, and left where exactly?
"Don't play games with me, putta. I know your brother came all the way here because of you. What did you two talked about before he left this place?"
What? Does he really mean that Kai came to this estate in the middle of the night? I don't think so, they definitely are mistaken.
"Stop asking me questions I don't know. I had no idea that Kai was here, it's your business to find his whereabouts not mine."
Federico looks slightly irritated by my words. "Where has he gone to?" He ask again. He doesn't believe that I don't know that Kai had visited the estate.
"Check the CCTV or anything and see for yourself." I say. Now I'm seriously trying my best to convince him and make him believe me before he goes berserk. "I really didn't know that my brother was here, I never met him."
Federico throws his hands in the air, yelling out a few words I'm sure are his usual Italian profanities. He looks at the huge man who brought me here earlier. "Go with the rest of the men and bring everyone in this building right now! Don't hesitate to shoot whoever refuses to cooperate!"
"Yes Sir!" The man replies, nodding his head before he hurried along to follow the other men as they exit the corridor.
I can hear a sobbing and scuffling sounds coming from the room directly behind me. It's as if they've tied up some girls in there, although I'm not so sure about the situation.
About fifteen minutes later, I hear so many rounds of gunshots that makes me internally tremble with fear. They've just killed some people on the floor above us. I hope my roommates are safe. Yun Hee has recently lost her sister, her mind is still very fragile, I just hope they won't hurt her when she refuses to cooperate.
Another ten minutes pass before the men starts returning with so many of our girls panicking and crying as they're being dragged. A few girls have bloodstains on their faces and clothes.
My eyes scan through a few familiar and unfamiliar faces until I find Yun Hee and Areum walking together and holding hands. I sigh, feeling a little bit relieved to know that at least my roommates are still alive.
"Sir, we can't get an access to some of the floors above, and it seems like Lorenzo is no more within this vicinity." I hear one of the men whisper to Federico.
"Let it be. We'll find a way to access all the floors very soon." Federico replies him. They must be talking about Master Jin's floor, Master Tae Ho's floor and the rest of the floors above.
But what do they mean that Lorenzo is not within the vicinity? It hasn't been up-to three hours since I reported that incident to Master Jin. Where has he ran to now that the estate is under attack?
I shift my gaze and it falls on Mrs Choi among the group of captives surrounded by the men near the wall to the left. The old woman looks traumatized and lost in her own world of thoughts. She's not even blinking with her eyes like a robot.
Everyone in the corridor falls silent. I feel like it's that kind of silence that comes right before the storm.
My body let out a violent shake when I hear the next round of gunshot so close to my ear, and before I realize what is happening, one of Federico's men comes falling down on top of me, his weight crushing me onto the ground with a bloody hole on his forehead and his lifeless eyes staring directly into my eyes.
I scream and push him away, but then quickly use him as my cover to shield myself from all the stray bullets coming from nowhere. Screams and panicking voices of people fill my eardrums. There's a fire exchange happening between Federico's men and some of our security guards.
I spot Derrick standing with an armored vest amidst stray bullets and cracking live rifles that brings almost all of Federico's men to the ground.
The ground. . . It has become a bloody mess. My brain fails to accept the terror happening right in front of me. And somehow, still hiding under the weight of a dead man, I feel a sharp and severe combination of heat and pain deep inside my left arm.
This is when I realized I've been hit by a bullet and I'm loosing so much blood. Maybe too much blood that is making me feel like the world is twirling.