Chapter 51

Mr. Crane, who had been at Thomas Kim’s side for years, quickly pulled a tourniquet from his pocket and tightened it firmly above the wound on Thomas’s upper arm.

"I didn’t even react before you pulled the trigger," Crane muttered, still shaken.

The firefight earlier had been absolute chaos—gunshots exploding from every direction, echoes ricocheting through metal beams and hollow concrete. It had been impossible to tell who was firing, who had been hit, or where the next bullet might come from.

Thomas shifted his gaze away from the corpse on the ground and answered evenly, "The direction of the shot."

He had caught it at the last second—the subtle deviation in muzzle flash, the angle.

If he hadn’t moved when he did, the bullet wouldn’t have torn through his shoulder. It would have gone straight through his skull.

Crane secured the tourniquet and examined the wound more closely. His brows knitted.

"It’s not light."

Thomas tightened his grip on the pistol in his good hand. "We move."

They were still deep inside gang-controlled territory. Lingering meant inviting another ambush.

Several members of the team were injured. Thankfully, none fatally. Thomas led them out at the fastest pace possible, navigating through abandoned corridors and broken loading docks until they reached their extraction vehicles.

The mission was officially a failure.

The traitor had exposed their route. Their location was compromised. Even the employer, shaken by the ambush, had canceled the operation outright.

The engines roared to life. The vehicle sped down cracked asphalt roads, weaving through industrial ruins.

In the passenger seat, Thomas sat rigid, jaw tight, eyes fixed forward.

Now that the adrenaline was fading, pain began to set in—sharp, rhythmic pulses radiating from his shoulder down his arm.

Gunshot wounds were no longer unfamiliar to him. They were part of the profession.

He pressed his lips together and made no sound.

But no matter how strong his will, the body had its limits. Cold sweat slid down from his temples, soaking into the collar of his shirt.

"You holding up? Hospital’s close," Crane said, glancing over from the driver’s seat.

Thomas had applied the tourniquet in time. He wouldn’t bleed out. But the bullet had struck near the joint.

Crane had taken one look and known it wasn’t good. The arm on that side now hung unnaturally slack. There was no strength in it at all.

He didn’t know whether nerves had been damaged. There was a real possibility of lasting impairment.

Crane, of course, hadn’t told Thomas that.

He simply pressed harder on the accelerator.

Soon, they arrived at Central Hospital—a place the team had long established as a discreet fallback point. They had already called ahead.

Thomas was rushed into emergency treatment the moment he arrived.

The surgery lasted several hours.

Only when Thomas was finally wheeled out of the operating room did Crane release the breath he had been holding and stride over.

Color had returned to Thomas’s face.

Aside from the thick bandaging around his shoulder and arm, he looked almost unchanged—calm, controlled, as if he hadn’t just been cut open.

"You got shot, and you’re acting like you scraped a knee," Crane muttered.

Thomas lowered his gaze. "Not the first time."

Crane’s tone shifted. "How bad is it? Will it heal properly?"

At that, Thomas’s jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. He was silent for a moment before exhaling slowly. "The doctor said there will be aftereffects."

So it had happened.

Crane’s expression darkened. For mercenaries like them, "aftereffects" could be fatal in the long run.

Especially when it came to hands.

If he couldn’t grip a gun properly, that meant half his combat ability was gone. And in their line of work, half was the difference between life and death.

Crane sighed heavily.

By then, the anesthesia had worn off.

Thomas stood on his own and walked out of the hospital with him, posture straight despite the stiffness in his injured arm.

He didn’t complain. He didn’t hesitate.

But somewhere deep beneath the surface, something had already shifted.

They stopped in an open stretch of land near the hospital—an empty lot ringed by rusted fencing and abandoned machinery.

The night air was thick and warm.

"Got a cigarette?" Thomas asked.

Crane rummaged through his pocket, pulled out a crumpled pack, placed one between his own lips, then handed another to Thomas.

Thomas accepted it. The lighter flared briefly in the darkness.

He took a drag.

White smoke curled from his lips, drifting upward and blurring the sharp lines of his cold, severe face.

He tilted his head back and stared into the ink-black sky, standing still like a statue carved from stone.

Crane inhaled deeply as well, holding the smoke in his lungs before exhaling slowly.

After a moment, he turned toward Thomas. "Maybe... you should quit."

Thomas didn’t answer.

Crane continued, voice lower now. "You’ve been at this for years. You’ve made enough money. That debt... It’s paid off, right?"

A life balanced on the edge of a blade wasn’t glamorous. It was exhausting.

And now Thomas had lost full use of one arm.

From here on out, every mission would be harder.

More dangerous.

It might be wiser to step away while he still could—wash his hands of it all and return to something resembling an ordinary life.

The cigarette burned quietly between Thomas’s fingers. A restless wind passed through, scattering the gray smoke into nothing.

He was thinking.

If he quit...

What would he do?

The debt had long been repaid. He lacked nothing financially. But he had never once considered what life after this would look like.

Taking missions.

Completing them.

Repeating the cycle.

He had grown used to it.

He had even prepared himself to die on assignment someday.

"I’ll think about it," Thomas said at last.

Crane took another long drag, then sighed heavily. "I want to go back home."

He crushed the cigarette butt against a rusted railing. The ember flared briefly before dying in the dark.

"I’m going to earn a little more, then I’m done. This kind of life... it has to end someday."

He paused, then suddenly grinned. "I miss my sister. She’s still back home waiting for me."

Crane fished around in his pocket and pulled out a slightly yellowed photograph.

In it, a teenage girl stood beneath sunlight, dressed in a blue-and-white school uniform. Her smile was radiant, bright enough to cut through the gloom. Two faint dimples curved at the corners of her mouth.

Crane held the photo out proudly.

"Here. My sister. Pretty, right?"

Under the faint glow of the moon, Thomas lowered his gaze to the carefully preserved image.

The girl in the picture was fresh-faced, pure, dimples soft against her cheeks.

And for some reason... Another face surfaced unbidden in his mind.

Suzy.

Her clear eyes.

The pale curve of her lips.

The dazzling smile she had given him at the airport—so bright it had almost been blinding.

Thomas’s expression flickered, just slightly.

After a brief silence, he said quietly, "Yeah. She’s pretty."

He had assumed he would forget that smile quickly.

Apparently, he had been wrong.

Crane laughed, tucking the photo back into his pocket.

"Of course she is."

Then, half-joking, half-serious, he added, "But don’t get any ideas. I’m not introducing my sister to you."

For a fraction of a second, something in Thomas’s expression cracked.

After showing off the photo, Crane patted his pocket again—and his fingers brushed against something else.

He frowned and pulled it out.

A small, delicate glass bottle.

Clear.

Filled with transparent liquid.

"Oh, right," Crane said, suddenly remembering. He extended it toward Thomas. "Is this yours? I found it in the passenger seat."

Thomas’s gaze fell on the familiar bottle in Crane’s palm.

His pupils tightened almost imperceptibly.

"Yes. It’s mine."

He took it back. The cool glass settled against his skin, bringing with it a strange sense of steadiness.

Crane eyed it curiously.

"Looks fancy. What is it? Toner or something?"

"Medicine," Thomas replied vaguely.

And he remembered Suzy’s voice when she had handed it to him—

If you get hurt, you can use this.