novelraw Chapter 57
Chapter 57
Chapter 57
‘He was a strange man.’
She had noticed him from the moment he came in.
On a rainy day, a man entering with a long black coat and a pale face—there was no way her eyes wouldn’t be drawn to him.
And that wasn’t all.
Despite it being a place where one ought to sense that the atmosphere was anything but ordinary, he walked in calmly and ordered an old, worn-out classic cocktail.
Gulp—.
Even as Paul, the bartender, took a sip of the coffee he had poured, his gaze couldn’t help but remain fixed not on the newspaper, but on that man.
“I had a dying friend, so I gave it to him as ferry fare, along with cigarettes.”
And the moment he opened his mouth, her interest was quickly overturned into doubt and wariness.
“I came looking for Genorua’s consigliere.”
That wasn’t something a stranger could casually spit out like barroom chatter.
Click—.
Paul had already stiffened, aiming a shotgun at him, and she herself was just about to calmly rotate her gear when a peculiar sense of discord suddenly lingered in her mind.
‘He isn’t tense?’
The shotgun the bartender Paul was holding looked at a glance like an antiquated, gunpowder-based relic—but that was nothing more than deception.
In reality, it packed enough firepower to crack even fairly thick concrete in a single blow.
Just by looking at him, it was clear he hadn’t spent just a day or two in the underworld, so there was no way he wouldn’t know what that shotgun was capable of.
And yet, he remained calm.
It was the manifestation of confidence—the belief that even if he were hit by a shotgun like that once, he absolutely wouldn’t die easily.
“I’m Genorua’s consigliere. Tita Genorua. Who are you?”
For that reason, after signaling to Paul—who stood ready to pull the trigger at any moment with a rigid expression—to wait, she asked him again.
The most obvious possibility that came to mind was that he was a hitman, but it wasn’t easy to gauge who might be behind him.
However, the words that soon came out of the man’s mouth were completely unexpected.
“A victim who got dragged into your business.”
As if genuinely irritated, he muttered that and placed the rectangular object he had been holding squarely on the bar table.
Then, slightly turning his gaze, he stared directly at her as she sat there and recited,
“I came to file a claim for damages. Mafia.”
At the end of Tita Genorua’s gaze, the man’s face finally came properly into view.
So much so that her earlier tension felt pointless, the emotions on the man’s face were remarkably simple.
Weariness, lethargy, annoyance, irritation…….
What mattered was that there was no killing intent anywhere to be found there.
‘If that’s acting?’
But she couldn’t easily let down her guard.
Ironically enough, as someone who had inherited the Genorua name, she had far too many enemies.
And among them was even one bastard she had called uncle and followed until not long ago.
For a moment, she forced herself to ignore the stiffness threatening to creep onto her face, smiled lightly, and spoke to him.
“Now that I look at it, you weren’t a customer—you were a creditor.”
On the surface, she always emphasized her composure.
The underworld and the political arena shared quite a few similarities.
For instance, revealing to the other party not the emotions you truly felt, but the emotions that benefited the situation.
And the fact that if you didn’t maintain composure, there were plenty of hyenas ready to dig into and tear apart that unease.
“It seems we’ll need a detailed conversation. For now, have a seat.”
She murmured that toward the man looking at her, then signaled with her eyes to Paul, who was still holding the shotgun rigidly.
Paul seemed to hesitate for a moment, then lowered the shotgun he was holding, picked up the man’s Manhattan and water, and moved them to the table where she was seated. Seeing that, he too sat down across from her without any particular objection.
“Your name?”
“Jin.”
Since both sides already had a rough grasp of how things stood, the conversation progressed quickly.
Swoosh—.
Jin Crow handed over the rectangular chip he had been carrying, and upon receiving it, Tita Genorua finally realized what it was and let out a low murmur.
“……There was no way to save him?”
“If there had been a hospital right in front of us, and military-grade life-support equipment there, maybe.”
“So it was impossible.”
“I at least gave him awakening drugs and cigarettes.”
“I see.”
At his words, she gave a faint chuckle, took out a cigarette, and slid it toward him. Jin Crow accepted it and calmly put it in his mouth.
As if by mutual agreement, the two lit the ends of their cigarettes.
Soon, thick smoke drifted between them.
How long did that silence—like a prayer for the dead—last?
The first to open her mouth was Tita Genorua, who had moistened her throat with coffee.
She stared at Jin Crow with her characteristically sharp eyes and asked,
“So, what do you want?”
“Money, and information.”
She nodded.
Jin Crow. If he truly belonged to the underworld, he would know just how dangerous it was to get involved with their side.
Even so, the fact that he had bet on this meant she, too, would have to give him fair compensation.
Because there was no such thing as goodwill without a price.
“I’ll make sure you’re well compensated financially. But information—what kind?”
She nodded again as she asked him back, and just as Jin Crow was about to respond—
Buuung—.
Somewhere, a chilling yet alien sound mixed into the soft music, and at the moment Jin Crow and Tita Genorua instinctively sensed something wrong and turned their heads—
“Get down!”
“Huh?”
At her sharp shout, the bartender Paul turned his head and stupidly asked back.
Kwaaaaaaang!
Soon, the back of a massive truck smashed straight through the pub wall and swallowed Paul whole.
“……Paul!”
She let out a scream mixed with rage and lament.
The last shred of hope faded the moment she saw blood flowing beneath the thick dust.
However, the anger couldn’t last long.
Jin Crow’s and Tita Genorua’s gazes overlapped at the same time, and without a word, each drew a dagger and a pistol respectively, fixing their eyes on the dust-filled truck.
Before long, the dust settled.
Clack—.
And at that moment, upon hearing the sound of a weapon being chambered near his ear, Jin Crow moved purely on instinct engraved into his body—grabbing her black hair roughly and slamming her straight down onto the floor.
“Kgh! W-what is this……!”
Naturally, pressed down by the sudden and forceful hand, she clenched her teeth and turned her head, but the instant she saw Jin Crow’s face, she momentarily forgot what she was about to say.
“……You’ll die.”
Could a human being wear such an icy expression?
She had lived her entire life in the underworld, but faced with an atmosphere she had never experienced before, she stiffened unconsciously—and at that very moment.
Kagagagagang!
Right above her head, flashes of light poured down.
And it didn’t take long to realize that they were coming from a machine gun.
Naturally, Tita Genorua’s face filled with shock.
‘He heard it? That?’
Of course, a superhuman might manage it.
Yes, in theory.
She herself was a superhuman with dual gear, yet even she couldn’t hear a chambering sound mixed into the noise amid such chaos.
Even if she had heard it, what could she have done?
In contrast, the actions this man took were as if……
‘A soldier hardened by the battlefield.’
But her thoughts couldn’t go any further.
Because the moment the machine gun’s firing stopped and the sound of the truck’s rear door opening rang out, he asked in a flat voice,
“Is there an exit?”
“The path toward the restroom. There’s a door that way.”
Jin Crow nodded and checked the escape route.
But then, Tita Genorua grabbed his arm just as he was about to straighten his waist and pulled him back down as she said,
“Stop. You can’t go that way.”
“What do you mean…….”
Naturally, he frowned and questioned her.
But it wasn’t as though she had grabbed him without any basis.
She steadied the shock from the sudden death of a subordinate and the attack, returned to a far calmer and more composed demeanor, and spoke to him.
“You’ve rolled around in this world too, so you know, right? The guys in that truck are just beaters. The real ones will be at the back door.”
“…….”
For some reason, the strange expression that crossed his face at her words seemed a little odd, but what mattered wasn’t his expression—it was escaping.
“I’ll draw their attention with gunfire, so open a path.”
Both of them shared the judgment that unless they relied on each other, escaping this damned situation would be difficult.
Was that why?
As if irritated, he put a slightly longer black cigarette than the one he had smoked earlier between his lips and lit it.
Then, staring for a moment at the interior lights that flickered intermittently—perhaps because the power had gone out when the truck crashed—he said,
“I’ll include this in the calculation.”
Before she could even agree, he immediately threw himself forward toward the machine gun position that had finished chambering.
“Crazy!”
At that reckless sight, just as she sprang up with a revolver in hand to support him, she soon had no choice but to doubt her own eyes.
“W-what is that?!”
The lights flickered.
“Richard! B-behind you!”
The neck of the man who had been getting down from the back of the truck with a submachine gun flew through the air.
“Uaaagh!”
The lights flickered again.
“Gaaah!”
A katana was already in Jin Crow’s hand, and his dagger was embedded in the enemy’s abdomen, dangling there.
“M-monster bas—!”
And then, when the lights flickered once more.
“…….”
The five men who had been herding them from the truck were all silenced.
“Huff, huff…….”
Looking down at the corpses, Jin Crow spoke to her with eyes ringed by even deeper dark circles.
“One hundred million dollars per head. Is that acceptable?”
“……Y-yeah. Sure.”
Seeing that, she nodded absentmindedly, then suddenly thought,
……Wouldn’t it have been fine to go out through the back door like this?
At the same time, another thought surfaced.
‘I want him.’
It was quite an impulsive thought, but paradoxically, that made it all the closer to her true feelings.
Doubt?
Well, how many chances had this man had to take her head already?
If the followers she had presumably selected and sent with care were being cut down like fallen leaves in a gust of wind, there was no need for him to come in and propose deals or negotiations—he could have disposed of her easily enough.
Then there was only one conclusion.
‘A man who truly got swept up in it, with atrocious luck.’
If so, he was worth raising the stakes for.
And…… Tita Genorua was a woman who had obtained everything she had ever wanted.
Shhhhhh…….
In the meantime, the rain had grown even heavier, and the two headed toward a nearby parking lot without umbrellas.
“You probably expected it roughly, Jin. You’ve stepped into the Genorua Family’s internal conflict.”
It was the first thing she said the moment they left the Messina Pub—now with no option but reconstruction—and sat in a beat-up car.
“So that’s why you checked for bombs before getting in.”
“……Yes. This attack was unexpected, though.”
Though she had checked thoroughly just moments ago, she still seemed uneasy. She swept the inside of the car again with a separate bomb detector and continued,
“Now that you’ve killed the followers they were using, you’re officially a target of a vendetta as well. Even if you want to pull out, they won’t allow it. So, as the legitimate successor and consigliere of the Genorua Family, I’ll make you an offer.”
Instead of taking the steering wheel, she reached into the glove compartment.
What soon came into her hand was a bundle of cash that looked to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
Without hesitation, she handed it to Jin Crow in the passenger seat, and the moment he took it, she reached out and yanked his coat toward her.
“…….”
Jin Crow took in her face, now suddenly close, and the same was true for Tita Genorua.
How long did they examine each other’s faces like that?
Eventually, she smiled brightly and said,
“Be my man, Jin.”
“What?”
“I know people like you well. Aren’t you getting tired of living as a mercenary all your life?”
Convinced that Jin Crow’s ambiguous expression was hesitation, she lowered her voice and whispered.
Inside the darkened car, only the intermittently flickering neon signs of District 17 illuminated the space between them.
Blue light overlapped her pale skin, and the chill that had hovered between them heated up with their tangled breaths.
“Become my man, help me ascend to the throne. Then I’ll never abandon you for the rest of your life.”
As if holding a leash, she gently stroked the nape of his neck.
In this moment, she placed a leash on the beast called him.
“Money and honor, and me.”
No matter what atrocities they committed, no matter what inhuman acts they carried out, such things would never move a cold-blooded man like him.
That was why she soothed him.
Like tossing meat to a hungry wolf, like smoothing down a mane, she brushed his cheek with her hand.
“I can give you everything. To do that, I need you.”
And when she thought the mood had ripened, she slowly tilted her head toward his lips.
Naturally, he didn’t move.
And finally, at the moment her red lips touched his cracked lips, the sensation she felt was rigid…….
“Hm?”
“You seem to be under a misunderstanding.”
Jin Crow covered her rambling lips with a callused hand.
“I’m not a mercenary. And…….”
Looking down calmly at her as she widened her eyes as if she hadn’t expected this, he said,
“You’re short on money.”
“What?”
The number of men he had cut down was five.
On the other hand, the bundles he had been handed were four.
After confirming once again that his calculation wasn’t wrong, Jin Crow lightly brushed aside the hand of the woman staring at him with a dumbfounded expression and said,
“I don’t need honor or you, so bring the money first.”