Chapter Eight – Hyun

The doorbell woke me with a start. I hadn’t realised that I’d fallen asleep. I rolled over and looked at the clock on my nightstand. It was six in the evening, four hours had passed since Hyun invited himself round. I got up wearily and made my way slowly towards the front door before opening it and peeking round to see Hyun’s grinning face staring back at me.

“Hey Mouse!” he barged past me pushing the door wide open and headed straight for the bar in my sitting room. I closed the door quietly taking care not to slam it and then headed towards the bar to join him.

“What took you so long?” I mumbled grumpily at him as he handed me a drink.

“I had a few things to take care of…one of them…well I’ll tell you later, after you tell me what the favour is.” He smiled at me as he sipped on his cocktail. I looked suspiciously at mine before looking back at him, I remembered the last time I’d drunk Hyun’s ‘deadly’ concoctions and it wasn’t pleasant.

“Don’t be afraid of it, it’s not going to kill you,” he grinned at me as he swallowed the rest of his drink whole. He knew what I was thinking. I picked it up and sipped on the sweet, ice cold drink, it left a warm trail in my mouth and throat as it made its way through my system.

“The secret ingredient is rum.”

I smiled wearily at him before replying, “Definitely another one of your alcoholic beverages designed to knock me out.”

We drank some more in silence, Hyun refilling our glasses whenever they emptied and it wasn’t long before I began to feel the effects.

“Hyun, this is going to sound strange…I need you to get me some background information on someone for me.”

He set his drink down and looked at me, his brown eyes sparkling beneath the dimmed lights in the room.

“Has this got anything to do with Lucian?”

I thought it was a strange question to ask but I disregarded it before replying, “No, actually it’s about my Father Ezekiel Zimmerman…why did you think it was Lucian?”

I sensed him tense up. He sighed heavily before replying, “Liliana came to me last week, she wanted me to look someone up for her too, a Dragos or something like that, she said that Lucian had been secretly meeting with him and refused to tell her who he is.”

“Hyun!” I gripped his arm tightly causing him to look up at me in surprise, “I met Dragos last night! At some Irish pub…he said that he knew my Father…Liliana said that Lucian had known him for at least a week?”

He nodded at me in acknowledgement, “Yes, but she didn’t have his last name so I told her that I wouldn’t be able to help her. Aurora…there’s something else that I need to tell you about Liliana and whatever you choose to do with that information…well it’s up to you.”

I looked at him quizzically, “Go on.”

“While she was there, I left her alone for a few minutes as I had a very important call to deal with, when I came back…before entering the room…I know I shouldn’t have…anyway she was talking to someone on her phone and from the sound of things, it wasn’t Lucian I could tell that much, although she never mentioned a name and worst of all that baby isn’t his either.”

I sat next to him quietly contemplating what he had just told me, I could hear my heart beating in my head. This was my chance to end their relationship forever, but why wasn’t I happy?

“No, you’re mistaken,” I heard myself replying to him, “You have no concrete evidence to prove any of this. You shouldn’t go around saying that sort of stuff; it could ruin people’s happiness.”

“Or be start of someone else’s happiness…”

I looked at Hyun with a new realisation. He didn’t meet my gaze; instead he reached into his suit jacket and pulled out a brown envelope.

“These are for you…I know how much you’ve pined for him, but I think that if you really love him you’ll do the right thing.”

He placed the envelope before me and stood up.

“You’re leaving already?” I looked at him feeling lost and confused.

“Yes,” he looked down at the floor, “This has been difficult enough as it is for me…I don’t want to be here when you see those.”

He turned and walked out into the hallway and a few seconds later I heard the front door closing quietly behind him. I stared at the brown envelope for what seemed like hours before plucking up the courage to open it. I held it upside down and shook it slowly watching as the contents spilled out in front of me. There were numerous photos of Liliana and an unknown male; they were embracing in some, smiling at each other in the same way she smiled at Lucian. I felt sick looking at them. As I continued looking through them I noticed that the man in the photo looked remarkably familiar to me. I couldn’t quite remember where I had seen him before but I was certain that I had. The last photo was the worst. Whoever had taken it had managed to capture their whole sordid affair through Liliana’s living room window. I placed the photos back in the envelope with trembling hands and tried to think about what to do next.

I decided to pour myself another drink to calm my nerves. I knew what I had to do, the answer was staring me in the face yet I couldn’t seem to find the courage to do it. I was distracted from my thoughts by the ringing of my phone. It was Hyun; I looked at my cell phone feeling slightly perplexed. He’d only just left.

“Yes?”

“I’m coming back to pick you up.”

“What?” my voice had suddenly gone up in pitch and the dreaded butterflies were back to tease my insides.

“Lucian’s just been taken to Hospital.”