Chapter 106: Blood on the Tide

 

The wind at the docks was cold.

 

Too cold.

 

It whipped over the concrete and tangled through the rusted cranes like ghost fingers, dragging memories out of the salt-bitten walls and slamming them back into Jungkook’s skull.

 

He stood on the edge of the shadowed pier, his boots still damp from the rain-soaked gravel. The docks were abandoned—officially. But underground whispers had said otherwise for years. And now, the truth reeked in the air like rust, mold, and blood.

 

Behind him, the twins approached in silence—Taehyung a few steps ahead, dressed in pitch black tactical gear, a suppressed pistol at his thigh. V moved like smoke, a long coat draped over his frame, eyes hidden behind blue-tinted glasses that flickered with thermal readings.

 

They said nothing. There was no need.

 

Jungkook took one step forward and paused, his head tilting. “Third warehouse from the left,” he said. “There’s a hatch beneath the oil drums. That’s where I was kept.”

 

Taehyung turned slightly. “Did they know you’d remember?”

 

Jungkook’s voice dropped into something colder. “They wanted me to. They planted it like a splinter and waited for it to fester.”

 

V’s hand brushed the back of his shoulder—silent reassurance, possessive, grounding. “Then we cut it out.”

 

They moved together like a single body—past broken fences and along the overgrown gravel road. V kept eyes on the thermal scanner. Taehyung listened for sound. Jungkook led without fear, like a moth retracing the burn to its flame.

 

At the side of the third warehouse, Jungkook crouched beside a row of rusted drums and tugged up a loose grate. Beneath it, a narrow stairwell descended into dark.

 

There were no lights.

 

Only the weight of memory.

 

They entered, one by one.

 

And the past closed over them like a mouth.

 

Inside the chamber, time had stopped.

 

Chains hung from the ceiling. Blood—years old—had stained the cement in spiderweb patterns. A broken easel leaned against one wall, snapped in half. And near the far corner lay a cracked mirror, still covered in dust, as if even the shadows refused to look inside it.

 

Jungkook walked in first, his shoulders squared, though his fingers trembled slightly as they passed the place he’d once been chained. He reached out. Touched the wall. And blinked slowly.

 

V’s voice echoed low behind him. “Is it him?”

 

Jungkook shook his head. “No. But he was here.”

 

A low click suddenly echoed from above.

 

The door slammed shut.

 

The lights snapped on with a violent buzz, bathing them in pale fluorescent light—and the walls pulsed red.

 

It was a trap.

 

Within seconds, V had yanked Jungkook behind him, Taehyung’s gun drawn, both scanning the corners of the chamber with wolf-like focus.

 

A voice rang out through the intercom system. Grainy. Distorted.

 

“Well, well. Little spider returns to its web.”

 

Jungkook’s heart didn’t falter.

 

He stepped forward, between the twins, voice steady. “I’m not little anymore.”

 

The voice laughed.

 

“You always were my favorite canvas.”

 

And then the doors burst open—not from the top, but the side.

 

A wave of men, clad in black, masked, and moving fast.

 

Taehyung fired first. The silencer thudded as three fell instantly. V ducked and rolled, blades flashing in both hands, slashing through the attackers like water through silk.

 

Jungkook moved differently.

 

He didn’t just fight—he danced.

 

He spun between the chaos, fluid and merciless. When a man grabbed him, he drove a hidden blade between ribs without blinking. When two more lunged, he turned, used one as a shield, and shattered the other’s skull against the corner of the wall.

 

Blood sprayed across the floor.

 

And Jungkook smiled.

 

It was not a nice smile.

 

It was a smile made of old wounds and new power, the grin of a boy who had once been broken and buried in chains—and who now walked over corpses with the grace of royalty.

 

By the time the last attacker hit the floor, silence returned.

 

The intercom crackled.

 

The voice sounded surprised. “You’re not just a spider anymore.”

 

Jungkook stepped up to the speaker box on the wall and ripped it off with one hand, his other trailing blood.

 

“I’m the storm you left in the basement,” he whispered.

 

Back at the safehouse, after hours of silent cleanup and blood scrubbing from their gear, the three of them sat in the large marble bathroom. The twins were in the tub, Jungkook kneeling between them, sponge in hand, gently washing a smear of dried blood from Taehyung’s neck.

 

V was watching him with unreadable eyes, his fingers absently playing with the strands of Jungkook’s damp hair.

 

“You were magnificent,” V murmured.

 

Jungkook didn’t reply. He leaned forward and kissed Taehyung’s collarbone—slowly, deliberately, tongue just tracing the edge of a healing bruise.

 

Taehyung’s hand curled behind Jungkook’s waist.

 

V leaned in from the side and caught Jungkook’s jaw, turning his face until they kissed—firm and slow, the kind of kiss that lingered.

 

“Tell us something,” Taehyung whispered between kisses, his voice low and velvet. “Tell us what you want.”

 

Jungkook met their eyes, dark and heavy-lidded, lips swollen and breath warm.

 

“I want you to never stop watching me,” he said.

 

“And I want to hunt him down together. Slowly. Carefully. And when we find him…” His smile deepened. “Let me end it.”

 

The twins didn’t argue.

 

They just nodded.

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