Chapter 87: The Shadow Auction
It began with a single painting.
Not in a gallery. Not under lights.
But in a cold, dim basement in Prague. Concrete walls laced
with mildew. Cameras in every corner. The painting hung alone on a black velvet
wall—a canvas of twisting red and gold, splattered like blood through silk. The
signature in the bottom corner wasn’t visible to the untrained eye. But those
who knew… knew.
Koo.
And someone had just placed a $2.8 million bid on it.
The auction had no official name. No invites. No public
address. It moved cities like wind—silent and unreachable, known only to the
elite few who dealt in forbidden things. And this time, the centerpiece was
Koo’s unreleased archive.
Twelve pieces. All stolen. All authenticated with biometric
residue—sweat, ink, skin oils. Proof Jungkook had touched them.
Proof he’d bled for them.
V stood behind the one-way glass in the underground
surveillance room of their Seoul office. His hands were clenched behind his
back, eyes locked on the feed projected before him—a blurred image of the
auction room sent from an embedded contact.
“Where are they pulling these from?” he asked, voice low.
Niki, sitting beside him, leaned forward, her face grim.
“Storage units in Europe. Old safes belonging to the defunct syndicate. But
someone has access to the full K001 archives. These pieces were never supposed
to be sold.”
“They’re bait,” Taehyung said from the other side of the
room, his expression unreadable. “They want to draw Koo out.”
Niki nodded. “Exactly. They want him to see what they took.
What they still own. To make him feel helpless again. To remind him they can
expose everything.”
V’s jaw tightened. “They’ll regret it.”
Meanwhile, Jungkook stood in front of the canvas in their
private art room, staring at a painting he hadn’t touched in years. His fingers
hovered just above the surface—trembling, hesitant.
It was a city. No people. No sound. Just empty windows and
crooked streets twisting into a blur of colors. It looked like a dream
remembered through fog.
And in the sky, high above the rooftops, was the outline of
a child’s silhouette—falling.
Or floating.
Or trying to fly.
Taehyung’s reflection appeared in the glass behind him.
“That was the one they took from you, wasn’t it?” he asked quietly.
Jungkook nodded. “The original’s gone. But this was my first
attempt to recreate it. It never came out right.”
“It’s still beautiful.”
“No,” Jungkook whispered, voice trembling. “It’s
incomplete.”
The next day, V and Taehyung made a decision. There would be
no waiting. No passive defense. They would go on the offense.
With Jungkook's blessing.
They gathered in the secure war room of their estate, the
air humming with encrypted feeds and satellite tracking.
“This isn’t just about recovering his paintings,” Taehyung
said, pacing slowly, eyes flicking from one screen to the next. “This is about
sending a message. They think they still have control. That he’s still a
product. That we’re just caretakers.”
V’s eyes narrowed. “But he’s ours. And no one takes what’s
ours.”
Jungkook stood near the doorway, wrapped in an oversized
cardigan, eyes wide as he listened.
He hesitated… then softly spoke.
“Let me paint.”
The room fell silent.
V turned to him. “Paint what, baby?”
Jungkook walked forward slowly, fingers curled against his
chest. “I want to paint the auction. I saw it in my dreams last night. If I
paint it… maybe I can remember who’s there.”
Taehyung frowned. “You think your visions are returning?”
Jungkook nodded. “I think… I’m remembering more. And I think
it’s time.”
Over the next two days, Jungkook painted without sleeping.
Without eating. Without blinking, sometimes.
He filled canvas after canvas with faces, shadows, whispers
of rooms and cold vaults, flickering lights over stolen frames. Each painting
more haunting than the last. Each one peeling back another layer of his
fractured past.
And in the center of it all—again and again—was the same
man.
Tall. Masked. Eyes like slate.
Watching.
Waiting.
“I know him,” Jungkook said softly, pointing to the figure
in the painting as the twins stood beside him. “He was there when I was small.
He gave me the brushes. The paints. He told me I was born for this.”
V’s voice was low. “What did he call you?”
Jungkook looked down.
“A weapon.”
Taehyung reached forward and gently turned Jungkook toward
him, resting a hand against his cheek. “You're not that anymore. You're our
artist. Our Koo.”
Jungkook’s eyes filled with tears. “Then help me destroy
him.”
They didn’t sleep that night.
Instead, V and Taehyung called in every contact, activated
every dormant security protocol. They reached out to trusted collectors,
gallery heads, and even a few gray-area dealers who owed them favors.
The plan was simple.
Infiltrate the auction. Retrieve the stolen art.
And leave a warning so loud the entire black market would
remember it.
Days later, in an abandoned gallery-turned-auction-house in
Lisbon, the shadow auction commenced.
Masked guests filled the room, bidding in encrypted tokens
and private cryptocurrencies. The Koo pieces drew the highest numbers—each
canvas a violent flash of stolen genius.
But before the final piece could be unveiled, the lights
cut.
A message lit up on every wall, projected in shimmering
gold:
"Not For Sale."
And when the lights flickered back on, every Koo painting
was gone.
In their place, a single canvas remained.
Painted by Jungkook the night before.
It was black.
Empty.
Except for one line in bold red:
“You do not own me anymore.”
The twins watched from a secure feed, Jungkook curled
between them on the sofa in their private suite, eyes half-lidded from
exhaustion, fingers still stained with paint.
Taehyung kissed his temple. “You did that.”
V stroked his hair gently. “That was your war cry, baby.”
Jungkook smiled faintly. “Did they see it?”
“They saw everything,” Taehyung murmured.
“They’ll know you’re not a product,” V added, voice low.
“You’re a force.”
Jungkook’s eyes fluttered closed, exhaustion overtaking him
at last.
“Then let them try,” he whispered.
And the screen faded to black.
But far away, behind another veil of darkness, the masked
man watched with a smile.
“So it begins,” he murmured.
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