Chapter 89: The Last Painting
Paris never slept—not in the way normal cities did. Beneath
its gilded architecture and perfumed air, it hid a darker rhythm—an underworld
too elegant for filth and too wicked for honesty. The invitation to the
Collector’s auction had led them here.
But this wasn’t the Paris in postcards.
This was the Paris en Souterrain—a place few had heard of,
even fewer had entered. A city beneath the city, where priceless art changed
hands like currency, and names were traded in whispers.
Jungkook stood before a full-length mirror in the hidden
suite of their underground hotel. His reflection was unrecognizable. Slick
black turtleneck, tailored coat that hugged his figure just enough to
accentuate without exposing, and his raven hair brushed perfectly over one
brow. A small earpiece glinted beneath a wave of curls.
He looked… dangerous.
Beautiful, but cold.
Like the very art he once created.
V entered behind him, voice low as he adjusted Jungkook’s
collar with those leather-gloved fingers. “You look like a god no one dares
pray to.”
Taehyung stepped in from the other room, his suit charcoal
with blood-red silk peeking from beneath, expression unreadable. He held out a
glass of water toward Jungkook, but didn’t say anything. His eyes spoke enough.
Nervous?
Jungkook nodded once. “A little.”
“Then hold our hands if it gets too much,” V murmured,
brushing his thumb over Jungkook’s wrist. “We’ll always be here.”
The auction was held inside a former opera house carved
beneath the city's foundations—all stone and obsidian, lined with candlelight
instead of electricity. Its entrance was a code, its stairwells lined with
security that spoke in numbers and wore silver wolf pins on their collars.
They arrived separately—Taehyung as an ambassador of an
anonymous European estate, V as a private investor in rare antiquities, and
Jungkook…
As no one.
He entered with no name, no past, just a mask of onyx and
the soft command of mystery. He moved like shadow, just one of many bidders
veiled behind expensive disguises. But his presence pulled the eyes of
everyone, even those who didn’t know why.
Behind a screen in the surveillance room, the Collector
watched.
He knew it was Jungkook immediately.
He leaned back, fingers curled beneath his chin.
“You returned to me,” he whispered.
Lot 12.
That was what they came for.
The Last Painting.
It was encased in glass, veiled by black silk. When the
curtains parted, the room fell deathly quiet.
Even through the haze of perfume and money, there was no
mistaking it.
It was Jungkook’s hand.
Bold. Raw. Uncompromising.
But what made it unforgettable was its subject—two figures
painted in a grayscale palette, standing like statues amid a battlefield of red
lilies. One held a sword. The other, a heart. And in between them… a childlike
figure, reaching upward, holding their hands.
The symbolism was obvious.
V. Taehyung. Jungkook.
It was love, tragedy, and fury frozen in oil and canvas.
“I painted this before I ever met you,” Jungkook whispered
through the comm.
Neither of them responded.
They didn’t need to.
The bidding war was brief but brutal.
Private collectors, rogue royals, and underground bosses
fought like rabid dogs over the piece. But just when the numbers peaked at
eight million Euros, the host raised a hand.
“Forgive me,” she said with a sickening smile, “but we have
a surprise bid. One beyond the auction’s limit.”
Gasps scattered across the velvet seats.
From the shadows, a man stepped forward.
He wore a mask of white porcelain. His suit was impeccable.
His presence made the entire room hush.
“I bid…” his voice was like honey steeped in venom, “the
original artist.”
Everyone turned.
To Jungkook.
For a moment, time did not move.
Then—
A scream.
Gunfire.
Security collapsed under their own weight, tranquilized from
within. Smoke erupted from vents overhead. Chaos shattered the room in half,
and Jungkook ripped the mask from his face, heart hammering.
“Now!” Taehyung barked into the comms.
From opposite ends of the room, V and Taehyung moved like
wrath incarnate—silent, surgical, deadly. V threw a smoke charge to blind the
exit. Taehyung disabled the central light grid, cloaking the room in shadows.
And Jungkook?
He bolted straight for the stage.
The painting was already gone.
In the back corridors, the Collector waited.
He held the painting gently, almost reverently, and behind
him, two guards restrained a coughing, terrified teenager—another artist,
another soul trapped in this sick auction ring.
Jungkook found them in seconds.
“Let him go,” he growled.
The Collector turned slowly, tilting his head. “You speak so
differently now. They taught you fire. But I gave you your canvas.”
Jungkook stepped forward, fists trembling. “You never gave.
You stole.”
“You were magnificent in your silence,” the Collector
sighed. “And now you’re just… loud.”
Footsteps echoed behind them.
Taehyung. V. Both bloodstained, breathless.
The Collector turned to them as if greeting guests at a
dinner party. “The famous twins. Such power. Such poise. You’ll lose him
eventually, you know. He’s too wild. Too broken.”
V stepped forward, voice cold. “You’re wrong. He’s not
broken. He’s ours.”
In one motion, Taehyung raised his gun and fired.
It didn’t hit the Collector.
It hit the camera behind him.
The live broadcast.
Cut off.
The Collector smirked. “Ah. So you do learn.”
What happened next was not spoken.
V moved first—swift, calculated. The Collector tried to
block, but Taehyung was already there, pinning him. And Jungkook—sweet, silent
Jungkook—stepped forward with trembling fingers and picked up the very
paintbrush the Collector had once forced him to use.
He dragged a thick red line across the man’s face.
“Don’t ever touch another artist again.”
Then he turned away.
The fire burned slowly.
The painting was saved. The artists, rescued.
And the Collector?
Vanished into flame and smoke, with no one to mourn him.
Back at the hotel, Jungkook sat between V and Taehyung,
hands still stained with red paint.
They didn’t speak much.
They just held him.
Kissed his cheeks.
Let him curl into their warmth.
And for the first time in years, Jungkook fell asleep with
no mask on.
Not as Koo.
Not as a painting.
Just as himself.
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