Free Dirty Kiss by Rhys Ford Page B

list of people to talk to?”
     
    “We’ve had our talk.” I put the picture down. It was hard. For some reason, letting that piece of time go made me shake. “I saw him at the Kim house this morning.”
     
    “Aish! Hard to believe that he was there. That woman treats him so badly.” Her disgust was palpable, nearly sticky with distaste. “I wouldn’t have gone back there.”
     
    “Looks like you know Jae-Min well.”
     
    “Ah, our Jae.” Scarlet smiled as she took the frame from me and put it back on the dresser. “He’s one of my favorite people. Have you seen his photographs? I have some he took of me at home. You should see them. They are beautiful but so very raw. He’s very good.”
     
    “How did you meet him? Did Hyun-Shik bring him here for an evening?” I had a tickle of jealousy in my chest. Somehow the thought of Jae-Min coming to Dorthi Ki Seu for a round of sex and games while his cousin watched disturbed me, and I couldn’t figure out why.
     
    “For an evening?” Scarlet padded away, bending over to retrieve a pair of bright red pumps from under the chair I’d been sitting in. “Hyun-Shik didn’t bring Jae-Min here as a guest. He brought him here to work.”
     
    “What? Jae-Min worked here as a waiter? He didn’t tell me. For how long?”
     
    “A waiter?” She was an elegant line, graceful as she slid her foot into one shoe. “Oh no, honey. Jae-Min wasn’t a waiter.”
     
    My chest constricted, and a numbness crept over my jaw. I didn’t want to hear what she was saying. The rush of blood in my ears was like a tidal wave, blocking out my senses. I needed to ask Scarlet to explain, but I knew I wasn’t going to like the answer. “What did he do, then?”
     
    “Jae is much too pretty to be a waiter. No, honey, Hyun-Shik brought him to work the rooms. That’s how I met my musang,” she replied, checking her appearance once more in the mirror and patting at the edge of her lush mouth. “Our Jae-Min became one of our upstairs boys.”
     

Chapter 5
     

     

     
    “ That son of a bitch played me! He worked down there, and he didn’t say jack shit to me about it.”
     
    My living room was large, nearly half of the building, but it was still too small to work off a good rage. I kept bumping into one of the sofas and hitting my shin against the coffee table. At past midnight, it was too late to start pushing furniture around to make room for my long legs. More importantly, shoving the couch to the wall would disrupt my bleary-eyed brother’s perch.
     
    “Cole, I’ve had a long day, my beer is half empty, and I have no idea what the hell you’re talking about.” Mike yawned, more for show than anything else. He usually went to bed at two in the morning, so showing up at my house to talk about the Kim case was well within his working day. Snorting derisively at my growl, he picked at the remains of his carne asada burrito, stabbing at chunks of meat with a fork. “Mr. Kim played you?”
     
    “No.” I was disgusted, trying to sort out my confusion. The one thing I was clear on: Jae was at the center of my anger. “Not Mr. Kim. I’m talking about his nephew, Jae-Min.”
     
    “That’s the guy that stayed with them for a year, right? The second or third cousin.” Mike picked at his teeth with the tine of his plastic fork. “What’s he got to do with Henry?”
     
    “Henry, huh? I’m sticking with Hyun-Shik. You can call him Henry.” I stopped, standing in front of my brother. “Yeah, let me tell you some things about Mr. Kim’s little boy.”
     
    I spent a few minutes outlining the deceased’s connection to the club he’d died at, including his pimping his younger cousin out to the management. Mike absorbed the information without commenting, letting me talk myself out.
     
    “So, you’re pissed off because Mr. Kim’s son is gay?” Mike asked finally. “Or because he set his cousin up as a whore?”
     
    “No,” I said, plopping down on the couch