Savage

Synopsis

Eighteen-year-old Korean born, Dae-Hyun Seong and Alex Richards are the sons of Mafia fathers and are friends. They are in their final year of their A-level studies at the prestigious Meyer Trent School in Kensington, London. The Richards are a notorious UK Crime Gang and the Seongs are famous Jopok in South Korea who have now been joined in marriage with the fierce Taylor family in the UK.

Both have fallen for the wrong girl. Alex is smitten with Harper, the daughter of his family’s biggest rival the Garricks. In contrast, bad boy, Dae-Hyun, fresh off the plane from Seoul after living with his grandparents who can’t deal with him anymore, is determined to make his stepsister, Felicity, his. He doesn’t care if anyone disapproves. They won’t be allowed to get in his way.

Harper’s sister, Angelica is kidnapped by the Permeti Albanian Mafia family and trafficked for sex. It is the first stage in a plan for the Permeti’s to throw all of the international families who had previously worked and respected each other into chaos and war. They aim to push them into joining a new powerful Cartel they run with other European families. The Garricks are misled into believing that the Richards are behind the kidnapping and a feud breaks out just as the Permeti’s wished for.

Alex discovers Harper is to be taken next. He kidnaps her to keep her safe. At the same time, Dae-Hyun learns that his stepsister’s boyfriend is helping the Permeti’s and being unfaithful. Before he can tell her, he finds a hooded intruder in her room. He chases him off but Felicity tells him it is not the first time she has been stalked by the mysterious figure. Dae-Hyun sees a perfect opportunity to get close to Felicity and proclaims himself her bodyguard whether she wants him to be or not.

Felicity escapes her protective confinement and returns to school. Alex follows. At the same point in time, Dae-Hyun is guarding his sister whilst she rehearses for the school’s Shakespearean production when several gunmen enter the school and begin shooting pupils and kidnapping girls on a list to traffick. The goal is to cause a war and break the families up, forcing who is left to join the cartel so the Permetis can rule London business and wipe out the competition.

In different areas of the school, the two couples have to fight for their lives and evade capture and being shot. Dae-Hyun and his stepsister meet up with the stalker who appears to be watching what is happening and taunts Dae-Hyun about taking Felicity away from him.

The two meet up in the woods in the school grounds to devise an escape plan when they realise they are still being hunted and are being prevented from obtaining help from the police. Separated again, Harper and Alex must fight the gunmen and the Permeti Godfather to gain their freedom.

Dae-Hyun and Felicity are chased by the stalker who reveals himself to be Dae-Hyun’s disgraced older brother who he believed was dead. He wants revenge against his family and father for banishing him. Dae-Hyun has to stop his brother taking Felicity back to Seoul to prostitute.

Preface

I want her and I am going to have her. She just doesn’t know yet. I have wanted her since I stepped off the plane from Seoul and my father married her English mother and joined the two powerful families together, English & South. Korean. Stepsister or not, it isn’t going to stop me. I see the way the other boys look at her, especially that jokeo, that’s joker to you English, her boyfriend. Huh. He knows I am on to him. He knows, I know what he does at night and where he goes to do it. I followed him once to the Kudos night club the Albanian Mafia Permeti family owned. If she knew . . . if my father knew, then it would end and his life along with it. She’d hate me forever. Besides it is too easy. I want him to suffer on my terms. See me pull her away from him. But if I have to play the father card to protect her, then I won’t hesitate to use it. I have to play it cool for now. Show her the error of her ways and reel her in, until she is on her knees at my feet.

Chapter One

I listened to my beautiful English stepsister, Felicity Taylor practice her lines for the school production of Romeo & Juliet that was to begin its run in the following week. Both the same age in our first A-level year, we attended the Meyer Trent private school housed in a large Mansion house in Kensington, London. A school that contained many of the rich international Mafia & gang families from across the globe.

Her crisp eloquent English tones reverberated around the school’s theatre. Not my thing but hey I could learn to like it for her sake, if I had to. Well I suppose I could at least pretend to like it. I was good at pretending. Good at pretending for my father. Good at making him think I had turned over a new leaf. Isn’t that what you say here?

He’d wanted to keep me in Seoul at school but then I’d been expelled and my grandparents had taken enough. Well, that’s what you get for leaving your son and running off to England because it’s got too hot for you in Seoul. They were no longer willing to have me in their house. Hey, I just wanted to live a little, party, smoke now and then, try a few drugs and then, play with the bad girls a little, gamble, play on the wild side for a while. Just like he did once.

It helped me forget that he’d dumped my ass and ran away like a guilty school boy into the arms of another woman when my mother lay buried in the cemetery for trusting him to protect her and their son. The fucker always failed at that. I pitied, Felicity’s mother. So far, he’d shown her only his good side, the liar side. He was good at that, just like me. But then I wasn’t a, jeeo goemul, a control freak, like him. I’d seen his dark side many a time and he didn’t just reserve it for the family business. He cracked my jaw once with a punch outside a restaurant and left me lying in the street bleeding out when I disrespected him. I’d made a mistake calling him out for fucking another whore when my mother was alive. Felicity hasn’t seen his temper yet. It’s too early and my stepmother clearly hasn’t either. But they will. I guarantee it. But I won’t let him lay a finger on Felicity. I’ll kill him this time, if I see him look at her the wrong way. I’m surprised he hasn’t tried it on with her yet. Maybe he has and she just hasn’t said. I thought that’s what had happened the night before when I heard her scream at 2am before I remembered he was away in France.

I woke up with a start. There was no one but Felicity, myself and some of my friends in the house that night. I’d had a couple of the guys over to stay but they were too stoned to wake up. None of us had gone to bed. We’d all passed out with the vodka shots and pizza in front of the tv in my room. The staff hadn’t heard her. I didn’t know what the fuck was going on at first. I jumped up from the bed I had been lying on top thinking the world had ended. For a moment, I thought I was back at that night my mother was killed. Sitting on the end of the bed, I rubbed my eyes blinking in the moonlight streaming through the voile curtains and listened again, thinking I had maybe dreamt it. But then I heard it more loudly. It sounded like she was being murdered. Nickolai stirred from the chair.

“What’s going on?” he murmured.

I jumped up and cursed when I stepped on an open pizza box and my bare foot got covered in dry shrivelled pizza and slimy tomato anchovy. Yuk. My head was hurting and I could have thrown up but all of that disappeared when I realised the screaming was coming from Felicity’s room.

“I don’t know. Stay here,” I whispered hoping towards the door, trying to remove the damn slice of pizza stuck to my foot. Still half asleep and drunk, I hit the floor hard on my face. The screams were getting louder and there was no mistaking it was Felicity.

I scrambled to my feet knocking over beer bottles, vodka ones and other crap before I made it out the door down the hallway towards her room. Her screams and cries were deafening. I banged on the door. Instinct said I should just barge my way in but hey, I was acting like a gentleman and I wanted to get on her good side. She was already wary of me. I was convinced to her, I was a wild party animal, drug taking, womanising, out of control brat. She was probably right. But it suited me for her to think that for the moment and hold her at a distance so I could discreetly observe her and work out a way to get that deadbeat boyfriend away from her. Gong-gan nangbi. Waste of space.

I called out,

“Felicity, are you ok? Felicity?”

No answer. I banged the door harder again. “Felicity.”

I bent down and peered through the keyhole but I couldn’t see anything, the key was still in the lock. I tried the handle, hoping she hadn’t locked it but she had done.

“Felicity, let me in. If you don’t I will break down the door.”

I started to bang my shoulder against the heavy door like I was in a movie. Big mistake and I got nowhere fast.

“Ssi-Bal,” I cursed deciding to change my method and try and kick the fucking thing in. I’d never felt so frightened for a girl in my life. I usually didn’t care. The only woman I had ever been worried about was my mother as a loving son. Since she’d gone, I’d kept girls at a distance. I just fucked them and took what I could from them physically and emotionally like they were some kind of drug that could make me forget who I was for a while. I’d learnt not to care about the world and the people in it. I could barely admit it to myself but I was terrified I was becoming my father, like it was written in my destiny and I had no control over it. But Felicity was different. I don’t fucking know why. She just was. Shame she was my stepsister now. It made everything all the more complicated but not impossible in my eyes.

I had to get her. A weird dark feeling came over me. It made me kick harder. I don’t know where it came from but I just knew someone else was in the room from her. This was more than a nightmare. Someone was in there with her.

I kicked more strenuously and the door started to give way. Another two kicks and the door sprung open, hanging off its hinges. I was in. My mouth fell open. There was a guy in the room. He was wearing a dark grey hoodie and was sitting over on top of Felicity as she thrashed around in her bed, lost in a nightmare. The covers were off and his trousers were open. He was ready to rape her.

Chapter Two

I launched myself into the room before I could even process the situation. The guy in the hoodie turned to stare at me in the dim light as I charged at him. His face was in shadow. I pulled him off her and threw him across the room. He fell into the side of her desk banging his head hard. As I ran towards him, he jumped up quick. He ran for the patio doors leading out onto a small balcony at the back of the white mansion. I lunged for him and brought him to the floor. By this time, Felicity was awake and sitting up in bed, dazed and confused and my friends had run in to see what the hell was going on. This startled us both. That’s when the bastard got away.

He wriggled, pushed me to one side and kicked my stomach so I was winded. Fuck. I couldn’t do anything but roll around on the floor. I never even got a look at the fucker’s face and my friends just stared in shock. He ran for the door before anyone moved. I managed to crawl back up and get to the balcony just in time to see him jumping down from one of the trees he used to climb up to Felicity’s room. I leaned over the rail still wincing with the pain in my stomach and shouted down to those lazy family guards. They hadn’t even seen him. How the hell had he been able to get in?

“Fucking move and get him,” I shouted down at one who stared up at me bemused for a distance. The guy in the hoodie was sprinting across the grass and grounds towards the back facing high wrought iron gate. By the time those lazy fuckers got there, he was jumping on the gate and crawling up and over it like a Monkey. One of them chased him down the street but came back empty handed. I banged the white rail in frustration. Gaejasigdeul, fuckwit. They let him get away.

I rubbed my stomach feeling unease twist more painfully inside it. Something very wrong was going on. Why hadn’t they been alert?

Walking back into the room, I found Felicity looking at me with a mixture of anger, fear and confusion. My friends were staring at her sitting up in the bed in her skimpy pyjamas. I frowned at them.

“Stop fucking looking at my stepsister like that. Get out,” I said pushing them out of the room.

“But what happened?” Nickolai persisted resisting as I tried to close the door on him.

“Get out. We will talk when I make sure Felicity is ok. Get out, Nikcolai.”

I slammed the door shut and turned the lock in the door.

“What’s happening?” she asked before I’d even turned around. Her voice was shaky. I couldn’t help glance down at her and assess her body. I’d never seen it this bare before. Wow. My eyes automatically fell on her chest. Aleumdaun. Beautiful.

She growled at me and hurried to cover herself up with the bed sheets. I frowned and approached the bed.

“Are you ok?”

“What was going on? Why are you in my room?”

“You don’t know? You were having a nightmare. I could hear your screams. You were loud enough to wake the whole neighbourhood. I banged on your door to wake you but you didn’t hear me.”

I shook my head and sat down on the bed noticing her tear stained face and that she was shaking. There were still a couple of tears rolling down her cheeks. It was natural to just reach out and gently brush my thumb over them and wipe them away. To my frustration, she flinched, a little surprised and pulled back. I dropped my hand down to the bed with a sigh then ran my hands through my short dark hair to keep them from touching her again. I couldn’t help notice with some satisfaction that her eyes were sweeping appreciatively over my bare chest. I worked out a lot and I was on the school football team. At least my body looked its best on the outside, even if my hangover was making the inside feel like hell.

“I heard you screaming and I came running. It must have been terrifying by the way you were screaming.”

“Someone was on top of me.”

“Yes. Where is your phone? I want to call the police.”

I was already reaching for her phone on the nightstand.

“No. No police. I will never get free again, if you do that. Your Dad is already very protective of me. They will keep me stuck in this building especially after what happened last year before you came.”

I gave a disbelieving laugh.

“No way. He was about to rape you. He had his trousers open. If I hadn’t have come in he would have got his dick out and gone for it.”

She tried to snatch the phone out of my hand. I pulled it back.

“Hey. What’s wrong with you? The police need to be told. Then I am going to ring my father and your mother in France.”

“No. Please. They didn’t let me out for a fortnight. I can’t go through that again. If they find out somebody has been following me again and getting into my bedroom, they will send me to that school in the middle of bloody nowhere in France just like they threatened. I will lose all my friends and Robbie.”

I felt myself tense at the mention of her boyfriend’s name.

“This has happened before?”

“Before you came here. Please, don’t tell them.”

She started to shake some more. I wanted to hold her. Make her feel safe. I edged forward on the bed but she gave me a nervous look and I stopped moving.

“I really think . . .”

“No. Please. I will do anything you ask. Just please don’t call them or tell anyone.”

I sighed and then frowned again.

“Where is Robbie tonight? It’s Friday night and he usually stays over when Kathryn and Dad aren’t here.”

“He had to go somewhere with his parents over the weekend,” she said hurriedly.

I raised an eyebrow. I knew exactly where he had probably really gone. The older Permeti boys were having a party and a card game at their father’s club in London and then a group were invited to the house on Saturday for another one. I’d been invited with Nikolai. That family was fucked up I all sorts of ways and I loved to walk on the wild side but they went too far. The younger Permeti boys were thugs and bullies in the school and were allowed to get away with it. I’d rolled with them for a while when I first arrived in London. They could get you anything you wanted, drugs, girls, everything. I got bored standing around watching them threaten and beat the boys whose fathers worked for them, just for kicks or if they stepped out of line. I wasn’t one of their henchmen. I kicked a few around. It helped get rid of the anger at my father. The Permeti’s never tried to see me other than a friend although Boris tried to boss me around. We fought. I won and he stopped. I really beat the crap out of him. No one interfered in our fight at his insistence. Besides, they couldn’t afford to fuck me off when they were doing business with my father and now had the backing of the mighty Taylor London gang after our two families had been united in marriage with Felicity’s Mum.

They cornered one of the girls one day. Boris called her a slut for sleeping with a boy from a rival family. He hit her a couple of times and I stepped in. They made a big mistake of trying to keep me back. I punched out Boris. He threatened me with everything but we both knew he wasn’t going to dare to set his army on me. I was invited to the party out of courtesy and respect to my father but always expected to refuse. I might be Nappeun Nom, a bad boy but I respected women, well when I didn’t want to fuck them, I suppose and I didn’t hit them, ever. I was going to fucking kill whoever had been trying to touch Felicity.

She bent her head. Obviously, she didn’t believe him either.

“He should have been here with you. He could have gotten out of it.”

“He couldn’t. I know you don’t like him. Hak-Kun doesn’t either. Your Dad is a bit dictatorial, isn’t he?”

“Tell me about it. I really think we should tell the police.”

“They won’t do anything anyway. They don’t like our kind of family. I sometimes think, they consider it just if one of us gets hurt.”

She had a point.

“Still I . . .”