it's okay, we're safe now || ATEEZ mafia au

chapter 2: hephaistos

"hyung..." 

jongho tried again, his voice a little louder than before as he spoke into the earpiece.

the consistent shots ringing throughout the warehouse did nothing to help settle his racing heart. he pressed his fingers harder against the earpiece and tried once more, becoming more desperate with each passing second when no response came.

"mars please..."

his voice started to crack, the lump in his throat made his head pound as he tried his very best to keep calm and quiet. he was trained better than this, not only in combat and how to stay calm in a situation that you probably weren't going to make it out alive... but also in critical thinking. that training clearly had failed him because of the current situation jongho had gotten himself into for his own selfish reasons.

he could hear the men run up and down the hall right outside of the room he was hiding in, the yelling and the pounding on the doors were getting louder and closer and jongho knew he had only a few minutes before they found him. the bullet wound in his side had not stopped bleeding, luckily it hadn't hit any vital organs but it had gone right through him completely. the more he breathed, the more blood he lost. it was so painful to inhale the much needed oxygen as he could've sworn his lungs were contracting in on themselves.

it was getting harder and harder to breathe, he could hear his heart thumping in his ears as he slowly began to lose feeling in his feet. the panic started to increase tenfold, attempting to reach for his gun again when he heard voices get significantly closer, but his arms would just not move. his body was going into shock and was starting to freeze up. his limbs felt like solid lead and the blood dripping from his head was stinging his eyes terribly.

"mars... please," he desperately tried once more to reach out, trying to choke back his sob as his mind drifted briefly to earlier events that had happened not even ten minutes prior. "code black. please... it's phoenix, he's... i repeat, code black."

no response came once again, his arm dropping to his side in defeat. the tears came continuously now, the pain in his body was fully starting to register as it was bringing out a cold sweat that had jongho nearly spitting up the food he had eaten earlier in the day. his vision was becoming worse and worse with each passing second, all the shapes and colors were blending together. it didn't help that it was in the dead of night and there wasn't any light source besides what the moon would provide.

"phoenix is..."

like he had said many years before, jongho would never have imagined getting caught up in a mafia organization. in fact, he wouldn't have if it weren't for yeosang who had been keeping it a secret from him for as long as he could remember. the only reason they spared him that night was that he was affiliated with yeosang. and while jongho at that moment thought that he could never repay them for the overly generous deed, it was in this present moment that he wished the man would've shot him that night.

that way, this whole situation wouldn't have happened.

how yeosang had managed to survive that night was beyond jongho's knowledge. his group had gotten there just in time, had it been just a hair longer he's sure the older wouldn't have lived through that. jongho came to learn that it was a rivalry group that had been tracking yeosang for a long time, learning his routes and who he was affiliated with, and where he would be all times of the day. they picked that night to try and jump him, take him out, and dump his body off at the front door of where their base was.

"that's what they do," yeosang had said to jongho after a few days of being in intensive care in some unknown location. yeosang was finally able to start walking around a little more thankfully and jongho made sure to keep a close eye on him. "it's a fear tactic. take out a high position member and leave their body or even bits of it at the door for their group to find."