A Reluctant Love

Chapter Forty-Four - A Secret Kept

"Let me up, Chan. Things will come out soon enough." Korn threw back the blankets and sighed. "How was my performance?" 

Chan shook his head sadly. "Awful, Sir, absolutely awful. I don't understand why we aren't telling them the truth - the whole truth. It's not terrible, you know. It's not your fault." 

"It is my fault. I wasn't there, when I had to be. I could have saved them all." Korn closed his eyes, tightly. He, too, was still haunted nightly by blood and brains. He knew what his children called him - the Kra Sue. But he wasn't. He knew who the true monster was his brother, Gun.

He shuddered as he thought of all the games, of the murder plots, kidnappings and deaths he'd stopped and those he hadn't been able to. "Chan, if only I would have been able to kill my brother 15 years ago, instead of that pawn, we wouldn't be where we are today. Our lives would be different. Do you ever wonder what it would be like?" He nodded to the door in the corner of his room that lead to the secret he carefully guarded. 

"Never, Sir. We can't look back." He sucked in a deep lungful of air, thinking to his first duty with the family which had been guarding his Boss' wife. "Never, Sir. If I did, I'd ask you, finally, why you had me be your wife's bodyguard."

Korn smiled faintly. "Haven't you figured it out yet? I thought you were smarter, Chan." He got off the bed and stretched. Slowly he walked to a safe that looked like a footstool and opened it, reaching in and grabbing a faded, yellow group of papers. "This is why, if you really hadn't known."

His hand trembled, the papers extended towards his bodyguard/secretary. They had no secrets between them. None. Korn really believed that Chan knew why he had been trusted with his wife. Slowly, the papers were taken from his hand. "Thank you for your trust, sir." He walked over to his stool, sat down and read them slowly. 

"Korn, why didn't you tell me?" For the first time since they were children, Chan called him by his name, the shock was too much. 

He shrugged. "Does it make a difference? You were better than the ones that came before. With you, it was all in the family." He smiled faintly. "You are my brother, and my wife was so lonely. It was you so I was fine with it. Honestly, it was fine."

"But..." Korn hung his head, not able to look at his adoptive brother. "I slept with your wife. All these years, the guilt has driven me insane."

"Is that why you stayed with me?" Korn was truly curious. 

"No, I would have stayed, even without the guilt." He hesitated slightly. "She tricked me, you know. I didn't want to but she..." 

"I don't want to know." He held up his hand and took in a deep breath. "You saw the papers. I had a vasectomy after Kinn. You know that I already knew that Kim couldn't be my child, but they are my children, by blood or by name, they are mine." Korn drew in a deep breath and blew it out. "I need to know how she got the rope to hang herself in front of that child."

Chan snorted. "Still? It was Gun. I had to sleep sometime. He's always had spies in your household." He sighed. "You should kill me. I fathered one of your children."

 "You need to rest your mind, brother. You aren't the father of Kim." Chan closed his eyes tight. He didn't want to say it. He needed to finally say it aloud. "Do you believe it was Gun who twisted her mind? Gave her the rope and convinced her that death was the only way out?" 

Chan only nodded. He had known it years ago, when the bastard had tried to kidnap the baby so long ago and ended up kidnapping all of the children. "Yes, it was Gun."

"Why? Why, did he think I was stupid? The genetic test was identical, you know, so his father had to be related to me." Korn rubbed his temples. "You really believed you were Kim's father? Why didn't you say something sooner?"