Dirty Secret by Rhys Ford Page B

Thankfully, a lot of it seemed to be in English, so Bobby and I wouldn’t be too useless. Bobby came back first, and he frowned, seeing me alone in the living room with the dolly full of boxes.
    “Where’s Jae? Do we have to get someone else?”
    “Nah, he’s probably grabbing us something to eat. He likes to eat when working,” I said. “Well, he likes to have food around him. I haven’t noticed him eating much of it while he works. Usually, Neko ends up eating the fishy bits, and then he picks at the kim chee.”
    “That shit’s hot,” Bobby muttered as he sat down on the short couch against the wall. I’d perched on the end of the longer one, standing up to help Jae with the tray of panchan and drinks he brought with him. “Speaking of hot…. Hello, Jae.”
    “Boyfriend,” I reminded Bobby. “Mine.”
    “You going to let him talk about you like that?” Bobby teased Jae.
    “It’s the first time I’ve heard him call me his boyfriend,” Jae replied smoothly. “I’ll have to think about it.”
    Our eyes met. Mine were probably confused and a little bit apprehensive. His were unreadable. At least until he gave me a little smile; then they warmed up enough to make me want to drag him upstairs even with Bobby in the house.
    “Focus, Princess,” Bobby said, smacking me on the leg. “Happy time later. Right now, let’s get this shit done.”
    “I’m that easy to read?” I asked.
    “A blind man across the street can read you,” Jae murmured, and he kissed me as he settled down on the couch beside me. “Let me see what’s here.”
    The living room was quiet except for the sounds of us turning pages and the crunch of pickled vegetables being eaten. I’d offered Bobby a second beer, but he shook his head, telling me to bring him back a Coke. I brought back two and a refill for Jae’s coffee. My lover mumbled a half thank you as he read, a frown wrinkling his eyebrows. I’d given him a small blank book to make notes in, and he wrote something down every once in a while, frowning more every time he filled a page. I peeked over his shoulder to see what he’d written, only to find it was in Korean.
    “ That does not help,” I pointed out.
    “I’ll type it up in English later. Go back to what you were doing,” he grumbled at me. “Or just go away. This is hard. Most of the slang he uses is old. I’m having trouble with some of the words.”
    The books were mostly useless, although one box held letters and family photos. I put those aside for Jae. A red-rope folder full of bills caught my interest, and I thumbed through them, trying to get an understanding of what Dae-Hoon’s finances looked like.
    “Shit, even his bank statements were in Korean,” Bobby grumbled. “Yeah, I know, culturally insensitive, but damn it, this bank’s on Wilshire. Would it have killed them to use English?”
    “You’re right. You’re a dick. Some of it’s in English,” I said. “It’s pretty easy to understand he was getting a lot more in than he was spending.” The same entry appeared over several of the statements, spaced out every two weeks. “I’m guessing this is his paycheck. Jae, where does it say he worked?”
    “He worked for Seong hyung ,” Jae said without looking up from his reading. “He was a liaison between the clients and the embassy. Nuna told us that.”
    “Of course he was,” I said. “Wait, didn’t Scarlet say he walked away from everything? Even his job? What? Six months before he disappeared?”
    “Yes.” Jae sounded annoyed, and he finally glanced up at me. “Why?”
    “Because these deposits into his account continue up until he disappeared.” I waved the pages at him. “Seong kept paying him… even after he quit. There’s also other deposits, bigger ones.”
    “Maybe Seong felt sorry for him.” Bobby peered over my shoulder and whistled at the amounts. “That’s a lot of money for an unemployed guy.”
    “Damn, the little shit was blackmailing people. I