Waking up slowly...

You come around slowly.

Your head is pounding, and everything seems disoriented for some reason. It takes you a good ten seconds to realise that you’re hanging upside down.

There’s metal digging into your ankles. It’s just tight enough to be painful, and you twist away – then hiss with pain as a razor-sharp point digs deep into your side.

‘I wouldn’t struggle, if I were you.’

Your blood runs cold, all the way to your head, because you recognise that voice.

Two expensive, shiny shoes step softly in front of you. You let your gaze travel up slowly, filled with loathing, because you can’t believe you actually fucking fell for this trap.

‘I can’t believe you fell for this trap,’ Justin confesses, looking halfway between pleased and disappointed. ‘****-Soo assured me you would, but even so, I had higher hopes. Still, I suppose it doesn’t matter now.’

‘The fuck – am I?’ you wheeze, taking in great lungfuls of oxygen. The air up here smells musty, ancient, like it hasn’t been breathed in years.

‘Oh, you’re in one of my sugar mills.’ Justin flicks a hand carelessly around the tight, claustrophobic space. ‘Well, they were built by my ancestors, anyway, so I assume they’re mine now. There used to be hundreds of them, all over the island. Sadly most of them have collapsed over the years, or been vandalised. But this one seems to have weathered the centuries relatively well.’

‘You can skip the fucking history lesson,’ you pant, fury gathering as the full weight of what’s happened dawns on you. This kid – this fucking prick has knocked you out, tied you up and strapped you upside down, all so he can lecture you about sugar mills?

‘Please don’t interrupt when I’m speaking. I won’t ask again.’ Justin shows no other sign of having been offended. ‘And this is actually important, so I’d appreciate it if you listened. You may, for instance, be wondering about the device you’re currently tied to.’

You stay silent, because you can’t get a decent view of it and you’re very much hoping it’s not what you think it is.

‘In the eighteenth century, this island became very rich.’ Justin is still talking, sounding relaxed, like he’s a tour guide giving a history lesson. ‘Many people made their fortunes here, my great-great-grandfathers among them. Unlike some, we never forgot our past, and to this day one of my family’s biggest sources of revenue is the sugar trade. Of course, we don’t use plantations these days, but the process remains fundamentally the same, and people will still pay a premium for our product.’

‘I knew you were a bastard,’ you wheeze, unable to do much more from your dangling position. ‘I knew you were an arrogant asshole. But I had no idea you were this fucking dull as well.’

Justin stares down at you with the same, faintly interested smile. ‘Hurt him,’ he says, turning away.

‘With pleasure.’ The Korean guy – ****-Soo – reaches out from the darkness, and with a flick of the wrist so casual it almost seems fake, his knife slashes open your leg.