Shadows Of Desire | ✓

Chapter 9

Lisa stood in front of her mother's old vanity—an antique piece shipped from Thailand to Seoul after her passing. Her fingers brushed the brass handles, opened drawers filled with relics: faded lipstick tubes, incense coins, brittle Polaroids, and a single cigarette box her mother had never finished.

The photograph Nari sent lay beside it. Her mother smiled back from another era, unguarded and glowing.

Next to her stood the man Lisa didn't recognize. Tall. Korean. His hand rested intimately on her mother's hip. They were clearly not just acquaintances.

The words on the back echoed in her head again:
How well do you know your blood?

Her phone buzzed.

Jungkook: I'm on my way to your place. We need to talk.

She hesitated.
Lisa: I'll be there. But I need to stop somewhere first.

Lisa drove through an older neighborhood in Mapo-gu, stopping in front of a modest Hanok-style house buried between two modern buildings. She knocked twice, waited. The door opened with a quiet creak.

A wrinkled woman, her hair tied in a silver bun, peered out. Her eyes widened.

"Lisa?" she asked in Thai.

Lisa bowed. "Auntie Malee. I need to ask you something. About my mother."

Inside, the home was filled with incense and framed photographs. Lisa hadn't been there since she was a child, since her mother's funeral. Malee poured tea but didn't ask questions. She sat opposite her niece with a weary sigh.

"I always knew this day would come," she said softly.

Lisa slid the photograph across the table. "Who is he?"

Malee stared at it for a long time before answering. "His name was Kang Minho. He was... her first love. A political activist. Dangerous in his time."

Lisa's brows furrowed. "Why didn't I ever hear about him?"

"Because your mother wanted to protect you. When she left Seoul, she never looked back. She raised you and Nari alone, as Manobals. But blood..." Malee reached over, placed a hand over Lisa's. "...blood remembers."

Lisa whispered, "Was he my father?"

Malee didn't answer.

But she didn't deny it either.

Lisa returned home just as Jungkook arrived, a file folder tucked under his arm.

"You okay?" he asked the moment he saw her face.

She nodded. "Come in."

They sat opposite each other in the living room, tension thick in the air. He opened the folder.

"Your sister's connections to three of our shell competitors just got confirmed. She's laundering money through them. She's using that capital to finance bribes, journalists, and inside hires—like Hana."

Lisa leaned back. "I found out something too."

Jungkook looked up.

She held out the photograph.

"That man might be my real father."

Jungkook blinked. "What?"

"I don't know anything for sure. But it would explain a lot—why Nari's always looked at me like I was the outsider. Why my mother never told us about Seoul when we were kids. I think... I think she ran."