Shadows Of Desire | ✓

Epilogue

Seoul wore a hush that morning.

It wasn't the quiet of a sleeping city, but the soft reverence that follows survival—the stillness after fire has passed through, leaving only resilience in its wake. Snow fell lightly across the rooftops, silencing the honks, the sirens, even the chatter that usually threaded the city together. It felt like a breath drawn in slowly, held long before the exhale.

Lisa stood barefoot by the window of her mother's old penthouse—now hers. She pressed a palm against the cool glass and watched the snow coat the balcony rail, falling in slow spirals like pieces of time drifting back to her. From this height, the city didn't look like a battlefield. It looked innocent. Peaceful.

But she knew better.

Behind her, the low notes of jazz played from the speakers. Something old. Ella Fitzgerald, maybe. It filled the apartment like incense—soft, weightless, and entirely unnecessary but somehow perfect.

She closed her eyes.

So much had changed.

The girl who returned from Bangkok had been fractured, a question mark. Now, she was the answer. She had buried her mother, exposed a generational lie, wrestled a legacy from the hands of the woman who tried to destroy it, and still found room to fall in love.

Love.

Her lips curved slightly at the thought.

The faint shuffle of feet behind her pulled her back to the present. She didn't turn.

"You're up early," she said.

"I can't sleep in your bed," Jungkook murmured, his voice still scratchy from sleep. "It smells like lavender and intimidation."

Lisa smiled, eyes still closed. "That's because you were raised in a sterile mansion and I was raised in a house full of incense and paperwork."

He walked up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist, his chin resting on her shoulder.

"I like the smell," he said.

She leaned back into him. They stood like that for a while, silent as the snow continued to fall. His warmth behind her, steady. Grounding.

"Do you think we're safe now?" she asked softly.

He didn't answer immediately.

"I think... we're safer than we've ever been," he said. "But I wouldn't call it safe."

Lisa nodded. She expected that.

"You think Nari will try again?" she asked.

"She's quiet. Too quiet. That's never a good sign."

"She's not finished."

"No," Jungkook agreed. "But neither are we."

Lisa turned in his arms, her hands resting on his chest.

"I don't want to live in war anymore," she said. "I don't want every day to be a move, a counterattack, a press statement. I want to breathe."

Jungkook nodded slowly.

"I know. And we will. But you also can't be the woman who took the Manobal Foundation back and expect the world to let you rest."

She smiled tiredly. "I hate that you're right."

"Yeah, you do."

The office was unusually quiet for a Thursday morning. Lisa sat behind her desk, flipping through applications for the first round of international scholarships under the new initiative. The one her mother dreamed about. The one Nari had tried to kill.