Choi San, a revered and feared mafia boss, reigns over Seoul's underworld with an iron fist, his influence extending seamlessly across both legal and illegal domains. But his empire is shaken to its core when his beloved daughter, Eun-ji, is kidnapp...
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The dawn was just beginning to creep over the horizon, painting the sky in soft hues of pink and orange as I sat by the window, lost in my thoughts. The quiet sounds of the others moving about the house—Yeosang making coffee, Jongho flipping through some notes, Jay and Seongjun in quiet conversation—barely registered in the background. All I could focus on was the memory of San, and how the events of the past few days kept replaying in my mind.
I couldn't shake it. The look on his face, the way his grip tightened around my throat in that moment of sheer fury, the coldness in his eyes when I called him a monster. The anger I had expected. San was known for that. But what I hadn't expected, what still left me unsettled, was the fear I had seen behind it. The fear of losing his daughter. That fear had consumed him, blinded him to everything else, and I had been the target of his desperation.
I leaned my head back against the wall, the faint light casting long shadows across the room. I had brought his daughter back to him, thinking that would settle everything. That somehow, it would earn me a shred of peace, maybe even some gratitude. But San wasn't the type to be grateful, not in the way I thought. He was a man who ruled his world with fear, with a firm hand that demanded obedience. And yet... I had seen him broken, fragile even, in those fleeting moments when he realized Eun-Ji was safe but that he could have lost her.
A part of me understood his anger. If I had something, someone, worth protecting the way San had Eun-Ji, maybe I would've reacted the same. But it was the sadness in his eyes, that hollow look after I left the mansion, that haunted me the most. For a man who seemed untouchable, invincible, to show that level of vulnerability... it made everything more complicated.
The longer I sat there, the more I realized I wasn't just thinking about San as an enemy. There was something deeper—an unspoken connection, maybe. We both lived lives dictated by loyalty, by unbreakable codes, and yet we were always at odds. Seeing him that way, torn between his power and his love for his daughter, had shaken something in me.
"Lost in thought again, huh?" Yeosang's voice cut through my reverie, gentle but observant. I glanced over to see him standing in the doorway, a steaming mug of coffee in hand. He looked at me with that knowing gaze of his, as if he could read the storm of emotions swirling in my mind.
I forced a smile, though it didn't quite reach my eyes. "Something like that."
Yeosang stepped into the room, handing me the mug and sitting down beside me. "You've been thinking about San," he said, not as a question, but as a statement. He knew me too well by now.
I nodded, staring into the dark liquid, the steam rising in soft curls. "I can't stop. It's like everything that happened keeps replaying in my head. The way he looked at me after I brought Eun-Ji back... the way he reacted... It's not something I expected. I don't think I've ever seen him that... vulnerable."
Yeosang took a slow sip of his own coffee, his brow furrowing slightly. "San's a complicated man. You've known that for a while. But he's also a father. And you, bringing his daughter back? That messed with his mind in a way nothing else could have. He's not used to relying on anyone. To him, it's probably a betrayal that he needed your help."
