Weakness (Jang Hanseok x fem OC)

59

Chapter 59: Shadows in the Night

The silence of the villa was unnatural-thick, oppressive, like the house itself had stopped breathing. It was a silence that had weight, pressing down on the moon-drenched marble floors and seeping into the silk sheets of the master bedroom. It was the silence before a storm, before the world tore itself apart.

Hanseok's eyes opened the instant the sound came. A soft creak from the grand staircase. Barely there, a ghost's whisper against the ancient wood. To a normal person, it would have been the house settling. To him, it was a declaration of war.

Kiara stirred beside him at the same moment, her own senses, honed by proximity to his dangerous world, just as sharp. It wasn't the sound that woke her, but the shift in the air. The wrongness. The sudden, chilling drop in temperature that had nothing to do with the night.

She started to move, to sit up, but Hanseok's hand clamped around her wrist, his grip a manacle of warm steel.

"Stay," he whispered. The word was a sliver of ice in the dark. Not a request-an order.

His voice, usually a lazy, arrogant drawl laced with the smug certainty of a man who owned the world, had dropped an octave. It was stripped bare of all affectation, leaving only something serious. Cold. Protective. It was the voice he used when contracts were being signed in blood, not ink.

"Lock the door," he continued, his gaze already fixed on the dark rectangle of the bedroom doorway. "Don't come out until I tell you to."

She stared at his silhouette, her heart kicking against her ribs like a trapped bird. "But-"

"No arguments." His grip tightened for a fraction of a second, a silent, urgent emphasis. His thumb brushed the frantic pulse at her wrist. "Promise me, Kiara."

She searched the shadows of his face, finding the glint of his eyes. The lazy amusement was gone, replaced by a chilling calculation. He was slipping into the skin of the other man-the one the world whispered about, the one everyone feared. Jang Hanseok, the smiling devil.

Her throat was tight. She nodded, the movement jerky. "I promise."

He released her as if she were fragile, his touch lingering for a barest moment before it was gone. He moved with a liquid grace that belied his size, a predator uncoiling. He ignored the pistol in the nightstand, striding instead to the corner of the room where his collection of hockey sticks stood in a custom leather holder. He selected one, a sleek carbon-fiber shaft with worn tape on the blade. No gun. He didn't want the sterile distance of a bullet. He wanted the intimate, visceral report of impact. He wanted to feel their bones break.

Barefoot and utterly silent on the cold floor, he stepped into the hallway, merging with the darkness as if he were born from it.

The living room was a cavern of shadows, cathedral-like under the high ceilings. Moonlight spilled through the floor-to-ceiling windows, painting streaks of silver across the polished black marble. It was a beautiful, stark stage, and the actors were already in place.

Three figures waited. Black masks, black gloves, black tactical gear that drank the light. Weapons-a pipe, a short-bladed knife, a heavy chain-glinted faintly, hungry for violence.

One man stepped forward. He was thick-shouldered, a bull of a man, with the jagged line of a scar peeking from beneath the sleeve of his shirt.

"You've made a lot of enemies, Mr. Jang," the man taunted, his voice muffled and distorted by the mask. "Disrespecting your elders comes with consequences. Chairman Kim sends his regards."

A grin, sharp and utterly feral, stretched across Hanseok's face. In the sliver of moonlight, his eyes held a terrifying amusement. "Elders?" he echoed, tilting his head. The movement was deceptively casual, like a wolf considering its prey. "Is this about the port authority contract, or did I simply wound some old man's pathetic ego?"