It was supposed to be an easy, unremarkable life for Mina. Or so it seemed.
The unraveling began when her sister, Alicia, gave her heart to Kim Taehyung. A man revered and feared alike, a being carved from iron will and unshakable strength, his every breath carrying the weight of unspoken command.
At first, Mina thought herself safe.
Taehyung was the steady harbor, the unwavering protector, the brother she never had. Until fate, cruel and merciless, struck.
An automobile accident stole Alicia's sight, plunging their lives into a darkness no sunlight could banish.
And with it, the man Mina trusted changed.
What once was gentle protection rotted into something darker, deeper. A possession that clung to her like unseen chains. Taehyung's gaze, once warm, now seared with an unnamed hunger.
His touch no longer comforted, it caged.
Mina longed to cry out, to confess the terror that gnawed at her soul.
But Taehyung held a secret over her, a blade resting against her throat, unseen but ever-present, one she would carry into the grave before speaking aloud.
And so she remained trapped, delicate and trembling, inside a golden cage.
From the shadows, another presence stirred. Rinkyu.
A man as dangerous as he was magnetic, as merciless as he was cunning.
Draped in silk and sin, he moved like a predator too elegant to be touched, his grin never reaching his cold, calculating eyes.
He bore the air of a fallen king, beautiful, broken, and bloodthirsty.
If Taehyung was the unshakable mountain, Rinkyu was the hurricane that could tear it apart.
The moment Rinkyu's gaze fell upon Mina, something ancient and twisted unfurled within him. She was no longer just a pawn to wound Taehyung, she became an obsession, a delicate flower he longed to crush and cradle all at once.
And Mina, fragile, helpless Mina. Finds herself trembling at the heart of a battle neither man intends to lose.
And when the final blow falls, who will have her heart... and who will leave her in ruins?
𝘚𝘠𝘕𝘖𝘗𝘚𝘐𝘚
"Some storms never end. Some hearts never forget."
Kim Taehyung was twelve when his mother died in the rain.
He didn't scream. He didn't speak.
Only his fingers trembled-
and the scent of lavender soaked into the halls of Kim estate like a ghost that refused to leave.
Now thirty, he's the cold yet soft, porcelain face of Kim Corp-
a man with ink on his fingers, obsessed with clouds and strawberries,
and an empire built on rare things:
books, birds, broken antiques-
and walls no one is allowed to breach.
Except the past doesn't knock. It claws.
When Jeon Jungkook-heir of another empire and the boy Taehyung once called his moon-
is forced into an arranged marriage with him,
neither of them is prepared for the collision of memory and myth.
Jungkook is twenty-four now, sharp-tongued and sugar-soft,
with tattoos hidden under starched sleeves and
a paper crane in his wallet-
the last thing Taehyung gave him before vanishing from his life.
He doesn't understand why he still dreams of that night.
Why the word lavender makes his throat close.
Why Taehyung looks at him like a prayer he's not ready to say.
Tension tangles between them like a ribbon on fire-
brat and tamer, storm and silence, the boy who misunderstood
and the man who never explained.
As business contracts tighten and the shadows of their closed ones stir,
the truth begins to bleed-
about that night, about the woman who sang lullabies to birds, to clouds
and about a love that never died...
only hid.
Soft hands meet hard truths.
Birds sing in storm light.
And sometimes, the only way to heal-is to fall apart first