The private room was thick with cigar smoke and the smell of expensive whiskey.
Kim Minho sat at the head of the table, his legs crossed, his smile easy, his eyes sharp. He was thirty-four years old, two years older than Jack, and he had spent every one of those years knowing he was the favoured son. The heir. The one who would inherit their father's empire when the old man finally stepped down.
Or so he had always believed.
The men around the table were the old guard, their father's most trusted lieutenants, the men who had been with Kim Minseok since the early days, when the Jaguar organisation was still called by its Original name and Jack's mother was still alive. They were fat now, most of them, their bellies straining against their suits, their faces soft from years of easy money and easier power. But they were still dangerous. Still connected. Still necessary.
Minho had invited them here tonight to remind them of that.
"So," said Mr. Park, the oldest of them, his voice a gravelly rasp from decades of cheap cigarettes, "you want our support in the vote."
"I want what I'm owed," Minho said smoothly. He gestured to the women standing against the wall, young, beautiful, brought in for the occasion. "But I understand that loyalty must be rewarded. Consider tonight a small token of my appreciation. When I am leader, there will be more."
The men's eyes slid to the women. Mr. Choi, a bald man with a scar running from his temple to his jaw, licked his lips. Mr. Kang, who had been with the organisation since before Minho was born, barely glanced at them. His eyes were on Minho.
"You're asking us to choose sides," Mr. Kang said. "Between you and your brother."
"He's my half-brother," Minho corrected, his smile tightening. "And I'm not asking you to choose. I'm asking you to remember where your loyalty has always belonged."
The room was quiet for a moment. Mr. Kang was the most respected of the lieutenants. If he wavered, others would follow.
"Your brother has been making moves," Mr. Kang said slowly. "The clubs. The entertainment business. He's bringing in money we didn't have before. And his methods—" He paused, choosing his words carefully. "His methods have impressed some of the younger members."
Minho's jaw tightened. He had heard the whispers. Jack was ruthless. Jack was efficient. Jack was the one who had taken the organisation into new territories, new industries, new sources of income. And the men who mattered, the ones who cared about money and power more than family loyalty, were starting to take notice.
"Jack is dangerous," Minho said. "Everyone knows that. But danger is not the same as leadership. A mad dog can bite. That doesn't mean you put him in charge of the pack."
Mr. Park laughed, a wet, phlegm sound. "Speaking of mad dogs. Remember what he did to that Russian five years ago? The one who tried to cut in on the weapons trade?"
The men around the table shifted, some uncomfortable, some amused. Minho remembered. Everyone remembered.
"Bare hands," Mr. Park continued, shaking his head. "Didn't even break a sweat. Just... took him apart. Like he was dismantling a machine."
"They called him a monster after that," Mr. Choi added, his voice low. "Still do."
"He is a monster," Minho said. "Which is exactly why he can't be allowed to lead."
He let the words hang in the air. Then he reached into his jacket and pulled out a folded document. He laid it on the table, smoothing the creases with his palm.
"My father has already made arrangements," Minho said. "There are... obstacles that will be removed before the vote. All you need to do is continue to support the family. Support me."
He slid a stack of cash across the table. Then another. Then another. Beside each stack, he placed a key, to rooms upstairs, where the women were waiting.
Mr. Kang looked at the money. At the key. At Minho's face. For a long moment, he didn't move.
Then he reached out and took both.
"The Kim family has my loyalty," Mr. Kang said. "It always has."
Minho smiled. It didn't reach his eyes.
"The Kim family appreciates your loyalty."
---
Sora woke to sunlight streaming through the curtains and the familiar ache of an empty apartment.
She lay still for a moment, listening to the silence. Three days since the accident. Three days since she had been carried off the pavement by a stranger with blue eyes. Three days since she had last heard from Haneul.
Nothing. No calls. No texts. No messages of any kind. The man she had loved for sixteen years was on the other side of the world, and he hadn't thought to check if she was alive.
She pushed herself up, her ankle throbbing, her knee stiff. The bandages needed changing. She would do it later. First, coffee. First, the slow ritual of waking up in a life that no longer made sense.
She limped to the kitchen, her movements automatic, her mind elsewhere. Her eyes fell on the red camellia on the counter. Still alive. Still deep and velvet. She hadn't thrown it away. She couldn't.
She made her coffee and sat by the window, watching the city wake up. The streets below were filling with people, all of them moving toward somewhere, all of them with somewhere to go. She was here, in this apartment, in this silence, and she didn't know how to find her way out.
But she had been thinking about the apartment, the one she had bookmarked before the accident. The studio in Mapo-gu. She had been meaning to call, to schedule a viewing, to start the process of leaving this place behind. But then there had been the stabbings, the long shifts, the exhaustion that swallowed everything else. And now—
She opened her laptop at the kitchen table. She typed in the address of the real estate site, navigated to her saved listings, and clicked on the studio.
This listing is no longer available.
She stared at the words. The apartment was gone. Someone else had taken it. Someone else was moving on with their life while she was still standing still, still in the same apartment, still surrounded by the same photographs, the same memories, the same ghost of a man who had stopped loving her a long time ago.
She closed the laptop. She didn't cry. She was too tired to cry.
She sat by the window again, her coffee growing cold in her hands, and watched the morning light shift across the floor. The apartment was quiet. It was always quiet now. The silence had become a presence, a thing that lived in the walls and breathed in the empty rooms.
She looked at the camellia. She thought about blue eyes. About a low voice that said her name like it meant something. About arms that had lifted her off the pavement and carried her like she was something precious.
She shook her head. She was being foolish. He was a stranger. A stranger who had helped her. That was all. She had spent her whole life giving too much of herself to people who didn't deserve it. She wasn't going to start again with a man she barely knew.
But even as she thought it, she knew she was lying.
She finished her coffee, changed her bandages, and sat back down by the window. The morning stretched out before her, empty and quiet, and she let herself think about him. Just for a little while. Just until she could remember how to be alone again.
---
Jack stood at the window of his penthouse apartment, looking out at the city below. The morning sun was rising over Seoul, painting the sky in shades of gold and pink, but he wasn't looking at the sky. He was looking at his phone.
She was at home. The tracker on her car hadn't moved in three days. She was healing, he knew. The injuries were minor. But he wanted to be there. He wanted to see her, to make sure she was okay, to hear her voice again.
He couldn't. Not yet. His world was too dangerous, his family too watchful. If they found out about her, if they saw the way he looked at her, the way he thought about her, the way she had become the only thing that mattered, they would use her against him. His father would not hesitate. His siblings would delight in it.
He had to be patient. He had to wait until the timing was perfect.
The door opened behind him. Leewon entered, his footsteps silent on the marble floor, his face unreadable.
"There was a meeting last night," Leewon said. "Your brother. The old lieutenants. He was buying their support for the vote."
Jack didn't turn. "I know."
"He offered them money. Women. Promises." Leewon paused. "They talked about you. What you did to the Russian five years ago. They called you a monster as usaul."
Jack's jaw tightened. He remembered the Russian. A man who had tried to take what belonged to his mother. A man who had thought Jack was weak because he was young, because he was quiet, because he had spent his childhood being beaten into silence. The Russian had learned differently. They all had.
"Let them call me what they want," Jack said. "When the vote comes, they will remember who they fear."
Leewon was quiet for a moment. Then— "Your father has been making arrangements. Minho said as much at the meeting. Whatever he's planning, it's already in motion."
Jack turned from the window. His blue eyes were cold, depth less, the colour of a frozen lake. But beneath the cold, there was something else. Something that had been waiting for a very long time.
"Let him plan," Jack said. "Let them all plan. When the time comes, they will see that their plans mean nothing."
He walked to his desk, where a small box sat wrapped in black ribbon. He had ordered it last night, after checking her location one last time. A red camellia. The third one.
He picked up the box and handed it to Leewon. "Make sure she gets this. Today."
Leewon took the box, his expression carefully neutral. "You're sure about this? If your father finds out—"
"He won't. Be careful. Don't let anyone see you."
Leewon nodded. He had known Jack for fifteen years. He had seen him do things that would make most men sick. He had never questioned Jack's orders, never doubted his judgement. But this... this woman, this doctor, this obsession, was something new. Something that could get them all killed.
He didn't say anything. He just took the box and left.
Jack stood at the window, watching the city, and thought about her. About the way she had looked at him on the pavement, her eyes wide, her face pale. About the way her body had felt in his arms, light and warm and alive. About the way she had said his name—Jack—like in such a way that made him almost lost his patience.