The knock came at mid-day.
Sora was on the couch, a book open in her lap, her mind wandering. She had been staring at the same page for twenty minutes, reading the same words over and over without absorbing any of them. Her thoughts kept drifting to blue eyes. To a low voice. To the way the world had seemed to stop when he looked at her.
The knock was soft, almost hesitant. She limped to the door, her heart suddenly pounding, and opened it.
The hallway was empty.
She looked left. Right. No one. But on the doorstep, placed carefully in the centre, was a small white box tied with a black ribbon. Exactly like the last one.
Her breath caught. She picked up the box, her hands trembling, and brought it inside. She sat on the couch, the box in her lap, and stared at it for a long moment before she opened it.
Inside was a red camellia. Perfect. Velvet. The petals so deep they were almost black in the dim light. And beside it, a small white card.
She pulled the card out with shaking fingers. Her heart was pounding so hard she could feel it in her throat. She unfolded the card.
Rest well. You deserve it.
No name. No signature. But at the bottom of the card, two letters, written in elegant handwriting: JJ.
She stared at the letters. JJ. Not JK. Not the initials she had been half-expecting, half-hoping for. Just two letters that could mean anything. Anyone.
Her mind, without any reason, made a delusion that it might be from him, Jack Kim, even though they only met once.
She thought of Jack. She had been thinking of him all morning, all day, all week. The way he had looked at her. The way he had carried her. The way he had said her name. It was him. It had to be him.
But JJ? His name was Jack Kim. JK. Not JJ. Anyone who knew him would use JK. Wouldn't they?
She sat on the couch, the camellia in her hands, and tried to make sense of the confusion in her chest. She wanted it to be him. She wanted to know that he was thinking about her, that he was watching over her, that he cared enough to send her flowers. But the initials didn't match. And what did she know about him, really? Nothing. A name. A face. A moment on the pavement that she couldn't stop replaying.
Maybe it wasn't him. Maybe it was someone else. Someone who had seen her at the hospital, maybe, or someone from her past she had forgotten. There were a thousand possibilities. A thousand explanations that didn't involve a stranger with blue eyes who had no reason to think about her at all.
She looked at the camellia. It was beautiful. It was thoughtful. Someone had gone out of their way to send it to her, to make sure she was okay, to remind her that she wasn't alone.
And she was thinking about Jack.
She felt a flicker of guilt. Someone—JJ, whoever he was—had done something kind for her. And she was using that kindness as an excuse to think about another man. A man she barely knew. A man who probably hadn't thought about her since he dropped her off at her apartment.
But she couldn't stop. She couldn't stop thinking about his eyes. His voice. The way his arms had felt around her. The way he had asked if she was okay—I wasn't asking about your injuries—and meant it.
She put the camellia on the coffee table and sat back, her hands in her lap, her mind churning. She needed to stop this. She needed to focus on her recovery, on finding a new apartment, on rebuilding a life that didn't revolve around a man who had left her. She didn't have room in her head for a stranger with blue eyes.
But the more she told herself to stop thinking about him, the more she thought about him.
She gave in. She reached for her laptop, opened it, and typed his name into the search bar.
Jack Kim.
The results loaded. She scanned them, her heart pounding. There were articles about his nightclubs. Reviews, features, mentions of celebrity sightings. A brief mention of his entertainment company. But there were no photographs. No interviews. No personal details. He was a ghost in the background of other people's stories, never the subject himself.
She scrolled deeper. Business registrations. A few legal documents. Nothing that told her who he was, where he came from, why he had been on that street the day she almost died.
And then she found it. A single photograph. A group shot at a club opening, years ago, a crowd of people she didn't recognise. And in the background, half-turned away from the camera, his face in profile.
Jack.
She stared at the image. Even in that blurry, distant photograph, she could see the sharp line of his jaw, the dark fall of his hair, the stillness that set him apart from the people around him. He looked like he was somewhere else. Like the world was happening around him, and he was just waiting for it to catch up.
She saved the photograph. She didn't know why. She closed the laptop and sat back, her heart pounding, her face warm.
She didn't know anything about him. She had no reason to be thinking about him. He was a stranger who had helped her, and now he was gone, and she would probably never see him again.
But she couldn't stop. She couldn't stop thinking about his eyes. His voice. The way he had looked at her like she was the only thing in the world worth seeing.
She picked up the camellia and brought it to her room, setting it on the nightstand beside her bed. She didn't know who JJ was. She didn't know if she would ever find out.
But as she lay down, her eyes on the dark petals, she let herself think about Jack. Just for a little while. Just until she fell asleep.
---
The Kim family estate was a monument to his mother's money and his father's greed.
Jack stood in the reception room, his hands clasped behind his back, his face a mask of cold indifference. He had been waiting for forty-five minutes. It was a power play, as it always was. His father liked to remind him that he was not welcome here, that he was an outsider in the house his mother had built.
When the doors finally opened, Jack walked through them with the same measured calm he had learned as a child, when every step could be a trap, every word a weapon.
His father sat at the head of the table, an old man now, his face lined, his hands gnarled, but his eyes still sharp. Still hungry. Beside him sat Minho, his half-brother, two years older, the favoured son. And on his other side, the twins—Minjae and Minjee, twenty-nine years old, their faces mirrors of their father's cruelty.
They looked up when Jack entered. Minho's smile was oil. Minjae's smirk was a blade. And Minjee—Minjee looked at him with the cold calculation of a woman who had been competing with him for power since they were children.
"Jack," his father said. His voice was soft, almost gentle. It was the voice he used when he was about to strike. "Sit."
Jack sat. He didn't thank him. He didn't smile. He just sat, his back straight, his eyes on his father's face, and waited.
"We've been hearing interesting things," Minho said, leaning back in his chair. "About your clubs. About the... trouble you've been having."
"I'm handling it."
"Are you?" Minjee's voice was sweet, poisonous. "I heard you lost a third of your weekend crowd. People are saying the clubs aren't safe anymore."
Jack's jaw tightened. He didn't respond. He had learned long ago that responding to them only gave them ammunition.
His father watched him with those sharp, hungry eyes. "There are those who say you're losing control. That the pressure is getting to you."
"The clubs are fine. The problems are being handled. There's nothing to worry about."
Minho laughed. "Nothing to worry about? Brother, everyone is worried. The old men are talking. They're wondering if you're still the man you used to be."
Minjae joined in, his voice mocking. "Maybe he's gone soft. All that time in the clubs, all those beautiful women. A man can lose his edge."
Jack didn't react. He had heard worse. He had been called worse. He had learned to let their words slide off him like water off stone.
But then Minjee spoke again, and her words cut through his control like a blade.
"I heard you've been spending time at hospitals lately. Taking care of injured doctors." She tilted her head, her smile sharp. "That's very... charitable of you, Jack. I didn't know you cared."
His blood ran cold. He kept his face still, his breathing even, but something flickered in his chest—something hot, something dangerous. She knew. Minjee knew about Sora. She worked at the hospital. She had seen something. Heard something.
"She was hit by my car," Jack said, his voice flat. "It was an accident. I took her to the hospital to avoid a lawsuit. Nothing more."
Minho's eyebrows rose. "A car accident? You? The man who drives like he owns the road?"
"I wasn't paying attention. It was a mistake."
Minjee leaned forward, her eyes glittering. "And yet you waited for her. Carried her inside. Stayed until she was released. That's a lot of effort for a mistake."
Jack met her gaze. His face was stone, his eyes cold. "She's a doctor at your hospital. If she filed a complaint, it would be a problem for both of us. I handled it. That's all."
His father was watching him now, his sharp eyes missing nothing. "A woman," he said slowly. "You've never been interested in women before. Not like your brothers."
"I'm not interested now. She was an inconvenience. I dealt with it."
Minho's smile was knowing. "An inconvenience. Of course. Because you're so well-known for your patience with inconveniences. I remember how you dealt with the last person who inconvenienced you. The Russian. What did you do to him again?"
The room went quiet. The memory of that night hung in the air like smoke, the blood, the screaming, the way Jack had walked away without a scratch. They all remembered. They all remembered what he was capable of.
Jack stood. His chair scraped against the floor, the sound loud in the silence.
"If that's all," he said, "I have work to do."
His father's voice stopped him at the door. "Jack."
He turned. The old man was looking at him with something that might have been amusement. Or warning. It was hard to tell with Kim Minseok.
"Be careful," his father said. "A man who cares about nothing is dangerous. But a man who cares about something—" He paused, letting the words hang in the air. "A man who cares about something can be destroyed."
Jack held his father's gaze for a long moment. Then he walked out of the room without looking back.
In the car, Leewon was waiting. He took one look at Jack's face and didn't ask what had happened.
"Minjee knows," Jack said, his voice low. "She mentioned the hospital. She knows about Sora."
Leewon's face tightened. "Did she—"
"She doesn't know how much. But she's watching. They're all watching." Jack's hands gripped the armrest, his knuckles white. "If they touch her—"
"They won't. Not yet. They don't know enough to act."
Jack stared out the window. The city blurred past, a river of light and shadow, and somewhere in it, Sora was sitting in her apartment, alone, healing, waiting for a life she didn't know was about to change.
"I need to see her," Jack said. "Before they find her first."
Leewon didn't argue. He just drove.
---
The club was loud, the music pounding, the lights low. Jack stood in the VIP section, a whiskey in his hand, his eyes scanning the crowd. He wasn't seeing any of it. He was seeing her. Sora. In her apartment. With his flower on her nightstand. Was she thinking about him? Did she know the flowers were from him? Did she care?
His phone buzzed. He looked down. The tracker showed her at home. She hadn't left all day.
He should be focused on the club. On his father. On the war that was coming. But all he could think about was her. The way she had looked at him on the pavement. The way she had said his name. The way her body had felt in his arms, light and warm and alive.
Leewon appeared beside him. "The men responsible for the fights have been dealt with. They won't cause any more trouble."
Jack nodded. He didn't ask what "dealt with" meant. He trusted Leewon to handle it.
"You should go home," Leewon said quietly. "You're not here tonight."
Jack didn't answer. He took out his phone and opened the photograph he kept hidden. Sora, months ago, leaving the hospital, her hair caught in the wind, her face turned toward something he couldn't see. She was smiling. He had memorised every detail of that smile.
Jack put the phone away. He looked out at the club, at the people dancing, at the life he had built from nothing. It was all for her. The power, the money, the empire he was building, it was all so that when he brought her into his world, she would be safe. She would never have to know the things he had done, the things he would do.
He would burn his family to the ground. He would tear down everything his father built. And when the smoke cleared, Park Sora would be standing beside him.
He didn't know how long it would take. But he was patient. He had been waiting his whole life for something worth fighting for.
She was worth everything.
He left the club before midnight, the music fading behind him, the city quiet in the early morning hours. He drove through the empty streets, his car a shadow among shadows, and when he passed her apartment building, he slowed. The lights were off. She was sleeping.
He sat there for a moment, his engine idling, his eyes on her window. He imagined her in there, in her bed, with his flower on her nightstand. He imagined her dreaming. He hoped she was dreaming of him.
He drove away as the first light of dawn began to paint the sky. There was work to do. His father was planning something. His siblings were circling. The war was coming.
But for now, in this moment, she was safe. She was his. And soon—very soon—she would know it too.