The silence in the Diamond Hall was heavier than lead. The camera flashes, which had paused for a heartbeat, erupted once more like a storm of blinding white lightning. They captured every bead of cold sweat sliding down Emma's forehead and every tremor in her lips, which were parted in sheer terror.
"Honey Trap... Yakuza... Fraud."
The words echoed in her mind like funeral bells. She looked at Tae-min—the man who, hours ago, had drowned her in a sea of pleasure and possession, the man who had sworn to protect her from the world. But his eyes now were void of warmth; they had turned into twin abysses of black ice and lethal suspicion. His hand, which had been caressing her bare thigh under the table, withdrew with agonizing slowness, as if the very touch of her now defiled him.
"Tae-min..." Emma whispered in a stifled voice, reaching a trembling hand to catch the sleeve of his blazer. "I swear... I don't know what he's talking about..."
But before her fingers could brush his expensive fabric, Tae-min surged to his feet with a violent motion that sent his chair crashing backward against the floor with a resounding thud.
Ignoring the smugly smiling reporter and the sea of cameras, he turned toward Emma. He didn't take her hand with tenderness; instead, his hand clamped down like a steel vise on her bare arm, digging his rough fingers into her flesh with a cruelty that forced a muffled gasp of pain from her.
"The conference is over," Tae-min roared, his booming voice vibrating through the hall. He raked the press with a lethal glare that forced the front rows to instinctively recoil.
He gave Emma no chance to find her balance. He yanked her behind him with savage force, forcing her to stumble in her long white dress and high heels to keep up with his enraged strides toward the wings of the stage.
"Tae-min, you're hurting me!" Emma cried, struggling to free her arm, but his grip was a shackle that would not break.
Behind them, Yura stood with a clinical, frozen expression. She raised a hand, and within seconds, dozens of security guards flooded the hall, forming a human wall to prevent the press from following. Yura watched Emma's retreating back with an empty gaze, a ghost of a smile—barely visible—touching the corner of her mouth.
(The plan is working perfectly,) Yura thought. (His passion for her is his weakness, but his pride and ego as a male and a star are my strongest weapons to incinerate this relationship at its roots.)
VIP Dressing Room – Backstage
Tae-min kicked the door open and threw Emma inside with enough force that she stumbled, slamming into the large glass vanity. Bottles of perfume and cosmetics crashed to the floor in a symphony of shattering glass.
Before she could catch her breath, Tae-min locked the door and turned toward her like a demon fresh from hell. He shed his blazer, tossing it aside carelessly, and yanked at his tie as if it were strangling him.
"So..." Tae-min hissed, approaching her with slow, predatory steps. His eyes raked over her trembling body in the white angelic dress—which now looked like a filthy lie. "What a brilliant performance. The innocent girl fleeing America... and the gentle manager who wipes away her tears. Were you two laughing at me in the dark while I was burning with jealousy over you?"
"No! There is no performance!" Emma screamed, tears streaming down her cheeks. She pressed her back against the edge of the vanity, trying to retreat from his terrifying aura. "I know nothing about the Yakuza! Kento was just a friend and a manager who helped me when I first got here! I didn't deceive you!"
"Liar!" Tae-min roared, lunging at her.
He caged her completely, slamming his palms onto the edge of the glass vanity behind her, trapping her between his powerful arms. He leaned in until his hot, enraged breath lashed her tear-streaked face.
His hands slid from the vanity, and in a move of extreme masculine dominance and dark lust, he seized her thighs and hoisted her up, seating her forcefully on the cold glass surface. He pushed his massive frame between her open legs, pressing his burning hardness—which had not extinguished despite his rage—against her core through the layers of silk.
Emma gasped, her head hitting the large illuminated mirror behind her.
"Were you thinking of him while you were moaning beneath me this morning?" Tae-min whispered in a raspy, poisonous voice, torn apart by jealousy. His rough hand slid down to viciously rip the back zipper of her white dress, exposing her entire bare back. He dragged his large palm heavily over her shivering skin, up and down, pressing her against him with a harshness intended to punish her and quench his savage thirst at the same time. "Did that scum send you to be in my bed? Was every touch, every tremor of your goddamn body, just a part of your job for him?"
"No... Tae-min... please..." Emma sobbed, reaching up to cup his face, trying to make him see the truth in her eyes. But he was blind.
He didn't listen. He descended, capturing her lips in a kiss that held not a shred of romance. It was a kiss of punishment, a bloody invasion. He preyed upon her mouth with ferocity, sucking her lips harshly and forcing his tongue inside as if searching for her lie to tear it out. The salt of her tears mingled with their ragged breaths.
His hand moved from her back to her chest, crushing her breast through the thin lace of her bra, while his lips dropped to her neck. He sank his teeth into the same spot where he had marked her the night before, biting with a force that made her scream in a mixture of pain and pleasure.
The contact was suffocating in its intimacy, lethal in its brutality. He was pillaging her body in search of answers, ignoring her tears.
In that very moment, amidst this violent physical assault and the sick pleasure coursing through her limbs despite his cruelty... the last leaves of innocence fell from the tree of her soul.
(He isn't looking for the truth,) an icy voice whispered in Emma's mind, drowning in a dark internal monologue as his hands toyed with her body on the table. (He doesn't care if I'm innocent or guilty. He just hates the thought that something he owns... might belong to another man. I am not a person to him; I am just a piece of property he is tearing apart to verify its quality.)
Emma stopped resisting. Slowly, in a decision born from the womb of absolute despair, she decided to play the game to survive. She relaxed her body. Instead of pushing him away, she wrapped her arms around his neck and responded to his savage kiss. She opened her mouth to him, arching her back, offering him exactly what he wanted: total physical submission.
Tae-min felt her response and his ferocity intensified. He believed he had broken her, that he had subdued her. He didn't know that the girl melting in his arms now, moaning under his searing touch, was building the first stone of her escape plan in her mind. (I will make you believe you own me completely, until the moment I vanish like smoke,) Emma thought, her eyes cold and open behind his back.
Simultaneously – Mizuki's Luxury Apartment
Mizuki sat on a black velvet sofa, draped in a red silk robe, swirling a glass of French wine. The massive TV screen in front of her replayed the footage of Tae-min and Emma's exit from the conference over and over.
Mizuki laughed—a resonant, dark laugh of triumph. She picked up her phone and answered an incoming call.
"You did well, reporter," Mizuki said, sipping from her glass. "We've sown the seeds of doubt. Tae-min is a man of sick pride; he will never forgive her, even if she's innocent."
"And the next step, ma'am?" the gravelly voice asked from the other end.
Mizuki smiled, tracing her red-painted nails along the rim of the glass. "Yura is playing her own game to isolate Tae-min from everyone, but I will use the chaos to be his only refuge. Leak the second part of the file tonight. I want the whole world to know the details of Kento's crimes as a juvenile, how he collected blood-debts for Yakuza bosses. Make the story look like Emma is the mastermind gathering intel for him from wealthy hotel guests."
She hung up and looked at her reflection in the glass window. "I'll have you begging to come back to me, Tae-min, once you discover your little angel is nothing but street trash."
Abandoned Warehouse – Edogawa Industrial District, Tokyo Outskirts
The place was dark, reeking of rust and old rain. Water dripped from the decaying ceiling, hitting the concrete floor.
Kento stood in the center of the warehouse. He wasn't wearing his polished hotel suit. He wore a black leather jacket and dark trousers. His light-brown hair, usually so neat, was now a mess covering his forehead. His hazel eyes had lost all warmth, occupied by a lethal chill—the chill of a hitman accustomed to living in the shadows.
He stared at his cracked phone screen, replaying the clip of the press conference. He saw the look of terror in Emma's eyes; he saw how Tae-min had yanked her away like a piece of livestock.
The fire ignited in Kento's blood.
Behind him, three black SUVs with tinted windows pulled up. The doors opened, and ten men in identical black suits stepped out. Their features were harsh; some bore tattoos that started at their necks and vanished beneath their shirts.
An old man, walking with an intricately carved wooden cane, stepped forward and stood before Kento. The ten men bowed ninety degrees in terrifying respect.
"It has been five years, Kento..." the old man said in a voice as raspy as dry leaves. "Five years since you turned your back on the Family and tried to live as a pathetic civilian."
Kento didn't turn around. He continued to stare at the image of the sobbing Emma on the screen.
"I tried to be a good person, Oyaji," Kento whispered in a low, lethal voice devoid of emotion. "I tried to build a clean life so I could stand beside her without staining her with my blood."
Kento crushed the phone in his hand until the screen shattered completely, a drop of blood falling from his palm onto the concrete.
He turned slowly toward the old man and the mobsters. His features had completely transformed; he was no longer Kento the gentle manager. He had returned to being Kento Sasaki, the blood-stained heir to the Shadow Syndicate.
"But the light brought her nothing but pain and monsters in expensive suits," Kento said, taking a step toward the old man, his eyes burning with a dark madness. "They exposed my past and pinned a crime on her she didn't commit. They want to play in the mud? Fine."
Kento raised his hand and, in an involuntary motion, touched his lips, remembering the taste of Emma that Tae-min had stolen.
"I want your men, Oyaji," Kento said in a commanding, firm, and final tone. "I want to breach Tae-min's agency security. I want to destroy Mizuki's reputation and everyone behind that file. And above all else..."
Kento flashed a cold, terrifying smile.
"...I am taking Emma back. I will rip her from his arms even if I have to drown that glass palace in a sea of blood. Tonight, I'm not playing the noble manager... I'm playing the monster she deserves."
While plans of destruction were being woven in the dark and plots were spun in luxury apartments, Emma—in that locked room—writhed under Tae-min's searing touch, silently building a wall of ice around her heart, planning the first step of her escape from the battlefield that her body and life had become.