The following morning, the air in the penthouse was heavy and velvety.
Emma woke to a familiar, unsettling sensation. She was lying on her stomach, and Tae-min's hot lips were planting a slow, rhythmic trail of wet kisses along her spine, descending from the nape of her neck to the small of her back. Every kiss was accompanied by the rough, possessive glide of his fingers over her curves beneath the silk sheets.
Her body flinched slightly with every touch. Tae-min smiled in the dark, believing these tremors were a response to his skill in arousing her. He didn't know that beneath this placid mask, Emma's mind was working like a cold calculator.
(The first tremor: suppressing an urge to scream. The second: an attempt to regulate my breathing. The third: distracting my mind by focusing on the security keypad next to the bed.)
From beneath her half-closed lashes, Emma had watched the numbers Tae-min pressed the night before to lock the room: [6-8-9-0]. She seared the code into her memory like a lifeline.
"Good morning, my desecrated angel," Tae-min whispered in a husky voice, sliding his massive frame to lie beside her. He pulled her hard onto her back and immediately moved to tower over her.
He was entirely naked, the heat of his skin searing her. He leaned down to capture her lips in a hungry morning kiss, pushing his knee between her legs to part them, grinding against her with the bold entitlement of a male claiming his rights.
Emma swallowed her revulsion and raised her hands to thread her fingers through his thick hair, feigning submission. She slowly arched her back toward him—a motion that made him let out a deep moan of satisfaction—while inside, she repeated her silent mantra: (I am not here. This is just a body. My soul is very far away.)
Suddenly, this feverish entanglement was interrupted by the shrill ringing of Tae-min's work phone.
He let out a frustrated huff and pulled away with difficulty, snatching the phone from the nightstand. "What is it, Yura? I told you not to let anyone disturb me!" he roared into the receiver.
Emma sat up, pulling the silk sheet to cover her bare chest, watching his expression.
Tae-min went silent as he listened to Yura. Slowly, the rage vanished from his face, replaced by shock, then a dark relief, and finally... a searing regret.
He hung up and looked at Emma. His obsidian eyes shimmered with a complex emotion she had never seen before.
"The truth has come out," Tae-min said in a low voice, approaching her slowly, as if nearing a wild animal he feared to startle. "Yura released a statement minutes ago. The reporter who attacked you at the conference confessed in a leaked video that he was bribed by... Mizuki."
Emma's eyes widened. Mizuki? The reporter hadn't mentioned her name yesterday. She realized instantly that this was Kento's work. Kento had followed through on his threat, forcing Yura to throw Mizuki under the bus to exonerate Emma.
"They framed you, Emma," Tae-min sat on the edge of the bed, reaching out a large hand to stroke her blonde locks with an uncharacteristic tenderness. "They wanted to destroy me by tarnishing you. And I... I was the stupid bastard who doubted you."
This wasn't a standard apology. It was the voice of an obsessive man realizing his jewel had been pure all along, his eyes having been blinded by jealousy.
Tae-min lunged toward her, not just embracing her, but burying his face in her neck, his arms coiling around her with a force that nearly cracked her ribs. "I'm sorry... I swear I'll crush anyone who tried to hurt you. You're mine, Emma, and I won't let any filth from this world touch you ever again."
He began to shower her neck, shoulders, and chest with hot, dewy, intensely intimate kisses. These weren't the violent kisses of lust from the day before; these were offerings. He was worshipping her body, begging for her forgiveness through his touch. His hands slid over her with a suffocating gentleness, caressing every inch of her, teasing her with such agonizing slowness and depth that her cells ignited despite herself.
The problem was that this sudden tenderness, this emotional possessiveness, was more terrifying to Emma than his violence.
(He isn't apologizing; he's binding me with chains of guilt and responsibility,) Emma thought, closing her eyes and letting a single tear—which he interpreted as a sign of being moved—slide down her cheek. (He thinks I am his now more than ever. We've merged into a bloody play with no exit.)
Simultaneously – Street in front of Star-Corp
The press swarmed like flies around a red sports car. Mizuki stepped out, her face pale as death, her sunglasses unable to hide her terror.
"Mizuki-san! Did you really pay a bribe to tarnish Tae-min's girlfriend?!" "Will you be investigated for criminal defamation?!"
Mizuki pushed through the reporters hysterically, trying to enter the building. She had woken up to find herself a pariah, her endorsement contracts being cancelled one after another. Yura had sacrificed her ruthlessly to save the agency... and to save her own neck from Kento's blade.
In the corner of the opposite street, a black SUV sat quietly. Behind the tinted glass, Kento watched Mizuki's collapse with an icy detachment.
"The first part is complete, Sasaki-sama," the driver said—one of the Family's loyal mobsters. "Yura cleaned the girl's name as ordered."
"This is only the beginning," Kento muttered, his hazel eyes fixed on the top of the skyscraper where the penthouse sat. "Tae-min thinks the storm has passed. He doesn't know that I have planted death in the very heart of his home."
Afternoon – The Penthouse
Emma stood in the massive walk-in closet, wearing a black silk robe belonging to Tae-min. He had left her for a moment to take emergency calls with lawyers to legally dismantle Mizuki.
She was browsing the luxury dresses the agency had sent over that morning, trying to distract herself from the anxiety gnawing at her stomach.
A strange blue velvet box caught her eye, tucked carefully between shoe boxes. It bore no brand logo.
She glanced around cautiously, then slowly reached out and opened it.
Emma's heart stopped for a beat.
Inside the box lay a single white orchid... the flower she used to place in the vase on Kento's desk at the hotel.
But that wasn't all. Beneath the flower was a magnetic hotel key card—entirely black, with a small number engraved in gold: [10:00 PM - ROOFTOP].
Beside the card was a small folded note, written in a hand she knew all too well:
"The beast cannot protect you from himself. Tonight, when he sleeps, use this card on the kitchen emergency door. It will bypass the alarm system. I am coming to take you out of this hell... my love."
Emma's hands shook violently.
Kento.
He had breached the penthouse's impregnable security! One of the servants or security guards who delivered these boxes was one of Kento's men. He had proven to her that he could reach her even in Tae-min's bed.
Terror and hope mingled in her chest. Tonight, at 10 PM, she would either run into the arms of a Yakuza killer who loved her to the point of madness, or she would be discovered and blood would be spilled in this glass palace.
"Emma?"
Tae-min's gravelly voice suddenly came from behind her.
Emma jolted. With a lightning-fast motion she didn't know she possessed, she snapped the velvet box shut and shoved it behind a pile of bags, turning to face him while trying to paint a calm smile on her trembling lips.
Tae-min stood in the doorway, his eyes burning with a dark desire and an endless hunger. He approached her slowly, his breath mingling with her pale face, utterly unaware that the girl he believed had surrendered to him was carrying a bloody ticket to escape him in her pocket.