BAM! BAM! CRASH!
The steel door began to buckle under Tae-min's hysterical blows. His voice, shredded by rage and jealousy, echoed through the narrow stairwell like the roar of a wounded lion.
"What a stupid CEO," Kento whispered coldly, his hazel eyes scanning the reinforced glass wall at the end of the landing, which overlooked a terrifying forty-story drop. "She thinks steel doors can stop the Yakuza."
Kento returned his pistol to his waistband. With a swift, professional motion, he pulled a small metallic canister the size of a palm from his inner jacket pocket and pressed it against the corner of the reinforced glass.
"Emma, come here." Kento yanked her hard, shielding her entirely behind his broad chest and covering her head with his hands. "Plug your ears, and do not open your eyes no matter what happens."
BAM! One of the steel door's hinges snapped.
"Emma! I'll kill him! I swear I'll kill him!" Tae-min screamed from the other side, the door on the verge of collapsing.
Kento pressed a small button on a remote.
BOOM!
A muffled but incredibly powerful, shaped charge shattered the bulletproof glass into millions of crystalline shards that scattered into the rainy Tokyo air. A gale of freezing wind and rain rushed into the stairwell.
At the exact moment the steel door finally gave way and Tae-min burst in, gasping, clutching a heavy bronze statue with eyes burning in blind madness—Kento had already snatched a zip-line pulley from a hidden bag in the ceiling, looping it around his waist and Emma's.
Tae-min's eyes met Emma's for a single second. A second where time froze.
Tae-min stood amidst the wreckage, his chest heaving, and a look of genuine terror—the terror of loss—broke the mask of his ego for the first time. "Emma... NO!" he screamed with a shattered heart, reaching out his hand toward her.
But Kento flashed a lethal, cold smile and embraced Emma with crushing force.
"Goodbye, you fake star," Kento whispered. He threw his body and Emma's together into the void... out of the skyscraper.
Emma shrieked hysterically as the rain lashed her face, her stomach turning as they plummeted into the abyss, but Kento's arms were coiled around her like a shield of iron. They descended with terrifying speed along the metal wire pre-rigged to a nearby, lower commercial building.
They slammed onto the rooftop of the other building with enough force to knock the wind out of them, rolling across the wet surface. Kento surged to his feet instantly, ignoring his own pain to drag her toward the open rooftop door where his men were waiting.
Behind them, high in the penthouse, Tae-min knelt at the edge of the shattered window, pounding the floor with his bare fists until they bled, his scream echoing through the Tokyo sky like a beast whose beating heart had been ripped out.
Two Hours Later – Traditional House (Yakuza Safehouse), Okutama Mountains
Rain lashed the wooden eaves of the isolated house.
In the vast room lit by dim lanterns and furnished with tatami mats, Emma was shivering from the cold and the shock. Her black clothes clung to her sculpted frame, soaked through by the storm.
Kento entered the room. He was no longer wearing his leather jacket. He was bare-chested. And for the first time, Emma saw the truth of him.
His back, chest, and arms were entirely covered in vibrant, terrifying Yakuza tattoos—the Irezumi. A massive Japanese dragon coiled around his torso, with sakura blossoms scattered among old scars from blade thrusts and bullet wounds. This was not "Kento the gentle manager." This was Sasaki, the Prince of the Underworld.
Kento brought warm towels and knelt before her in silence.
He began to pat her damp hair with a tenderness that stood in stark contrast to his savage appearance. His hazel eyes overflowed with a hungry affection, gazing at her pale face as if seeing her for the first time.
"The nightmare is over, Emma," Kento whispered, his hands sliding from the towel to rest on her waist. "That narcissist and his agency won't be able to reach you here."
His touch was warm, but it was heavy. Heavy with the possessiveness of a man who had just killed for her.
Slowly, with a move of extreme intimacy and boldness, Kento slid his rough fingers beneath the collar of her wet jacket. "You need to get out of these cold clothes..." he whispered, his hot breath hitting her shivering skin.
Emma didn't wait. She needed to play along, needed to feel a facade of safety. She arched her back to allow him to peel away her jacket. As her heaving chest—covered only by a wet black bra—was exposed, a low, dark groan escaped Kento's throat.
He could no longer control himself. The hunger he had repressed for months while watching her at the hotel, and the jealousy that had nearly incinerated him as he imagined her in Tae-min's arms, exploded now.
He lunged at her, wrapping his tattooed arms around her pure white body, yanking her flush against his bare chest. He devoured her lips in a crushing, deep, wet kiss. It wasn't a kiss of punishment like Tae-min's; it was a kiss of worship, the kiss of a man tasting the water of life after years in the desert.
"Emma... My God... Emma..." he whispered her name between feverish kisses like a magical incantation.
His hands slid with a mature boldness to grip her backside with crushing force, lifting her slightly to seat her on his solid, heavily aroused thigh. He began to plant searing, wet kisses on her neck, then descended to capture her hardened peak through the wet fabric, sucking with a greed that sent electricity racing to her lower abdomen.
Emma responded physically. She panted, her fingers digging into the dragon tattoos on his back, her body melting under this storm of savage tenderness.
But... in the dark depths of her mind, the cold calculator was running.
(He worships me,) Emma thought, writhing beneath him with a genuine pleasure that confused her. (But he worships me as a goddess in his own private temple. This place isn't a sanctuary... it's another cage. I've traded silk sheets in a skyscraper for tatami mats amidst Yakuza killers. I am still a hostage.)
Beneath his touches, which pierced every physical defense she had, Emma realized a terrifying truth: the real escape hadn't even begun.
The Following Morning – Star-Corp Entertainment Agency
Tae-min sat in Yura's office, but he was not the polished star. He looked like a ghost. Dark circles hollowed his eyes, his shirt was torn, and his hands were wrapped in white bandages through which red bloodstains seeped.
The monitors in the office displayed an unprecedented media catastrophe.
"Rin Tae-min's contracts with three global brands cancelled following Mizuki's confirmation and Yakuza scandal!"
"Star-Corp stock plummets to ten-year low!"
"Is the legend of Asia's Top Star over?"
Yura stood by the window, smoking an e-cigarette with clinical detachment.
"We lost half the sponsors in a single night," Yura said without turning around. "Mizuki destroyed your image, and the girl's disappearance with a gang leader makes you look like a deceived fool. The police are intervening covertly, and the Industry Ethics Committee issued a decision this morning."
Yura turned to look into his dead eyes.
"All your artistic activities have been frozen indefinitely. Your new series has stopped production. Your album is delayed. You are banned from media appearances, and you are banned from leaving your home without my permission."
"I don't give a damn about any of that!" Tae-min roared, slamming his bandaged fist onto the desk until the glass cracked. "Where is she?! I want to know where that scum took her! I'll gather men and burn the mountains of Tokyo until I find her!"
"And if you find her? What then?" Yura shouted with a harshness that slapped his ego. "Will you face the Yakuza with your bare hands? Will you drag the girl into a bloody massacre and die with her?"
Yura stepped closer, leaning over his desk, her gaze dripping with pure malice.
"Listen to me carefully, Tae-min. Kento isn't just a hotel manager. He's the son of the 'Kanto Dragon Boss.' If you go near him now, while you are weak and an outcast, he will crush you like a bug, and Emma will be his forever."
Tae-min's eyes widened, his heart constricting with a savage pain that surpassed the agony in his broken hands. The thought of Emma in that man's arms—of Kento's hands touching the skin where he had imprinted his ownership just yesterday—burned his soul with acid.
"What do I do then?" Tae-min whispered in a broken voice. For the first time in his life, absolute weakness and despair appeared in his eyes. The arrogant star was ready to kneel.
Yura flashed a diabolical smile—the smile that creates monsters.
"If you want to reclaim her from the Prince of Darkness... you must become the Absolute King of Light," Yura said slowly. "You have to return to the top. Accept all my terms. We will wipe away these scandals. You will smile for the cameras; you will work like a machine that knows no sleep to regain your influence and wealth. When you become powerful enough to buy the police and the politicians... only then can you crush the Yakuza and rip your girl from their claws."
Tae-min went silent. He looked at his bandaged hands. The blood spilled for Emma.
(Kento...) Tae-min hissed in his mind, his sick masculine ego mingling with a black, inescapable obsession. (Touch her as much as you want for now. Enjoy your time in the dark. Because I will return... and I will turn your life and hers into hell if she doesn't kneel at my feet again.)
"Agreed," Tae-min said in an icy voice. "Make me a god, Yura. Because I'm going to need the power of a god to destroy them all."