Smoke billows over the marble floors, dense and suffocating, as flames consume the only home I ever knew.262Please respect copyright.PENANAZDZAnPz8Pz
The walls strain with the heat. Flickering shadows assume grotesque shapes, engulfing the gold-leaf ceilings and the gleaming chandeliers.
I always hear the shots first before noticing the blood.262Please respect copyright.PENANADes0aHAr6U
There was a ripping, violent noise—like the earth tearing open at the seams.
Screams cut through the corridors.262Please respect copyright.PENANAn0bi1hUgTQ
The ground trembles with sprinting footsteps.262Please respect copyright.PENANAHaO0HeFjRk
In the distance, there is the shattering of a glass vase sounding like a gunshot.
My heart is pounding so quickly it feels like it's about to burst.262Please respect copyright.PENANA1WcKnvuYPs
I have coppery taste in my mouth.262Please respect copyright.PENANAv2IjuRyotM
I do not know whose blood it is.262Please respect copyright.PENANA7dD1vfFoU5
I don’t even know if it’s mine.
That's all I know, that I need to run.
I sprint through the smoke-filled hallways, my bare feet skidding across the cold, slick marble wet with some dark liquid.262Please respect copyright.PENANAjsHYu7qwZ1
I do not dwell.262Please respect copyright.PENANANs1o2rOk1r
I can't.262Please respect copyright.PENANAi0beuOtTKW
Reflecting back is slowing down, and slowing down is dying.
The villa, which was partly a palace of gilded splendor, is now a grave.262Please respect copyright.PENANA3n8V5a48sl
A tomb of shattered trust and shattered limbs.
I ought to have foreseen it.262Please respect copyright.PENANAIafejD7Ko9
I would have known.
But at that time, I still held onto things such as loyalty.
Vows exchanged over flasks of aged whiskey and hushed offers in mahogany-lined back rooms.
I didn’t realize in my father's chosen world loyalty existed as just another blade—double-edged, ever so cutting.
It wasn't the shooting that broke me.262Please respect copyright.PENANAUyr98Q7vw5
It wasn't the massacre that made me into a ghost.
It was the evening before.
The evening when I was tricked into an ambush disguised as a party.262Please respect copyright.PENANAjUFblsuNds
A party thrown in our honor, they said.262Please respect copyright.PENANAn2tWwBIOlj
The sign of peace, they asserted.
I recall the wine that they pressed gently into my hands.262Please respect copyright.PENANAF3Ht7ThBX4
The laughter that felt wrong in my mouth.262Please respect copyright.PENANAQbO40vR0Z0
The lights blurred together, the world tilting askew beneath my feet.
Then darkness.262Please respect copyright.PENANAqPXKtjMFZv
I slept like a drugged person, incredibly deep, unable to struggle free even though I struggled with all my might.
And when I woke—
The Lee heir's soft, low, and deadly voice, whispering it hadn't been personal.
I was simply a lesson.262Please respect copyright.PENANAtcE0Is2Fms
A warning.
Even today, my body still remembers what my mind is attempting to forget.262Please respect copyright.PENANAX8a2jraz8F
The sensation of helplessness.262Please respect copyright.PENANAHm9GvuDMOP
The taste of betrayal.262Please respect copyright.PENANAReeRtOmHW1
The manner in which the room whirled and my voice cracked when I attempted to scream.
They broke into everything that evening.262Please respect copyright.PENANAlHLyUbhMQS
My innocence.262Please respect copyright.PENANAMh9g5MFVJe
My trust.262Please respect copyright.PENANAgUHofxTvK4
My future.
And yet, inexplicably, they still weren’t completed
The following day, they returned to get the rest of us.262Please respect copyright.PENANAJok0B6QgsU
My father.262Please respect copyright.PENANA3RqEELJssr
My mum.262Please respect copyright.PENANALjLxgk5vhE
Our dedicated guards.262Please respect copyright.PENANA8TzLuECUiX
Our friends.
All swept away in an explosion of bullets and flames.
I saw my father fall from across the marble hall, a neat hole punched through his chest.262Please respect copyright.PENANAxL3MbY6WXB
His dreams-filled, foolishly shining eyes were already empty when he fell to the ground.
There just wasn’t time to grieve.262Please respect copyright.PENANA3Dxwsb8h69
I didn't even have time to breathe.
I sprinted until my lungs hemorrhaged.262Please respect copyright.PENANAyR2UxfYcJI
I sprinted along back streets and muddy side streets, in my bare feet, shaking, with blood and smoke trailing after me.262Please respect copyright.PENANA7pyb0J63fp
I ran because survival became my sole act of rebellion.
And somehow, I managed.
Survival, however, wasn't freedom262Please respect copyright.PENANATvW7v61K5b
Not for me.
For weeks afterward, when the nightmares still lingered, carrying an almost dull, persistent throb, I discovered that I wasn’t alone.
The baby developing in my belly wasn't miraculous.262Please respect copyright.PENANA5nOEOh6yae
She served as reminder.262Please respect copyright.PENANA6AZed62OmM
A reminder of all that I lost and all that would forever elude me.
I disliked her at first.262Please respect copyright.PENANABQi5QF4Hit
I resented the transformation my body underwent, how the world treated me as pitiful, broken, damaged.262Please respect copyright.PENANAfkcUypQofX
I despised the fact that she bound me to the monsters who stole everything from me forever.
But when the baby arrived, small and perfect, with eyes too large for her delicate face, I broke.262Please respect copyright.PENANAn3ZdImEkny
An old, withered, and just barely alive
An unsafe item.262Please respect copyright.PENANAVgdgFYj7u7
But all the same, mine.
I named her Yuna.
Because she was proof that even among the ruins, there was still something alive.262Please respect copyright.PENANACpFYu2YomP
Because she was mine.262Please respect copyright.PENANAnlqxnysl7N
Because I would not let the Lees take anything else.
I created a new lifestyle in obscurity.262Please respect copyright.PENANAz2PBxuBWPI
No longer marble villas.262Please respect copyright.PENANAv5dNDExS1B
No more silken gowns and crystal chandeliers.
Now, my realm was neon-lit backrooms, grimy apartments, forgotten Internet cafes.262Please respect copyright.PENANABeczu9SpSk
My weaponry wasn't guns or knives, but my firewalls, my passwords, my lines of code more deadly than any blade.
I have trained myself to become invisible.
They schooled me in cruelty without even knowing it.262Please respect copyright.PENANAfBOTH0jvp3
They shaped me into something more deadly than their finest assassins.262Please respect copyright.PENANAYx7F7Zobwa
Colder than their best enforcers.
Every pilfered account, each leaked secret, each overthrown competitor—I did them all with one purpose in mind:262Please respect copyright.PENANAJZbDXTIwKR
To cut out a route back to them. To insert a knife under their ribs, just as they inserted one into my life.
The Lee family still dominates the underworld of South Korea—untouchable, untouchable, untouchable
They have grown even wealthier.
They spread like a virus.
Their transgressions are hidden under layers of excess and deception.
But I know that.
I know the corruption at their very center.
I know the right pressure at the right point makes their golden walls crumble.
And I'll keep pushing.
It starts with him—the heir.
Seong-jin Lee.
The lad that broke me.
The individual who stands poised to inherit all.
Eloquent. Aff
Covered in a suit and with a smile, concealing the poison beneath.262Please respect copyright.PENANAkNmqKuMhkE
But now, I am not the same girl he harmed.262Please respect copyright.PENANAFljwsGaP5E
I am somebody else now.262Please respect copyright.PENANAJ5Warv53rQ
Worse still.262Please respect copyright.PENANAxhUv9XJ0OX
I will soon enter his world.262Please respect copyright.PENANA0oyvVwP58P
Sink into his pores.262Please respect copyright.PENANAXwYv0HjlSq
Smile when he does.262Please respect copyright.PENANARDqncwPnpK
Lie when he does.262Please respect copyright.PENANA1AgclnUOr4
Bleed him out from the inside.262Please respect copyright.PENANAIjkSCtm4RM
I would destroy all that he holds dear.262Please respect copyright.PENANAIi0M0ZkqRs
I shall make him witness as the empire which he perceives as impregnable goes up in flames around him.262Please respect copyright.PENANAZTpz7Hsc3e
And when there's nothing left—262Please respect copyright.PENANAXDmZPw9wSl
When the black smoke ascends into the heavens—262Please respect copyright.PENANAL2x5Go38wv
Finally, when he gazes into my eyes and notices the girl he believed he shattered—262Please respect copyright.PENANAggVJZAFzpw
It will already be too late.262Please respect copyright.PENANA4v2Deo2C7Z
For justice is coming.262Please respect copyright.PENANA7H2dcRjZtZ
It covers my face.262Please respect copyright.PENANAA3bEhRKUM2
It courses through my veins.262Please respect copyright.PENANAnoC4A12mWj
It pulses in my daughter's little heart each time that she smiles at me.262Please respect copyright.PENANAgJ5PVkRKgQ
The Lee family believes they have put the past behind them.262Please respect copyright.PENANAXaMNlfeIoc
That the ghosts of their wrongdoings have long disappeared into dust.
They are mistaken.
I am the ghost who failed to stay.262Please respect copyright.PENANAp3Yd3EXYuj
I am the tempest unfolding over their idyllic skyline.262Please respect copyright.PENANA9D5UwmpKUn
I am the reckoning they never thought would happen.
And when I attack, it shall be a merciless, lovely devastation.262Please respect copyright.PENANAxl3BLsiXJa
Symphony of revenge created from all the broken fragments they left behind.
They stole all my possessions once.262Please respect copyright.PENANAvVMXpEb2te
I will take everything they have this time.262Please respect copyright.PENANAxAX4lVmrx5
Piece by bloody piece.