Smoke billows over the marble floors, dense and suffocating, as flames consume the only home I ever knew.331Please respect copyright.PENANA6madxWbRXq
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.331Please respect copyright.PENANA5xvVI7CBzK
There was a ripping, violent noise—like the earth tearing open at the seams.
Screams cut through the corridors.331Please respect copyright.PENANAynKqVlx9kA
The ground trembles with sprinting footsteps.331Please respect copyright.PENANAv1AzaaHHqC
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.331Please respect copyright.PENANAZM9odkcbvg
I have coppery taste in my mouth.331Please respect copyright.PENANAmbHHcbwmVH
I do not know whose blood it is.331Please respect copyright.PENANAkYZwCOMJbO
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.331Please respect copyright.PENANAyKXZIScWSU
I do not dwell.331Please respect copyright.PENANAeSVm0B5ixK
I can't.331Please respect copyright.PENANAB6fjuKeCOV
Reflecting back is slowing down, and slowing down is dying.
The villa, which was partly a palace of gilded splendor, is now a grave.331Please respect copyright.PENANAS8AlTMvIVJ
A tomb of shattered trust and shattered limbs.
I ought to have foreseen it.331Please respect copyright.PENANAwPrCr02rEr
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.331Please respect copyright.PENANAT79v4nUYv3
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.331Please respect copyright.PENANAstc4AcSZBz
A party thrown in our honor, they said.331Please respect copyright.PENANA4PGbODoXQl
The sign of peace, they asserted.
I recall the wine that they pressed gently into my hands.331Please respect copyright.PENANASlC1MrZNYL
The laughter that felt wrong in my mouth.331Please respect copyright.PENANAJtbf0redE2
The lights blurred together, the world tilting askew beneath my feet.
Then darkness.331Please respect copyright.PENANAEP38JqCSat
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.331Please respect copyright.PENANAUAWT8FY3A6
A warning.
Even today, my body still remembers what my mind is attempting to forget.331Please respect copyright.PENANAkHyKC9y9uV
The sensation of helplessness.331Please respect copyright.PENANAahyHLEPaMx
The taste of betrayal.331Please respect copyright.PENANALL40pNPOco
The manner in which the room whirled and my voice cracked when I attempted to scream.
They broke into everything that evening.331Please respect copyright.PENANAXIDVDPALzw
My innocence.331Please respect copyright.PENANA2XKzcnZVKg
My trust.331Please respect copyright.PENANA2eafqLWG23
My future.
And yet, inexplicably, they still weren’t completed
The following day, they returned to get the rest of us.331Please respect copyright.PENANAcU0ZP16Jrg
My father.331Please respect copyright.PENANAe7swKEBSh2
My mum.331Please respect copyright.PENANAwvEksp57Ze
Our dedicated guards.331Please respect copyright.PENANATVINBE4o21
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.331Please respect copyright.PENANA3F07umWW11
His dreams-filled, foolishly shining eyes were already empty when he fell to the ground.
There just wasn’t time to grieve.331Please respect copyright.PENANArBKmNi4ZwL
I didn't even have time to breathe.
I sprinted until my lungs hemorrhaged.331Please respect copyright.PENANA1p9JsrlRzo
I sprinted along back streets and muddy side streets, in my bare feet, shaking, with blood and smoke trailing after me.331Please respect copyright.PENANAljqs4CCCMd
I ran because survival became my sole act of rebellion.
And somehow, I managed.
Survival, however, wasn't freedom331Please respect copyright.PENANA9HiUbD2gVd
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.331Please respect copyright.PENANA1t9rapWZwo
She served as reminder.331Please respect copyright.PENANA7HNj58hRMq
A reminder of all that I lost and all that would forever elude me.
I disliked her at first.331Please respect copyright.PENANAqCHqaOvMex
I resented the transformation my body underwent, how the world treated me as pitiful, broken, damaged.331Please respect copyright.PENANAHSEzkynpKx
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.331Please respect copyright.PENANAswo00yMoqq
An old, withered, and just barely alive
An unsafe item.331Please respect copyright.PENANAlYWjYe2bOO
But all the same, mine.
I named her Yuna.
Because she was proof that even among the ruins, there was still something alive.331Please respect copyright.PENANAoFnu13yWGU
Because she was mine.331Please respect copyright.PENANA7gWRrjmkOl
Because I would not let the Lees take anything else.
I created a new lifestyle in obscurity.331Please respect copyright.PENANAbsRQPCkE80
No longer marble villas.331Please respect copyright.PENANAhgysUTKqB7
No more silken gowns and crystal chandeliers.
Now, my realm was neon-lit backrooms, grimy apartments, forgotten Internet cafes.331Please respect copyright.PENANASqrAS7MNKj
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.331Please respect copyright.PENANAsg0MYaJuYo
They shaped me into something more deadly than their finest assassins.331Please respect copyright.PENANAGuq51ep7io
Colder than their best enforcers.
Every pilfered account, each leaked secret, each overthrown competitor—I did them all with one purpose in mind:331Please respect copyright.PENANAtC4Wk1KGfD
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.331Please respect copyright.PENANAEuK5rfmp0W
But now, I am not the same girl he harmed.331Please respect copyright.PENANAYp2RurTTP1
I am somebody else now.331Please respect copyright.PENANACO676v6Dsv
Worse still.331Please respect copyright.PENANAgNfaulyJ9V
I will soon enter his world.331Please respect copyright.PENANAHkqR8yuvTw
Sink into his pores.331Please respect copyright.PENANAzDuhImkqJF
Smile when he does.331Please respect copyright.PENANAD454r0eqvi
Lie when he does.331Please respect copyright.PENANAZXvPZf7FWQ
Bleed him out from the inside.331Please respect copyright.PENANA0JyvB3MgTI
I would destroy all that he holds dear.331Please respect copyright.PENANA3bsb9ANa3w
I shall make him witness as the empire which he perceives as impregnable goes up in flames around him.331Please respect copyright.PENANAAwZVHXtY06
And when there's nothing left—331Please respect copyright.PENANAbtX707YaKw
When the black smoke ascends into the heavens—331Please respect copyright.PENANAA9H98TbgvV
Finally, when he gazes into my eyes and notices the girl he believed he shattered—331Please respect copyright.PENANANCDMsV9Jyo
It will already be too late.331Please respect copyright.PENANAPviHwYIPZq
For justice is coming.331Please respect copyright.PENANAlFJfz9Ij3a
It covers my face.331Please respect copyright.PENANAGQfn5voufN
It courses through my veins.331Please respect copyright.PENANALPE5PZkU09
It pulses in my daughter's little heart each time that she smiles at me.331Please respect copyright.PENANAV2eiwr8IjH
The Lee family believes they have put the past behind them.331Please respect copyright.PENANAPwAicoBALX
That the ghosts of their wrongdoings have long disappeared into dust.
They are mistaken.
I am the ghost who failed to stay.331Please respect copyright.PENANAz06yBkpAAU
I am the tempest unfolding over their idyllic skyline.331Please respect copyright.PENANA9YF9ud70To
I am the reckoning they never thought would happen.
And when I attack, it shall be a merciless, lovely devastation.331Please respect copyright.PENANAL8dI1eSSNE
Symphony of revenge created from all the broken fragments they left behind.
They stole all my possessions once.331Please respect copyright.PENANAeUAR8psLMt
I will take everything they have this time.331Please respect copyright.PENANAaM7bCLeGDT
Piece by bloody piece.