Smoke billows over the marble floors, dense and suffocating, as flames consume the only home I ever knew.330Please respect copyright.PENANA1EHIkHleoh
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.330Please respect copyright.PENANADAIPfLgdme
There was a ripping, violent noise—like the earth tearing open at the seams.
Screams cut through the corridors.330Please respect copyright.PENANAE4PzQejO93
The ground trembles with sprinting footsteps.330Please respect copyright.PENANAjraftJXpsc
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.330Please respect copyright.PENANAxGSxB1uQSD
I have coppery taste in my mouth.330Please respect copyright.PENANA2iWNJHBCub
I do not know whose blood it is.330Please respect copyright.PENANAWfIZEIBeZN
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.330Please respect copyright.PENANAFhOoDLEu37
I do not dwell.330Please respect copyright.PENANAV2RdiRdKWL
I can't.330Please respect copyright.PENANAUp76HVJVXt
Reflecting back is slowing down, and slowing down is dying.
The villa, which was partly a palace of gilded splendor, is now a grave.330Please respect copyright.PENANA1oN2XQWikP
A tomb of shattered trust and shattered limbs.
I ought to have foreseen it.330Please respect copyright.PENANAi1Syvrjnq2
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.330Please respect copyright.PENANAc4WxaWO3fu
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.330Please respect copyright.PENANA20f3dafkCp
A party thrown in our honor, they said.330Please respect copyright.PENANAHdiWKCpCSO
The sign of peace, they asserted.
I recall the wine that they pressed gently into my hands.330Please respect copyright.PENANAvIgqaX72iX
The laughter that felt wrong in my mouth.330Please respect copyright.PENANAmDfqgcDTg6
The lights blurred together, the world tilting askew beneath my feet.
Then darkness.330Please respect copyright.PENANATlaN7LATBS
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.330Please respect copyright.PENANAcI4L269Ri8
A warning.
Even today, my body still remembers what my mind is attempting to forget.330Please respect copyright.PENANA1lu6Dwp0R2
The sensation of helplessness.330Please respect copyright.PENANAvZjcdhkRLA
The taste of betrayal.330Please respect copyright.PENANA070NGvBMcL
The manner in which the room whirled and my voice cracked when I attempted to scream.
They broke into everything that evening.330Please respect copyright.PENANALdXWAlIPa2
My innocence.330Please respect copyright.PENANAaR6Om2aYoY
My trust.330Please respect copyright.PENANAtId3B8LqAG
My future.
And yet, inexplicably, they still weren’t completed
The following day, they returned to get the rest of us.330Please respect copyright.PENANAj9WAMwgITE
My father.330Please respect copyright.PENANAVOf5ouMvR8
My mum.330Please respect copyright.PENANApkADRoQcef
Our dedicated guards.330Please respect copyright.PENANAhCWM4E3ltJ
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.330Please respect copyright.PENANAeyz5Jkh7Em
His dreams-filled, foolishly shining eyes were already empty when he fell to the ground.
There just wasn’t time to grieve.330Please respect copyright.PENANAY3npxRMm4V
I didn't even have time to breathe.
I sprinted until my lungs hemorrhaged.330Please respect copyright.PENANARfU4gg17B1
I sprinted along back streets and muddy side streets, in my bare feet, shaking, with blood and smoke trailing after me.330Please respect copyright.PENANAZRjJplzwJB
I ran because survival became my sole act of rebellion.
And somehow, I managed.
Survival, however, wasn't freedom330Please respect copyright.PENANAfDvFuOssbN
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.330Please respect copyright.PENANAVA19hKGJ71
She served as reminder.330Please respect copyright.PENANAJMQtVVu303
A reminder of all that I lost and all that would forever elude me.
I disliked her at first.330Please respect copyright.PENANAkKojzCHLLp
I resented the transformation my body underwent, how the world treated me as pitiful, broken, damaged.330Please respect copyright.PENANAESPRcr7AP4
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.330Please respect copyright.PENANAy7omkJabTb
An old, withered, and just barely alive
An unsafe item.330Please respect copyright.PENANAAZTTfSG0s2
But all the same, mine.
I named her Yuna.
Because she was proof that even among the ruins, there was still something alive.330Please respect copyright.PENANAlbpu98D8qJ
Because she was mine.330Please respect copyright.PENANAoSMZ834UDh
Because I would not let the Lees take anything else.
I created a new lifestyle in obscurity.330Please respect copyright.PENANAjQv1XbbJkI
No longer marble villas.330Please respect copyright.PENANAoIUK1gQOiE
No more silken gowns and crystal chandeliers.
Now, my realm was neon-lit backrooms, grimy apartments, forgotten Internet cafes.330Please respect copyright.PENANAzcgu6I53tN
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.330Please respect copyright.PENANAb33iqmfwoP
They shaped me into something more deadly than their finest assassins.330Please respect copyright.PENANADF2lRj7MF2
Colder than their best enforcers.
Every pilfered account, each leaked secret, each overthrown competitor—I did them all with one purpose in mind:330Please respect copyright.PENANAt6VszRwfjk
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.330Please respect copyright.PENANAJglbME5GRy
But now, I am not the same girl he harmed.330Please respect copyright.PENANAW7IWyq49jx
I am somebody else now.330Please respect copyright.PENANAbPci1eRcRH
Worse still.330Please respect copyright.PENANACI7NyjVUJJ
I will soon enter his world.330Please respect copyright.PENANAl318cqYoQ6
Sink into his pores.330Please respect copyright.PENANAoGT7pWREmW
Smile when he does.330Please respect copyright.PENANAUxNeZyUEV3
Lie when he does.330Please respect copyright.PENANA8y3d9ysoCg
Bleed him out from the inside.330Please respect copyright.PENANAAOTPY8WUd2
I would destroy all that he holds dear.330Please respect copyright.PENANAg8LYJs5CY7
I shall make him witness as the empire which he perceives as impregnable goes up in flames around him.330Please respect copyright.PENANAZaPkdmWULP
And when there's nothing left—330Please respect copyright.PENANAvJAM8QlT38
When the black smoke ascends into the heavens—330Please respect copyright.PENANAa3QmPkxr2O
Finally, when he gazes into my eyes and notices the girl he believed he shattered—330Please respect copyright.PENANA9K8btbNJUM
It will already be too late.330Please respect copyright.PENANAgna6Vp25Kf
For justice is coming.330Please respect copyright.PENANAR4XvJiJ7uG
It covers my face.330Please respect copyright.PENANAC9Tc7trbkD
It courses through my veins.330Please respect copyright.PENANAiEEUKiBhIb
It pulses in my daughter's little heart each time that she smiles at me.330Please respect copyright.PENANAcxKUGJGyaH
The Lee family believes they have put the past behind them.330Please respect copyright.PENANAb50PXwtMcU
That the ghosts of their wrongdoings have long disappeared into dust.
They are mistaken.
I am the ghost who failed to stay.330Please respect copyright.PENANAuXGa6U8zSy
I am the tempest unfolding over their idyllic skyline.330Please respect copyright.PENANAmxBkP84bag
I am the reckoning they never thought would happen.
And when I attack, it shall be a merciless, lovely devastation.330Please respect copyright.PENANARDFkkYzQwu
Symphony of revenge created from all the broken fragments they left behind.
They stole all my possessions once.330Please respect copyright.PENANADp5qePFckA
I will take everything they have this time.330Please respect copyright.PENANAsQifWzEPz2
Piece by bloody piece.