Smoke billows over the marble floors, dense and suffocating, as flames consume the only home I ever knew.393Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbrOa3RZXal
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.393Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYzYKky5YpH
There was a ripping, violent noise—like the earth tearing open at the seams.
Screams cut through the corridors.393Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYIqHec8rCB
The ground trembles with sprinting footsteps.393Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡznPCkR3oSY
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.393Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqgniwMAeNO
I have coppery taste in my mouth.393Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcG53lynWLM
I do not know whose blood it is.393Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuNfD55lE0J
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.393Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFgAtdcpVsi
I do not dwell.393Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNPV0jSBf0n
I can't.393Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsJdcrz2OPY
Reflecting back is slowing down, and slowing down is dying.
The villa, which was partly a palace of gilded splendor, is now a grave.393Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡH7PHngUK2Y
A tomb of shattered trust and shattered limbs.
I ought to have foreseen it.393Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡm3SIAtUmBG
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.393Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaFNyit0ROH
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.393Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbj6Sf9kDDg
A party thrown in our honor, they said.393Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYILnKoF8Gf
The sign of peace, they asserted.
I recall the wine that they pressed gently into my hands.393Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLK5wBiIMPW
The laughter that felt wrong in my mouth.393Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmFnhrmAUW3
The lights blurred together, the world tilting askew beneath my feet.
Then darkness.393Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡviLXdLYfDf
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.393Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡww9MtXhtyC
A warning.
Even today, my body still remembers what my mind is attempting to forget.393Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡikwqvdj0sk
The sensation of helplessness.393Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfDhhmnDssm
The taste of betrayal.393Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡe7YWndkruE
The manner in which the room whirled and my voice cracked when I attempted to scream.
They broke into everything that evening.393Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmVMCQC54Lu
My innocence.393Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡi8D6B5196P
My trust.393Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrw3r7yV7gs
My future.
And yet, inexplicably, they still weren’t completed
The following day, they returned to get the rest of us.393Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡnYXoMUeyiw
My father.393Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡU2AxwJZoeq
My mum.393Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZRhPzYaeAf
Our dedicated guards.393Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡq7Vvgo0hPx
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.393Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZ0Hd6nbZR7
His dreams-filled, foolishly shining eyes were already empty when he fell to the ground.
There just wasn’t time to grieve.393Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsA6DBIALyc
I didn't even have time to breathe.
I sprinted until my lungs hemorrhaged.393Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6rdPXa72lS
I sprinted along back streets and muddy side streets, in my bare feet, shaking, with blood and smoke trailing after me.393Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmTjLXInlXg
I ran because survival became my sole act of rebellion.
And somehow, I managed.
Survival, however, wasn't freedom393Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKTxQ6ZyO3V
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.393Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7tvjEAzQBF
She served as reminder.393Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ76XfpL4zT5
A reminder of all that I lost and all that would forever elude me.
I disliked her at first.393Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡU2fXx45Pno
I resented the transformation my body underwent, how the world treated me as pitiful, broken, damaged.393Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuWOl47SXYi
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.393Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5nKo69Uzdt
An old, withered, and just barely alive
An unsafe item.393Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqUfoE1KZ9t
But all the same, mine.
I named her Yuna.
Because she was proof that even among the ruins, there was still something alive.393Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡp7uq5KPSI9
Because she was mine.393Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaVzIXYaAUJ
Because I would not let the Lees take anything else.
I created a new lifestyle in obscurity.393Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJIhCZN2aYD
No longer marble villas.393Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXnkKyGbmNV
No more silken gowns and crystal chandeliers.
Now, my realm was neon-lit backrooms, grimy apartments, forgotten Internet cafes.393Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVMKRn98IPP
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.393Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHHyAk5OZ1r
They shaped me into something more deadly than their finest assassins.393Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaqJIuBbL7j
Colder than their best enforcers.
Every pilfered account, each leaked secret, each overthrown competitor—I did them all with one purpose in mind:393Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡv33S6nC7qU
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.393Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQQ8CcMH7K0
But now, I am not the same girl he harmed.393Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6a45IOtcDX
I am somebody else now.393Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7vzJgjDb3S
Worse still.393Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡB7a6OhtKHu
I will soon enter his world.393Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8toF3vCQXU
Sink into his pores.393Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ19oBpGQIsz
Smile when he does.393Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpcbCwwZfgg
Lie when he does.393Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfvTQgDOfRR
Bleed him out from the inside.393Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcdbYPuxZcc
I would destroy all that he holds dear.393Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡg0QcT7y2em
I shall make him witness as the empire which he perceives as impregnable goes up in flames around him.393Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNSh8VMLon8
And when there's nothing left—393Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAwU4Au5j8o
When the black smoke ascends into the heavens—393Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpOqbbXm6dK
Finally, when he gazes into my eyes and notices the girl he believed he shattered—393Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXNtxcGt2T5
It will already be too late.393Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlFhR0GV3zt
For justice is coming.393Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHoY5hD4Fsy
It covers my face.393Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsaZVWrCDHx
It courses through my veins.393Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡolspESPIeZ
It pulses in my daughter's little heart each time that she smiles at me.393Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWtMdqXLDXF
The Lee family believes they have put the past behind them.393Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmgIlXVexyb
That the ghosts of their wrongdoings have long disappeared into dust.
They are mistaken.
I am the ghost who failed to stay.393Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIq6hsXOT2l
I am the tempest unfolding over their idyllic skyline.393Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxNoYeVFYDE
I am the reckoning they never thought would happen.
And when I attack, it shall be a merciless, lovely devastation.393Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzcWGJTOhxK
Symphony of revenge created from all the broken fragments they left behind.
They stole all my possessions once.393Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtvh9g7kiw4
I will take everything they have this time.393Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPCO5T9UhR8
Piece by bloody piece.
