Smoke billows over the marble floors, dense and suffocating, as flames consume the only home I ever knew.309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡY77DZfTMhj
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.309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFZ7AYIKxFK
There was a ripping, violent noise—like the earth tearing open at the seams.
Screams cut through the corridors.309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2kM0Nu2WYJ
The ground trembles with sprinting footsteps.309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡORwcmSpE8T
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.309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHMFyPIbier
I have coppery taste in my mouth.309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0VlZRdzKym
I do not know whose blood it is.309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAihggwZ9dZ
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.309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ42EtDnyiIx
I do not dwell.309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNeYSH9wdWl
I can't.309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQ1dvJud7h8
Reflecting back is slowing down, and slowing down is dying.
The villa, which was partly a palace of gilded splendor, is now a grave.309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡF9nw2580DI
A tomb of shattered trust and shattered limbs.
I ought to have foreseen it.309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡGhRmVQnaxq
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.309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhSog7yd0ZF
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.309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWyOd1IRpXe
A party thrown in our honor, they said.309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9snqD7iIDS
The sign of peace, they asserted.
I recall the wine that they pressed gently into my hands.309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkqQ88lr868
The laughter that felt wrong in my mouth.309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡH3lNCkCXoO
The lights blurred together, the world tilting askew beneath my feet.
Then darkness.309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYI3JMkjsER
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.309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKqekIZcnTy
A warning.
Even today, my body still remembers what my mind is attempting to forget.309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡy1uBgpHtX7
The sensation of helplessness.309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡilfXVIUnd8
The taste of betrayal.309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5W3fNI1TLS
The manner in which the room whirled and my voice cracked when I attempted to scream.
They broke into everything that evening.309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXtMU7YbgEZ
My innocence.309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1S1n0uuRi3
My trust.309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0iypJEy27O
My future.
And yet, inexplicably, they still weren’t completed
The following day, they returned to get the rest of us.309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡr0Ao72kG7R
My father.309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡq6rxrqJkxH
My mum.309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzDvpxrm7Oc
Our dedicated guards.309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0XnOnqdwmj
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.309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDMcaZMcHg2
His dreams-filled, foolishly shining eyes were already empty when he fell to the ground.
There just wasn’t time to grieve.309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWYOLAUd3k6
I didn't even have time to breathe.
I sprinted until my lungs hemorrhaged.309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlOglliFzux
I sprinted along back streets and muddy side streets, in my bare feet, shaking, with blood and smoke trailing after me.309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOqh4BJ0LDZ
I ran because survival became my sole act of rebellion.
And somehow, I managed.
Survival, however, wasn't freedom309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIzmEkjt1V8
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.309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6oMRxR1tyC
She served as reminder.309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ08Evj8zZqU
A reminder of all that I lost and all that would forever elude me.
I disliked her at first.309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6cOPC8vWoq
I resented the transformation my body underwent, how the world treated me as pitiful, broken, damaged.309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡhzybP3xw31
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.309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNNG6rVKwRi
An old, withered, and just barely alive
An unsafe item.309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVlN91A31E6
But all the same, mine.
I named her Yuna.
Because she was proof that even among the ruins, there was still something alive.309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPjzTn8lui9
Because she was mine.309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡkdTSXIThGs
Because I would not let the Lees take anything else.
I created a new lifestyle in obscurity.309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQ4lnF0A6HU
No longer marble villas.309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7JYduDsz0y
No more silken gowns and crystal chandeliers.
Now, my realm was neon-lit backrooms, grimy apartments, forgotten Internet cafes.309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5SqEzJtNWM
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.309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7fviEVcEne
They shaped me into something more deadly than their finest assassins.309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1VCRNbrWge
Colder than their best enforcers.
Every pilfered account, each leaked secret, each overthrown competitor—I did them all with one purpose in mind:309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡj4kw94Ip3m
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.309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡg9oIacr6Y3
But now, I am not the same girl he harmed.309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡax3d2NTVOm
I am somebody else now.309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqLVWACIxbC
Worse still.309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAFNdlUdI1O
I will soon enter his world.309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ89BuB0vg0D
Sink into his pores.309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUU5kySs1Jn
Smile when he does.309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUe2yPrgIbC
Lie when he does.309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6dUh7qq3mK
Bleed him out from the inside.309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtG2MYodPRI
I would destroy all that he holds dear.309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiKWL9denRn
I shall make him witness as the empire which he perceives as impregnable goes up in flames around him.309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtP0AcIfWGU
And when there's nothing left—309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNnTdtuYxM7
When the black smoke ascends into the heavens—309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDF5grkl0Jk
Finally, when he gazes into my eyes and notices the girl he believed he shattered—309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgbgjOSsVqR
It will already be too late.309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWh1fktSndE
For justice is coming.309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFSuAsxVmee
It covers my face.309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXVDyZKmbn7
It courses through my veins.309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpq6uyRfR3B
It pulses in my daughter's little heart each time that she smiles at me.309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4kI9K32LSd
The Lee family believes they have put the past behind them.309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwp23m4W5k7
That the ghosts of their wrongdoings have long disappeared into dust.
They are mistaken.
I am the ghost who failed to stay.309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0mpMFnfeTH
I am the tempest unfolding over their idyllic skyline.309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzZcpokKSuj
I am the reckoning they never thought would happen.
And when I attack, it shall be a merciless, lovely devastation.309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWhuS9L3fXb
Symphony of revenge created from all the broken fragments they left behind.
They stole all my possessions once.309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡa4Ctg7lrEk
I will take everything they have this time.309Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXeFKaE3pGe
Piece by bloody piece.
