The evening was a choking velvet, a heavy, impenetrable blackness that crept into the city's arteries, concealing its secrets behind a facade of mundanity. Seo-yeon navigated the cramped alleyway at the rear of the café, the encrypted device a hard, metallic presence on her chest, a somber reminder of the perilous road she'd traveled. The shake that had once rocked her was gone, and in its place was a frightening stillness, an icy determination that hummed with latent power.
It was not a calm peace, but strained, tense restraint, a fire that seethed through her veins, threatening a clash that would incinerate the deceptions and expose the harsh, inflexible truth. Control. Not Joon-woo's control, but a recovery of her own power, a rebellion against the strings of the puppeteer.
