The storm broke on a Tuesday.
Rain lashed the penthouse windows like the sky itself had turned vengeful. Inside, Yoochan stood before a digital wall of stock tickers and surveillance feeds, each one a nerve in the beast he'd tamed. Kang Industries was stable, leaner, more ruthless. But beneath the surface, unrest festered.
Sooyoung entered, soaked and silent, a USB drive in her hand. She didn't bother taking off her coat.
"They hit Seojun," she said.
Yoochan turned. "Dead?"
"Worse. Framed."
She plugged in the drive. The screen filled with grainy footage: Seojun, shoved into a club bathroom by two masked men. A syringe. A bribe. Then a montage of photos—Seojun passed out beside a minor, drugs on the table, money exchanged.
"The media gets this in twenty minutes," she said. "It'll crush him."
Yoochan watched the footage with a deadened calm. "Did he leak anything?"
"No. He's clean."
He turned back to the screen. "Then let it burn."
Sooyoung stared at him. "You'd let your own brother get eaten alive for optics?"
"He's not mine."
She flinched. "He's your only moral counterweight."
"He's a threat," Yoochan snapped. "If he wants to play crusader, he better be ready to die on a cross."
She didn't move. The rain hammered louder.
"I used to believe you had a line," she whispered. "Now I know it's just smoke."
---
The press devoured Seojun within hours.
Every station led with the scandal: "Kang Prosecutor in Drug Sex Ring." Yoochan issued a brief statement about "disappointment" and "the need for accountability," then watched as stock prices rose half a percent.
One sacrifice for a cleaner image. Simple math.
Minwoo, sipping soju in the war room, raised a toast. "One down. Four to go."
But Sooyoung didn't celebrate. She stood near the window, staring down at the city like it was something fragile about to crack.
"You should've protected him," she said.
"I protected us," Yoochan replied.
"You protected yourself."
---
Two days later, Seojun vanished.
No trace. No note. Just a final CCTV frame of him walking into Han River Park, his phone left on a bench. Rumors spread like blood in water—suicide, escape, or revenge plot. Yoochan said nothing publicly, but he sent search drones through the riverbanks and back alleys.
He didn't tell Sooyoung.
---
That night, Yoochan opened his mother's last letter again.
"If you find yourself choosing between victory and peace, choose neither. Walk away. The empire is a cage, not a crown."
He read the lines like scripture. Then set the letter on fire and watched it curl into ash.
---
Three AM. A call.
Minwoo's voice came low and tight. "Yuna's missing."
Yoochan sat up. "Define missing."
"Left her clinic. Never made it to rehab headquarters. Her guards are dead. Bullet wounds, close range."
Yoochan dressed in silence. When he arrived at the scene—an alley behind a shuttered café—Yuna's purse lay abandoned in the trash. Her phone was gone. Blood on the pavement, but no body.
Sooyoung met him there, face pale and drawn.
"She was helping victims of your restructuring," she said. "Maybe they thought she was still a Kang."
Yoochan crouched by the blood, fingers brushing it like it could speak.
"I told her not to play hero," he murmured.
"She wasn't playing."
---
Back at the Tower, Yoochan stared at the family tree projected on the wall. Two photos were now marked: Seojun, grayed out. Yuna, flashing MISSING.
Minwoo entered without knocking. He tossed a folder on the desk.
"Found this on one of the dead guards. GPS logs. She was rerouted through a police checkpoint… except there was no checkpoint scheduled."
"So it was internal."
Minwoo nodded. "Someone in your network flipped."
"Or someone's pretending to be."
Sooyoung crossed her arms. "We have enemies on all sides now. Old guard. Political rivals. Workers unions. Even your own ghosts."
Yoochan didn't respond. He was staring at a single blinking dot on the screen.
A red signal.
A location.
Jeju Island.
"Activate a black team," he said. "No press. No backup. We go in quiet."
Sooyoung stepped forward. "And if it's a trap?"
Yoochan looked her in the eye, the cold fire back in his voice.
"Then we bury whoever set it."
---
The jet touched down at dawn.
Jeju was empty, mist curling like smoke over volcanic ridges. Yoochan stepped off the ramp in silence, flanked by Sooyoung and Minwoo. The coordinates led them to an old temple turned eco-resort, shuttered for months.
Inside: silence. Moss on the floor. Dust in the light.
Then a scream—high and muffled.
They ran.
Basement level. A wine cellar. Chains.
Yuna.
Beaten, bruised, half-conscious, lips sewn shut with surgical thread.
Sooyoung cried out. Minwoo cursed. Yoochan dropped to his knees, cutting the thread with shaking hands.
"Yuna," he whispered. "I'm here."
She wept, soundless, clawing at him like a child lost at sea.
---
An hour later, Yoochan stood alone in the courtyard, the morning sun breaking over the cliffs.
Minwoo walked up behind him. "The guards are dead. No signs of who took her. But she said a name before she passed out."
"Whose?"
Minwoo hesitated. Then:
"Jiwoo."
The name hit like a gunshot.
Yoochan closed his eyes.
The eighth heir had just made his first move.
---