Smoke billows over the marble floors, dense and suffocating, as flames consume the only home I ever knew.322Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡq8yRmkdreB
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.322Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVwAxfhVjVZ
There was a ripping, violent noise—like the earth tearing open at the seams.
Screams cut through the corridors.322Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtOiqIARDye
The ground trembles with sprinting footsteps.322Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYr5xUkItRr
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.322Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoWESCwCE97
I have coppery taste in my mouth.322Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuO6P16brbw
I do not know whose blood it is.322Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡA5p8GAjiFN
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.322Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSiaDIHrm2e
I do not dwell.322Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQv0XYFP69G
I can't.322Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8dKUJ93qbF
Reflecting back is slowing down, and slowing down is dying.
The villa, which was partly a palace of gilded splendor, is now a grave.322Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4w3V25XjQb
A tomb of shattered trust and shattered limbs.
I ought to have foreseen it.322Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡB4MiCJlGi6
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.322Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtXOxHj0yHP
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.322Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtKdHSe8K2Y
A party thrown in our honor, they said.322Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡUknCt2r77U
The sign of peace, they asserted.
I recall the wine that they pressed gently into my hands.322Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWOaXcsSorE
The laughter that felt wrong in my mouth.322Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ31GLJJffg3
The lights blurred together, the world tilting askew beneath my feet.
Then darkness.322Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrsc6jROujI
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.322Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡStgjlZkKt8
A warning.
Even today, my body still remembers what my mind is attempting to forget.322Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEo62WXCq5r
The sensation of helplessness.322Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡncB2GWceEI
The taste of betrayal.322Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4IwSVT4qP0
The manner in which the room whirled and my voice cracked when I attempted to scream.
They broke into everything that evening.322Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXCZZO0kMha
My innocence.322Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ9ARudWbfsN
My trust.322Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsVTfLHCxpg
My future.
And yet, inexplicably, they still weren’t completed
The following day, they returned to get the rest of us.322Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡodrFHBix1s
My father.322Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡK2PsmSbVMf
My mum.322Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyAqGCChR9Q
Our dedicated guards.322Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeJ8rCYHGPf
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.322Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJ86dMoa6fv
His dreams-filled, foolishly shining eyes were already empty when he fell to the ground.
There just wasn’t time to grieve.322Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSyIeeK3yln
I didn't even have time to breathe.
I sprinted until my lungs hemorrhaged.322Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4isOwyM8rH
I sprinted along back streets and muddy side streets, in my bare feet, shaking, with blood and smoke trailing after me.322Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZbOGGdQs9u
I ran because survival became my sole act of rebellion.
And somehow, I managed.
Survival, however, wasn't freedom322Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡK4aG6UOmkI
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.322Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeNOkWFSwdy
She served as reminder.322Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMbD0Pw8U3G
A reminder of all that I lost and all that would forever elude me.
I disliked her at first.322Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjBCDBSbPfJ
I resented the transformation my body underwent, how the world treated me as pitiful, broken, damaged.322Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFDJeYSkWN2
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.322Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡgOeu2EKzmh
An old, withered, and just barely alive
An unsafe item.322Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1jPH3NMKIO
But all the same, mine.
I named her Yuna.
Because she was proof that even among the ruins, there was still something alive.322Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8oajG6vRSS
Because she was mine.322Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsZJWm6eVxL
Because I would not let the Lees take anything else.
I created a new lifestyle in obscurity.322Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAaB6wFXfiq
No longer marble villas.322Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡr5y38yV1pg
No more silken gowns and crystal chandeliers.
Now, my realm was neon-lit backrooms, grimy apartments, forgotten Internet cafes.322Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ97VzMjOXfF
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.322Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2vIA1Oqds6
They shaped me into something more deadly than their finest assassins.322Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡaCdnJtSyHz
Colder than their best enforcers.
Every pilfered account, each leaked secret, each overthrown competitor—I did them all with one purpose in mind:322Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡD8eOuxuc2Y
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.322Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡm1vL6DDECh
But now, I am not the same girl he harmed.322Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXU2nHUvyMU
I am somebody else now.322Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCOe7gW8Hh4
Worse still.322Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSszDRAOngE
I will soon enter his world.322Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXFfdy9zjtP
Sink into his pores.322Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡuokIQGhYPT
Smile when he does.322Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡr2gdR3nrKG
Lie when he does.322Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyY0dT0mlFJ
Bleed him out from the inside.322Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡms2fGGpIxv
I would destroy all that he holds dear.322Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLK19GUwS7e
I shall make him witness as the empire which he perceives as impregnable goes up in flames around him.322Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡy1sHvtwhie
And when there's nothing left—322Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFdDAqmVICF
When the black smoke ascends into the heavens—322Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZRJImMuPrO
Finally, when he gazes into my eyes and notices the girl he believed he shattered—322Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdGou7wa9SK
It will already be too late.322Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyYhx8EwubZ
For justice is coming.322Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJ5z524JzUN
It covers my face.322Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ1RO1DaThPo
It courses through my veins.322Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡDi258Yk2Rg
It pulses in my daughter's little heart each time that she smiles at me.322Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTL0A8hFN1q
The Lee family believes they have put the past behind them.322Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXwYOtJWVqj
That the ghosts of their wrongdoings have long disappeared into dust.
They are mistaken.
I am the ghost who failed to stay.322Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡv41jCWTsKS
I am the tempest unfolding over their idyllic skyline.322Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVSoCOPZxmV
I am the reckoning they never thought would happen.
And when I attack, it shall be a merciless, lovely devastation.322Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlRUiaX8vWA
Symphony of revenge created from all the broken fragments they left behind.
They stole all my possessions once.322Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmQBasGHXfN
I will take everything they have this time.322Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJycuOTgo9i
Piece by bloody piece.
