The storm outside had passed, but inside the mansion, the tension hung like a curtain of mist—thick, silent, and lingering.
Ahn So-yeon sat on the windowsill of the guest room she'd been locked in for days. The polished glass reflected her face—a little more hollow than before, her eyes lined with exhaustion, but there was a glow too. Faint, unwanted, and dangerous.
She hated herself for noticing it.
Below, in the courtyard, Kang Ryu-jin stood in the shadows of the moonlight, speaking to one of his men. His voice was low, unreadable, but every movement—precise, authoritative—pulled her gaze like a magnet.
She remembered the heat of his touch when he'd bandaged her arm last night, the way his fingers hesitated for just a breath too long. The way his eyes softened when he thought she wasn't looking.
He wasn't just a tyrant anymore. He was a mystery. A storm she couldn't stop walking into.
Her heart clenched, furious with itself.
This man was dangerous. He destroyed lives. He'd destroyed hers.
And yet—
Knock. Knock.
The door creaked open. A guard stepped in but didn't speak. He simply gestured.
So-yeon stood, brushing her tangled hair back. "Where are we going?"
The guard didn't answer. Just led her silently down the grand hallway lined with old oil paintings, gilded doors, and marble that felt colder than ice under her bare feet.
They stopped at a dark oak door she hadn't entered before. The guard knocked once, then opened it.
Inside, Ryu-jin sat alone at the head of a long dining table, wine glass in hand, a bottle of unopened champagne beside him. Candlelight flickered over his sharp features. Tonight, he looked…less like a warlord and more like a man trying to remember what it meant to feel.
"So-yeon," he said, voice low, "Sit."
She hesitated. "Why am I here?"
He didn't answer until she sat across from him.
"Because I'm tired of talking to ghosts," he murmured, pouring the champagne.
She frowned. "What?"
"I thought if I kept everything in control—kept people at a distance—I could protect them. But all it did was leave me with echoes and blood on my hands."
So-yeon watched him. This wasn't the man who threw her into a prison-like room two nights ago.
"You're drunk," she said softly.
He chuckled. "Not yet."
Silence stretched between them. Candlelight danced on the rim of their glasses.
"You've been watching me," he said after a moment, eyes not leaving hers.
She flinched. "I'm locked in a room with one window. It faces the courtyard. That's not exactly—"
"You weren't just looking. You were wondering."
"About what?" she challenged.
"If the monster you fear… might still be human underneath."
That shut her up.
Ryu-jin leaned forward slightly, gaze steady. "You hate me. I know. But if I were just a monster, you wouldn't keep asking me why."
She stood abruptly, heart thudding. "This is sick. Whatever you're trying to do—charm me? Guilt me? It won't work."
"Then why are you still standing there?" he asked.
She froze.
He rose slowly, walking toward her, footsteps echoing in the silence.
She wanted to move. To slap him. To scream. But her body betrayed her.
He stopped a breath away, his voice barely above a whisper. "You don't have to forgive me. You don't have to like me. But you need to know that the man who holds your fate in his hands… is not untouched by you."
He reached out. Just a brush of her hair behind her ear.
So-yeon's breath caught.
"You're not my prisoner, So-yeon," he murmured. "Not anymore."
And then he walked past her, leaving her alone in the glow of a single candle.
So-yeon didn't sleep that night.
She sat curled in the armchair beside the fireplace in her room, knees drawn to her chest, staring into the dying embers. Ryu-jin's voice echoed in her mind.
"You're not my prisoner."
Then what was she?
A guest?
A... woman he suddenly saw?
No. That couldn't be it. She wouldn't allow herself to be dragged into that illusion. But her body betrayed her — again. Her heart pulsed too fast when she thought of the way he'd looked at her. Not like prey. Not like a threat. But like something... fragile. Like something he didn't know how to touch without breaking it.
She hated the ache in her chest.
She hated that part of her wanted to go back to that candlelit room just to ask him why.
Morning came with grey clouds and a knock at her door.
She was ready to snap, but it wasn't the guard.
It was Ryu-jin.
He stood there dressed not in black, but in a white linen shirt and grey slacks. His hair was slightly tousled. Softer. More human.
"I'll wait outside," he said simply.
"What for?"
"You're coming with me."
She didn't answer, but something in his tone made her follow without argument.
They walked through the eastern wing she'd never seen before — past sunlit corridors, small gardens within glass courtyards, and the scent of spring flowers that didn't belong in a place so cold.
He stopped before a tall wooden door and opened it.
Inside was a private library. Not just any — floor-to-ceiling shelves, hundreds of books, a ladder on wheels, and a view of the ocean through the glass walls.
So-yeon blinked. "Why are we here?"
Ryu-jin looked around slowly, as if seeing it for the first time too. "This was my brother's room."
Her breath caught.
"The one you're trying to avenge?"
He nodded. Walked to a shelf, pulled out a book with worn edges. "He loved stories. Even the romantic ones you'd think a mafia heir shouldn't be reading."
He opened it and handed it to her.
On the inside cover was scrawled:
To Ryu-jin — If you ever forget what your heart is, read this and remember who I believed you were. — Hyuk
So-yeon's fingers trembled.
"You blame me," she said. "For his death."
"I did," he answered honestly. "Until I realized it wasn't you who pulled the trigger. It was the world I created."
Her throat tightened.
He turned toward her, something raw in his expression. "But then you came into that world. And it changed again. Not because you were trying to. Just because you existed."
She didn't know whether to scream or cry.
Instead, she whispered, "Why are you telling me all this?"
"Because I don't want to be glass anymore," he said. "Clear, sharp, cold. I want to be seen."
Her eyes burned.
She backed away, needing space. "You're confusing guilt with affection."
"Maybe," he said. "Or maybe I've been so numb that your anger... your courage... your voice... is the first thing I've felt in years."
They sat in silence for a long time. No declarations. No grand gestures.
But that day, something shifted.
She asked to borrow a book from the library.
He said yes.
And when their fingers brushed over the same page, neither of them pulled away.
The days that followed weren't soft, but they weren't war, either.
So-yeon woke early, studied the books from the private library, and wandered the estate's garden when the guards pretended not to see. She didn't ask Ryu-jin for permission — she didn't need to.
But he still showed up.
Sometimes with coffee in hand.
Sometimes with nothing but silence and a chair beside her.
They didn't talk about the mafia.
They didn't talk about what would happen when she left — if she ever did.
But there were glances.
Moments when their eyes met across a hallway or the flicker of tension when his hand hovered a little too long beside hers on the table.
Ryu-jin was trying.
She saw it in the way he controlled his temper, in how he didn't bark at his men in front of her. In how he started asking, not ordering.
She didn't know what scared her more — his cruelty, or his gentleness.
---
One evening, she returned to her room and found a small velvet box on her pillow.
Her hands tensed.
She opened it slowly.
Inside was a necklace. Delicate. Silver. A tiny pendant shaped like a stethoscope with a sapphire in the center.
Beneath it was a note.
You said you didn't want to be owned. I know. But maybe you'll wear something that reminds you of who you are — not who they tried to make you.
No signature.
Just that.
Her fingers curled around the note.
She didn't cry.
Not until much later, when the lights were off and she could pretend it didn't matter.
---
The next day, she found herself at the garden bench where he usually waited.
Ryu-jin wasn't there.
So-yeon sat alone, unsure why the emptiness felt heavier than it should.
Then a voice behind her: "You came."
She turned. "You're late."
"I wanted to see if you'd miss me."
"I didn't."
He smirked. "Liar."
She didn't argue.
Instead, she held out the box.
He stiffened.
"You don't have to—"
She opened it and took the necklace out, turning her back to him.
His breath hitched.
"You're asking me to put it on?"
"No. I'm telling you." Her voice wavered. "If you mean what you wrote... then I'll believe it. For now."
His hands brushed her neck — warm, careful.
When the clasp clicked into place, she felt it deeper than skin.
"I don't deserve this," he murmured near her ear.
"No," she said. "You don't."
She turned, and for a moment, they stood inches apart.
No war.
No masks.
Just two people, desperately trying not to fall — and failing anyway.
The rain arrived without warning.
Soft at first — like the tapping of fingers on glass — then heavier, like the sky was trying to drown out the silence that had lingered too long between them.
So-yeon stood by the window in the east hallway, arms folded across her chest, eyes following the rivulets running down the glass. In the reflection, she saw Ryu-jin approach. He didn't say anything. He just stood beside her, mimicking her stance.
The silence between them had changed.
It wasn't sharp anymore.
It was weighty — full of unspoken things neither knew how to say.
"It's been quiet," she said at last, not looking at him. "No threats. No chaos. Almost like you're not… who you are."
He chuckled faintly. "Even devils rest between storms."
She turned to face him. "So when does the next storm hit?"
He was quiet for a moment. Then: "There's a meeting in Seoul. Some of my father's old enemies are rising again. I need to leave for a few days."
She swallowed hard. "And what happens if you don't come back?"
"Then you'll be free," he said too easily.
"I didn't say I wanted that."
That silenced him.
Ryu-jin stepped closer, brushing his fingers against her wrist — a fleeting, careful touch.
"What do you want, So-yeon?" he asked, voice low.
She didn't answer immediately. How could she? She didn't even know herself.
Part of her wanted to run.
Part of her wanted to stay.
And part of her — the one that both terrified and thrilled her — wanted to know what it would feel like to love him, truly, without fear.
"I want the truth," she whispered. "Even if it hurts."
He nodded. "Then here's the truth. I don't want to let you go. Not because I want to control you… but because when you're near, I feel like the man I used to be. The boy before the blood. Before the pain."
"You still have that boy in you?"
"I buried him deep. But you… you keep digging him out."
She exhaled sharply, heart twisting.
It wasn't fair — how someone so ruthless could be this vulnerable.
And it wasn't fair that she cared.
---
That night, he left.
She watched his black car vanish through the gates, the ache in her chest blooming wider than she expected.
She should have felt relieved.
Instead, she felt cold.
Like something important had been taken away.
---
Three days passed.
Then four.
No call. No message.
The guards were tight-lipped. Even Soo-min, the housekeeper who had grown fond of So-yeon, wouldn't meet her eyes.
On the fifth day, she snapped.
She stormed into the inner chamber, demanding answers.
"Where is he?" she shouted at one of his lieutenants.
The man stiffened. "In Seoul. We haven't heard from him since yesterday. But we're handling it."
"Handling it?" she barked. "What if he's hurt? Or—"
She couldn't finish the sentence.
Not even in her head.
"Stay out of this, Miss Ahn," the man said. "This isn't your world."
"It became my world the moment he pulled me into it!"
That night, she didn't sleep.
She stayed curled up in his study, where his scent still lingered faintly on the leather chair, her arms wrapped around her knees like a child waiting for her parent to return.
But she wasn't a child anymore.
And Ryu-jin wasn't just a man.
He was a storm.
And storms didn't always come back the same.
End Of Chapter 4.