The red lights of the restricted hallway flickered, casting long, rhythmic shadows that looked like bars on a cage. Vivian stood frozen, her pupils shaking behind the ornate lace of her masquerade mask as she stared at the man she thought had vanished into her nightmares.
"...W-Why… are you… here…?" she managed to choke out, her voice barely a thread of sound.
Baek Soryeon exhaled a slow, gray cloud of smoke, his eyes glinting with amusement at her visible terror. "Why wouldn't I be?" he countered, his tone as smooth and dangerous as silk.
He leaned closer, his face inches from her mask until she could smell the expensive tobacco on his breath. "You thought I vanished after that old hag died?" he teased in a low, predatory whisper. Vivian's lips trembled, but no words came out; she could only swallow hard against the lump of fear in her throat.
Baek stepped past her with a lazy, calculated grace, blocking the only exit from the narrow hallway. He loomed over her, a dark silhouette against the flickering red glow. "Cute," he remarked, his smirk widening. "You still freeze up."
[Flashback]
In the chaotic wake of Assemblyman Han's violent death, the pieces of a new empire were already being moved. Baek Soryeon had bowed deeply before the Assemblyman's grieving widow, a woman whose eyes held no tears, only a cold, burning relief. She had placed the documents on the table—papers that would change their fates forever.
In exchange for his loyalty and his silence, she had signed away half of her husband's blood-soaked fortune to his assistant. She had left the country the very next morning, a ghost escaping a haunted house. Left behind, Baek Soryeon had stood alone, smirking as he held the property deeds that made him rich overnight.
[Back in the dim hallway]
Baek leaned lazily against the concrete wall. "That bitch was really something, huh?" he said, his vulgar tone making Vivian flinch as if he had struck her.
"Stay away from me…" she whispered, stepping back until her spine hit the cold wall.
But there was no escaping him. Baek reached out, tilting her chin up with two cold fingers, pushing her mask up just enough to see the desperation in her eyes. "I didn't come here to hurt you," he lied, his eyes narrowing. "I came to collect what's mine."
Vivian's heart sank, the rhythmic ba-dump ba-dump of her pulse echoing in her ears like a drum.
Baek began to walk a slow, predatory circle around her. "You're drowning in debt," he observed, his voice calm and calculating. "You're working in hellholes like this. And you still think you have choices?"
Vivian clenched her hands into fists, her nails digging into her palms. No… not again… Please…
He stopped directly behind her, his voice shifting into something cold and hauntingly beautiful. "Marry me."
The world seemed to tilt. Vivian's eyes widened behind the mask, her breath hitching.
"If you accept… you'll live your dream life," Baek continued, his smirk audible in his voice. "Wealth overflowing. Your comeback as a soloist under the company I started with that idiot's money."
"I'm not… I can't—" Vivian started to shake her head, her mind reeling.
Baek leaned in until his lips were right against her ear, his voice shifting into a register that was darker and completely unrecognizable. "If not…" his eyes turned sharp and emotionless, "...then the world will know you killed Assemblyman Han."
Vivian stumbled backward, her hand flying up to cover her mouth to catch a scream. "...No…"
Baek extended his hand toward her, an invitation that felt like a death warrant, he puts a strand of her hair behind her ear. "So choose, Vivian."
Vivian's legs finally gave out. She collapsed to her knees on the dirty floor, her mask slipping as hot tears began to fall.
Some proposals sound like promises, and some sound like traps. This one was a sentence.