Seoul in winter has a way of swallowing sound. Snow doesn't just fall here, it dampens everything beneath it. Even the city noise feels reluctant. Maybe that's why Kim Seo-rin heard her mother's cry as clearly as she did.
Not a wail.
Not a collapse.
Just a muffled, contained sob leaking through the thin hospital walls, the kind someone lets out only when they're afraid of falling apart.
Seo-rin stood in the corridor, hands cold enough to ache, jaw clenched so tight it hurt. The fluorescent lights overhead hummed like an interrogation lamp, too bright, too honest. People moved around her in the detached rhythm of routine: nurses exchanging charts, stretchers rolling by, doctors talking in low voices. A normal night for them. A rupture for her.
Behind the glass of Room 402, her father lay motionless.
A stroke.
Severe.
Fast.
No warning, no buildup, just a brutal severing of the life he used to command so fiercely.
She hadn't prepared for this.
Not the medical emergency.
Not the timing.
And certainly not the reality that the man who spent three decades building a company from sweat and instinct was now unable to defend it or himself.
Her mother finally stepped into the hallway. Eyes swollen. Shoulders hunched like someone bracing against a winter wind that never stops blowing.
"Seo-rin…" Her mother's voice broke halfway through. "The board wants to vote you out tomorrow."
It was predictable, yet somehow still unbelievable.
Of course they would circle now.
Predators love a power vacuum.
Especially one wrapped in vulnerability.
Seo-rin swallowed, forcing her voice steady. "They won't win."
But she heard it: the tremor hidden beneath her words. Fear trying to pry its way in.
Her phone buzzed. Unknown number. She ignored it. It buzzed again insistent, rhythmic, like someone knocking on a locked door. Irritation pushed her to answer.
"Kim Seo-rin?"
A male voice. Low, even, controlled. The kind of voice that didn't need to raise itself to be taken seriously.
"Yes. Who am I speaking to?"
"I heard about your father."
Her breath paused.
He continued, unbothered.
"I also heard the board is planning to remove you at tomorrow's meeting."
Her spine went rigid. "I asked who you are."
"I'm the man who's about to keep that from happening."
A humorless laugh rose in her throat. "I didn't ask for help."
"You will," he said. "Tonight."
The call cut.
She stared at the dark screen, unsettled by how her pulse reacted sharp, fast, involuntary. She'd profiled enough voices to know when someone meant what they said. This man did. And that was the problem.
She didn't know his name.
She didn't know his face.
But she recognized the shift, that subtle change in the air when a new player enters the story.
And refuses to leave quietly.
It was close to midnight when she finally stepped out of the hospital to grab documents from home. The snow had thinned into a light powder, coating the sidewalk. Her breath formed small clouds in the cold.
She moved quickly, coat pulled tight around her. The street was quiet.
Too quiet.
A pair of headlights swept across the road. A black car glided up beside her, no loud engine, no screech, just a soft, controlled stop. The back door opened.
"Get in."
The voice was the same one from the phone.
"No," she said, stepping back. "I'm not—"
"Seo-rin." He didn't raise his voice, but it carried weight. "If you plan to keep your father's company, you need to be in this car."
Not a threat.
Not reassurance.
A statement of fact.
A gloved hand reached out from inside, steady, poised, waiting. Something about that stillness unnerved her more than aggression would have. People with nothing to prove often proved to be the most dangerous.
She hesitated.
A second too long.
And she got in.
The car was warm inside, the faint scent of leather and sandalwood settling into the space. She barely closed the door before she saw him.
Lee Jae-min.
It was impossible not to recognize him. LJ Group's enigmatic CEO. The one journalists loved to speculate about because he never gave interviews, never attended after-parties, never leaked even a crack of personal life. A man who ran boardrooms like a private battlefield and never lost.
But reputation didn't do him justice.
He had the kind of presence that rearranged the air.
Sharp lines. Controlled posture. Eyes that didn't wander, they assessed.
Not traditionally warm. Not conventionally cold.
Just… uncompromising.
"You're staring," he said, barely looking away from her.
She looked out the window immediately. "Why am I here?"
"Because I can give you what you need."
He paused. "And you can give me what I want."
Her stomach tightened. "Which is?"
"Marriage."
She blinked. "That's absurd."
"Probably," he admitted. "But it's also effective."
She searched his face, but he gave nothing away.
"What do you gain?" she asked.
His gaze lowered for a moment not lingering, but decisive before returning to hers.
"You."
Heat prickled at her neck. "You don't know me."
"Oh, I do," he said quietly. "You just don't realize how long I've been waiting."
The air between them shifted subtle, intimate, unsettling.
This wasn't infatuation.
It wasn't impulse.
It was intent.
And intent was always dangerous.
"You're trying to manipulate me," she said.
"I'm offering you a strategy."
"A marriage is not a strategy."
"In your current situation," he replied, "it's the only one that guarantees survival."
He wasn't wrong. And that terrifies her more than the man himself.
He opened a velvet box inside, a simple ring. Clean design. A single dark stone. No extravagance. Just certainty.
"This isn't a proposal," he said. "It's a contract."
"And if I walk away?"
His jaw tightened barely, but enough for someone trained to notice.
"Then this is where our paths end."
For a moment, just a moment, she thought she saw something flicker across his expression. Not softness. Not vulnerability. Something quieter. The shadow of disappointment in a man who wasn't used to it.
"Choose, Seo-rin."
Her fingers hovered above the ring.
"One condition," she said.
He raised a brow. "I'm listening."
"You don't get to own me."
His first real smile ghosted across his face, slow, contained, almost dangerous.
"Oh, Seo-rin," he murmured, leaning in close enough for her to feel the warmth of his breath, "I already do."
Her heart stumbled.
Before she could respond, her phone vibrated. She slid it out of her coat.
Detective Choi.
And a text from her sister, Kim Ara.
Come to the station. Now.
It's about Dad.
His collapse wasn't an accident.
Seo-rin felt her blood run cold.
Jae-min watched her, expression sharpening. "What happened?"
She swallowed hard. "Someone tried to kill him."
The temperature in the car shifted instantly, like the air itself recognized the implication.
Jae-min leaned back slowly, eyes darkening in a way that felt lethal.
"Then," he said, voice calm in the most unnerving way,
"we're no longer discussing options."
She looked at him. "What does that mean?"
He reached for her hand not forceful, not possessive.
Just absolute.
"It means," he murmured, "from this moment on… you're mine to protect."
The car pulled away from the curb, slicing through the quiet streets of Seoul.
Toward the police station.
Toward the truth.
Toward the beginning of a war she never asked for.
And a man she could no longer walk away from.