News spreads with the speed of hunger in Seoul.
By morning, every newsroom had the same anonymous tip
Lee Jae-min, the untouchable CEO of LJ Group, would be marrying Kim Seo-rin next week.
No press statement.
No confirmation.
Just a single whistleblower, the kind you never identify, the kind whose information is always eerily true.
The headlines exploded overnight.
Some called it an alliance.
Others called it a scandal.
But one line threaded through every report:
He is marrying her to protect her.
No one knew what that protection meant.
Most never would.
The next day, Seo-rin stepped into K Group's headquarters with a steadiness she did not feel but refused to abandon. She had spent the night awake, half in shock, half in strategy, yet she walked through the lobby like someone who had slept well, eaten well, and planned her victory years ago.
Eyes followed her from every direction.
Whispers clung to the air like frost.
Some curious.
Some frightened.
But none dismissive.
She wasn't the girl the board wanted to remove anymore.
She wasn't the grieving daughter coming to fight a battle she barely understood.
She was Lee Jae-min's fiancée, the woman standing beside a man every powerful figure in Seoul feared and the newly appointed CEO of K Group.
The elevator doors opened into the boardroom hallway. As she stepped inside, the conversations died instantly.
The board members sat stiffly around the polished table, expressions caught between politeness and panic. They expected a girl they could intimidate.
Instead, Jae-min walked in a breath after her.
Silence deepened heavy, brittle, electric.
Seo-rin didn't wait to sit. She placed her hands on the table, leaning forward slightly, not aggressively but with a clarity that cut.
"Anyone who opposes me taking the role of President of K Group," she said, voice even, "may raise their hand."
Her gaze swept the room.
Not a single hand moved.
Men who had threatened her father.
Men who whispered behind her back.
Men who conspired to strip the company from her family the moment her father collapsed
sat frozen.
No one dared challenge the woman standing under Lee Jae-min's shadow.
She didn't smile.
She didn't gloat.
She simply took her seat, as though she had always belonged there.
Later, in her office, the door flew open.
Kim Ara didn't knock.
She stood there with the same force she'd had since childhood, the older sister who had always been half-mother, half-guardian, half-worrier.
"Are you really doing this?" Ara demanded, not bothering with greetings.
Seo-rin didn't look up immediately. "Doing what?"
"You know what." Ara stepped closer, voice cracking on anger. "Marrying him. Seo-rin, we both know who he is. He's dangerous. He's unpredictable. He's the kind of man people whisper about in corridors because they're too afraid to say his name loudly."
She swallowed.
"I've heard things you haven't. Things you don't want to know."
Seo-rin finally met her eyes. "Maybe. But this is our only way out."
Ara stared at her as though she didn't recognize her anymore.
"Our only way out?" she repeated, voice rising. "That's not strategy, that's desperation. You're throwing yourself into the hands of a man you can't read."
Seo-rin exhaled slowly. "Unnie… I know what I'm doing."
"No," Ara whispered, "you don't." She picked up her bag with shaking hands. "And I can't support this."
The door closed behind her.
The quiet that followed was heavier than any argument.
Seo-rin sat alone in her new office, her father's old one, feeling the cold wash over her despite the heater humming steadily in the corner.
Across the city, in a high-rise office where the walls were glass and the air smelled faintly of cedar, Lee Jae-min was studying a chessboard when Detective Choi burst through the door.
"Don't pretend," Choi said. "You did it again."
His voice wasn't a question. It was a verdict.
Jae-min didn't look up right away. He gently nudged a knight forward, eyes on the board.
"Did what?"
"You know exactly what I mean." Choi's jaw clenched. "There is no such thing as a perfect murder, Jae-min. No matter how clever you think you are, no matter how clean you make it look, I will catch you. And when I do, I'll put you behind bars myself."
Jae-min finally looked at him.
Calm.
Steady.
Almost bored.
"Then good luck, Detective," he said with a faint smirk.
Choi stormed out.
Jae-min's assistant lingered near the doorway, uneasy.
"Boss… why not get rid of him? He keeps pushing."
Jae-min waved a dismissive hand. "Leave him. It's entertaining."
He moved another piece on the chessboard with surgical precision.
"And the law?" the assistant asked quietly.
Jae-min tipped over a rook with one finger.
"The law is just another opponent. Predictable. Slow."
He paused. "How are the wedding preparations?"
"Sir, we sent a wedding planner to meet Miss Kim. The media is… overwhelmed."
"Good." His voice was a whisper of satisfaction.
A DAY BEFORE
There are nights that swallow sound.
Nights that carry no wind, no footsteps, no witnesses.
The night he killed the Minister of Justice was one of them.
The mansion's back garden lay still, the air thick and unmoving. Jae-min walked through the service entrance without disguise, not a mask, not a pair of gloves, not even hurried breath.
He didn't need theatrics.
He didn't need fear.
He needed closure.
The security system flickered once and died, as if recognizing the ghost of a debt.
Inside, warm yellow light spilled out of the minister's office. Minister Han looked up from his documents, startled.
"President Lee?" he stammered. "What are you doing here at_"
"That debt," Jae-min interrupted softly, closing the door behind him, "the one you owed my father… I've come to collect it."
Han froze.
"I don't, I don't know_"
"You do." Jae-min's gaze slid to a photo on a nearby shelf, Han shaking hands with Jae-min's father. The resemblance was undeniable. "My father trusted you. You sold him out."
Han's throat tightened. "Please. I, I have children."
"I know," Jae-min said. "Two sons. Abroad. They will remain safe. You will be remembered as an honorable man who worked himself to death. A tragic overachiever."
He poured a drink. Slipped the capsule in.
"Toast to old debts."
Han hesitated. Then drank.
The collapse was quiet. Almost gentle.
Jae-min arranged the scene with care, the glass, the papers, the half-loosened tie. A portrait of a man who worked too late for too many nights.
He paused at the doorway.
"Debt paid."
Then he disappeared into the night, unseen, untouched, the city swallowing his steps.
Back to present
Seo-rin didn't know any of this yet.
She didn't know the full history.
She didn't know the first domino that fell long before she was born.
She didn't know how many secrets her name was now tied to.
All she knew was that she'd stepped into a storm and Lee Jae-min was standing at its center, calm as ever, waiting for her to choose whether she would drown…
or stand beside him.