Night in Haneul City was always noisy.
Sirens in the distance. Shouting in the alleys. Motorbikes rumbling past cracked sidewalks. But on this particular night, one place roared louder than anything else, the Skyfall Lounge.
Inside, the air vibrated with life.
Chips clacked against tables. Cards snapped sharply. People cheered, cursed, laughed, argued, begged for another chance or demanded their winnings. Downstairs, the fight club echoed with thuds, stomps, and the booming voices of the crowd. Someone landed a solid hit and the roar from the ring shot up the stairwell like a wave.
The place was alive.
And for a moment, the trio felt like they had built something unbreakable.
Tae-min worked like a machine.
He sat in the back office, long hair tied neatly with a metal fazan hair pin, the ends brushing his shoulders. His eyes darted across ledgers, stacks of chips, receipts, and handwritten notes. Numbers were a language, and tonight they spoke fluently to him. The house was winning, the odds were holding, and the flow of money was healthy.
He had built a system, a clean, organized, airtight structure, not because he wanted to but because he had to.
And he did it better than anyone expected.
Soo-jin moved like he'd been born in a casino.
He handled drunks, smugglers, gamblers, hustlers, and wannabe high-rollers with that blend of charm and discipline only he could pull off. One moment he talked gently to someone who couldn't afford to lose what they already had; the next he escorted out a man trying to cheat with marked cards.
He was calm even when customers weren't.
He smiled even when they cursed him.
And somehow, they listened.
Sang-ho kept the underground ring from burning itself down.
He stood at the edge of the fight pit, cigarette glowing faintly in the dim room. His voice cut through the noise with authority. He made sure bets were clean, fighters didn't kill each other, and no one started a riot over losing money.
He'd clap a fighter on the back, crack a joke, and remind them to keep the chaos inside the ring, not outside it.
Skyfall Lounge was chaotic, yes, but it was controlled chaos. Predictable chaos. A chaos they could manage.
For now.
Everything changed the moment the black SUVs arrived.
Five Land Rovers rolled up outside the building, quiet, dark, and intimidating. Their engines hummed like a warning. People outside stepped aside without being asked. Even from inside, some patrons heard the vehicles and turned toward the windows.
Moments later, the doors opened.
Fifteen men stepped out, all wearing matching street clothes, dark jackets, athletic pants, sneakers. They moved like a unit, heavy steps, sharp eyes, confident in a way only people feared by others could be.
At the center of them was Gang Du-ho.
He looked like someone carved out of Haneul's concrete. Track suit. Strong build. Expression caught between amusement and danger. He had that look, like he was waiting for something to excite him, and boredom made him unpredictable.
The moment he walked into Skyfall, everything went quiet.
Cards stopped shuffling. Dice froze mid-roll. The fight club below slowed as the crowd sensed the change in atmosphere. Even the steady hum of the air conditioner felt quieter.
Whispers crept through the room like a breeze.
"That's the Gapyeong Tigers… what the hell are they doing here?"
"Man, those guys are insane."
"I heard the leader burned the last boss alive just to take over."
Someone shushed them before Du-ho's men noticed.
Gang Du-ho stepped forward, hopping onto a gambling table with the casual confidence of someone jumping onto his own stage.
He didn't raise his voice.
He didn't need to.
"Alright," he said slowly, drawing out the moment, "which one of you runs this place?"
The challenge hung heavy in the air.
Soo-jin stepped forward.
Calm. Unbothered. Not intimidated by numbers or reputation.
He simply said, "That would be me."
For a moment, the entire room felt like it inhaled at once.
Gang Du-ho stared at him.
Then he broke into laughter, loud, genuine laughter that shook his shoulders. He leaned back so far one of his men had to steady him.
"You?" Du-ho choked out. "No, no, no… you? The owner?"
He waved his hand dismissively, still laughing.
"You don't have the air for it. You look like you'd call the cops if someone sneezed too loud."
The crowd didn't laugh, no one dared, but the tension shifted with every one of Du-ho's words.
At that moment, the underground door opened.
Sang-ho ascended the stairs, smoke trailing from the cigarette in his fingers. The silence upstairs told him enough, he didn't need to see the men in tracksuits to know trouble had arrived.
He scanned the room, then smirked.
"We have guests," he said casually. "Someone should've told me. I would've brought snacks."
Even Tae-min would later admit, no one else could've walked into that scene and sounded as unbothered as Sang-ho.
Gang Du-ho turned sharply toward him.
"Now that," he declared, pointing at Sang-ho with delight, "is the kind of crazy bastard who'd start a casino in Haneul!"
His men chuckled. It wasn't friendly laughter, it was the kind predators make when they find prey they find interesting.
Sang-ho studied Du-ho in return.
The guy was young but hardened. Built like he enjoyed fighting more than winning. And those eyes, sharp, hungry, reckless, were all too familiar.
Sang-ho had once been like that, before Nampo forced him to grow up.
"What do you want?" Sang-ho asked.
Du-ho didn't hesitate.
"Simple. Business fee… and protection fee."
Sang-ho raised an eyebrow. "Business fee I get. But 'protection'?"
Du-ho grinned like he'd been waiting for that question.
"The protection fee isn't to protect you from other gangs," he said. "It's to protect you from us."
His men laughed again, a rehearsed chorus of mockery.
At that moment, the door of the office opened.
Tae-min stepped out.
Hair tied back, eyes calm, posture straight. Nothing about him was loud or threatening, but the moment he appeared, Gang Du-ho's laughter stopped. The Tiger leader stared at him, not in fear, but curiosity. Like he couldn't quite read him.
Tae-min didn't speak right away. He listened, processed, sensed the tension between Sang-ho and the Tigers.
Then he asked simply:
"How much?"
Du-ho's smile widened.
"Twenty percent business fee. Twenty percent protection fee."
He waited for outrage.
For anger.
For threats.
Instead, Tae-min paused. Thought. Calculated. Then nodded.
"…Alright."
The shock in the room was immediate.
Even Sang-ho glanced at him in disbelief.
Du-ho tilted his head with a disappointed sigh.
"It's not fun when the other guy agrees so easily," he muttered. Then he rolled his shoulders and stepped off the table. "Fine. We'll collect soon."
He turned to leave.
His men followed.
As they reached the exit, Du-ho glanced back, eyes locked onto Tae-min as if storing his face away for later.
Then the Gapyeong Tigers left, disappearing into the black SUVs that came just as suddenly as they went.
Inside Skyfall Lounge, the noise slowly returned. Gamblers hesitantly resumed their games. Fighters downstairs began finishing their round. The building breathed again.
But Sang-ho, Soo-jin, and Tae-min all felt the same thing:
That was only the first warning.
The real storm hadn't even started yet.