The air in the 80th-floor surveillance room was heavy, thick with the scent of ozone and old dust. Taehyung leaned closer to the deactivated analogue screen, his gaze locked on the black marble resting on the console. It was cheap, cold to the touch, and held an immense, chilling weight.
"Seok-jin didn't lose his stress marble, Jimin. He left this. This is the black marble from the temple courtyard. The one we used to bury our secrets in the dirt." Taehyung's voice was a low growl, devoid of the exhaustion he'd felt moments ago. The terror was gone, replaced by a laser-like focus. "He's claiming the crime scene. He is telling me he knows I was here, and he knows what I took."
Jimin, his face pale, tightened his grip on his sidearm. "But why announce it now, Chairman? Why send the signal through the painting and then leave this?"
"Because he wants me to know the rules of the game have changed," Taehyung retorted, already working the outdated controls of the hub. The safe door was still ajar, the antique equipment humming. "He was watching us through this prehistoric system, which meant he thought I couldn't trace the feed. An analogue signal buried beneath layers of digital noise. Clever."
He quickly traced the thick, braided cable running from the main video feed into the wall. It didn't connect to the main Taewon network; it snaked down through an unused conduit. Taehyung slammed his fist on the desk, the dust scattering.
"He's not miles away. He didn't relocate to another continent. He relocated three floors down," Taehyung whispered, the realization both terrifying and exhilarating. "He built a bridge, Jimin. He connected this old spy hole to a modern relay, and he was monitoring me from within the very core of my own territory."
He straightened, the Chairman's mask fully reconstituted, sharper and more dangerous than before. "Get the Delta team—the one I personally vetted. Tell them to establish a triple-layer perimeter around the residence immediately. No staff in, no staff out. Lock it down. And pull the digital feed of the Red Scarf painting. I don't care about the curator; that signal dies now."
Jimin nodded, moving with the efficiency of a trained shadow. "And you, Chairman?"
"I'm going to find the architect's workshop," Taehyung said, taking a deep breath of the stale air. "And when I do, I'll find the loophole he left open."
Taehyung used his executive master key card—a key that could open any door in the Taewon Tower, regardless of the security updates—to access the 77th floor. This floor was designated as 'Future Development Space,' officially abandoned to appear dormant.
The door clicked open, revealing an office suite shrouded in cold, pristine emptiness. The carpet was immaculate, the desks bare, and the blinds drawn. It looked like a tomb for bad corporate ideas.
But one corner of the suite was different. Tucked behind a false storage wall, Taehyung found a small, temporary workspace.
There was no chair, no coffee cup, no sign of comfort—only clinical, temporary efficiency. In the center of the room, bolted directly into the concrete floor, was a high-powered, fan-cooled server rack. It hummed quietly, a lonely beacon of cutting-edge technology connected by a single black cable to the archaic conduit that ran up to the 80th-floor hub. This was the relay station. This was where Seok-jin had downloaded the feed from the past and broadcast it to his mobile digital bunker.
Taehyung approached the server, knowing it would be wiped clean. He didn't need data; he needed evidence of presence. And he found it.
Pinned with a silver thumbtack to a cork board—the kind only used for ephemeral thoughts—was a high-resolution, glossy photograph.
It wasn't a corporate document or a threat against the board. It was a candid shot of Bae Ha-eun (Min-soo). She was standing in the foyer of his residence, her back mostly to the camera, illuminated by the natural light filtering in. She was wearing a simple white shirt, and her hand was resting near the edge of the large canvas. The photo was taken from a high, concealed angle, a clear view of the exact spot where the Red Scarf painting had sat. The most damning detail: the Red Scarf was unfinished in the picture.
He had been inside my home, watching her paint the secret. He saw the Vow being recovered, and he simply waited.
Taehyung crushed the photograph in his fist. Seok-jin had vanished, leaving this ghost office as a message. The threat was not to the company or the Chairman; the threat was intimate, physical, and focused entirely on the woman in the photograph.
"You're playing the man, not the title, Seok-jin," Taehyung murmured, his voice laced with venom. "And you just stepped over the line."
At the residence, Min-soo felt the sudden, palpable shift in the atmosphere. The two "silent staff" were now positioned near the entrance, their stances rigid and their gazes unnervingly focused. She had always felt a low-level anxiety in this house, but now it was a ringing alarm bell.
She stared at her tablet. The Taewon Tower feed was finally live. The brilliant, blood-red Scarf painting, tied to the ghostly branch, was enormous, cycling with other promotional images. She felt a surge of pride, quickly followed by a strange, sharp pang of sorrow—a genuine memory flicker, a flash of her hand being cut by something sharp, and the overwhelming scent of copper and rain.
It was more than a painting. It was a key.
Chime. Chime.
The front door announced a visitor.
Min-soo glanced at the lead guard, whose face was immediately set in a hard, negative expression. He spoke into his concealed headset, his voice low and firm. "No deliveries, negative."
The guard paused, then relayed the external intercom's message. "Ma'am, it's a courier. He says it's a personal gift, certified. Addressed to… a 'Ha-eun.' He insists on a signature."
Min-soo froze. Ha-eun. Not Min-soo. The name she was meant to forget. The name only three people still alive knew. She walked past the protesting guard, her amnesia-induced calm finally breaking under the weight of sheer, defiant curiosity.
Through the glass panel, she saw the courier. He was unremarkable, but the package in his hands was not. It was a small, elegant box wrapped in antique white paper and tied with a ribbon that was the exact, deep crimson color of the scarf she had just painted.
The guard stepped in front of her. "Ma'am, do not—"
Min-soo's eyes flashed with a spark of the old, fearless Chairwoman. "Stand down. It's for me."
Ignoring the guard's desperate protest, she reached for the door handle. The moment her fingers brushed the cold brass, she knew. This wasn't a package; it was an act of possession. It was Seok-jin's first, terrifying move, delivered not to the Chairman, but to the woman he planned to reclaim.