The private warehouse near the Busan docks was now quiet, save for the hum of the ventilation system. The security teams had been dismissed with stern instructions regarding confidentiality. Kim Min-Joon had ensured that only he, Seo-Yun, and Joo-Hyuk were left inside, along with two of his most trusted, heavily armed security personnel positioned by the main door.
Min-Joon's plan was simple: extract the final details of the conspiracy, assert his dominance, and then hand them over to the authorities for a slow, agonizing legal demolition. He saw no reason for violence; legal destruction was far more effective.
He faced Seo-Yun and Joo-Hyuk, who were standing defeatedly near a large, empty shipping crate.
"I gave you an opportunity to explain the full extent of the conspiracy, Seo-Yun," Min-Joon said, his voice cold. "I know Joo-Hyuk was merely the facilitator. I need the name of the financial firm that helped you set up the untraceable accounts."
Seo-Yun, now completely stripped of her elegance, simply looked away.
Joo-Hyuk, however, was shivering, his bravado gone. "We didn't use a firm! It was all me! I figured out the routing, the masking—she just provided the key!" he stammered, desperately trying to save himself.
"Lies," Min-Joon stated, disgusted. He nodded toward his security detail. "Take Joo-Hyuk to the holding cell. He will confess the truth once he realizes the longevity of his sentence."
As the two large security men advanced toward Joo-Hyuk, the unexpected happened.
Joo-Hyuk, in a burst of desperate, cornered energy, lunged not for Min-Joon, but for the security guard closest to him. The guard, startled by the sudden, reckless move, stumbled. Joo-Hyuk used the momentary distraction to seize the guard's own weapon—a heavy, specialized taser—and fired it instantly.
The guard screamed as the electric darts hit his chest, dropping instantly to the floor in convulsions.
The second guard, reacting swiftly, reached for his sidearm, but Min-Joon, in a horrifying miscalculation, yelled: "No guns! We need them alive for the court!"
That instant of hesitation was fatal.
Seo-Yun, seeing her chance, acted with a speed and ferocity that shocked Min-Joon. She grabbed a nearby length of heavy metal chain that was hanging from a hoisting mechanism—a thick, rusty length used for lifting crates.
She ran at Min-Joon from his blind side.
Min-Joon barely had time to turn before the chain swung down. It was aimed not at his head, but at his legs, the most vulnerable part of a CEO accustomed to stability.
The chain wrapped around his ankles, pulled tight, and Min-Joon fell heavily to the dusty concrete floor, his head hitting the ground with a sickening thud. The secure tablet, still displaying the images of the cheating, clattered away.
"You idiot!" Seo-Yun shrieked at Joo-Hyuk, her face contorted with rage and fear. "Why did you use the taser? We needed to be quiet!"
"He ordered them to take me!" Joo-Hyuk yelled back, his hands shaking as he held the stolen taser. "It was either him or me!"
Min-Joon pushed himself up onto his elbow, his head spinning. He realized his catastrophic mistake: he had treated them as chess pieces, forgetting that cornered criminals are wild animals. He had underestimated the depth of their desperation and their willingness to resort to brutal, physical violence.
He tried to scramble backward, shouting to his second guard: "Neutralize them! Now!"
But Joo-Hyuk, empowered by the successful disarming, acted first. He aimed the taser at the second guard, who was just drawing his pistol. The guard was hit and dropped, the pistol skittering across the floor.
Min-Joon was alone on the floor, surrounded by the three unconscious bodies of his staff and his enemies-turned-killers.
Seo-Yun, breathing heavily, stood over him, the heavy chain still clutched in her hands. She looked down at the man who had been her husband, the man who had controlled every aspect of her life. There was no regret in her eyes—only a cold, burning finality.
"You wanted perfection, Min-Joon," she hissed. "You wanted control. You never understood that the only way to escape the cage is to kill the jailer."
She raised the chain again.
"The money is frozen, Seo-Yun," Min-Joon gasped, his voice raspy, his mind still trying to negotiate. "You won't get far! The legal pursuit will be..."
He didn't finish the sentence.
Joo-Hyuk rushed forward, his face a mask of terror and malice. "Shut him up! Before he calls someone else!" He grabbed a heavy metal pipe lying nearby.
The final act was brutal, swift, and entirely without ceremony.
Seo-Yun used the chain to pin Min-Joon's arms to the floor, her own strength amplified by adrenaline. Joo-Hyuk raised the pipe high above his head.
Min-Joon's last thought was not of the money, nor of love, but of the absolute, humiliating error of his trust. He closed his eyes just as the pipe descended.
The sickening, heavy impact echoed through the vast, empty warehouse.
Kim Min-Joon, the Chairman of K.M. Finance Holdings, the master strategist who controlled the flow of billions, lay motionless on the cold, dusty concrete floor. His life, his ambition, and his empire had been brought to a sudden, violent, and messy end by the hands of the woman who had vowed to honor him and the man who had despised him.
Seo-Yun and Joo-Hyuk stood panting over the body, their alliance sealed by blood.
"Now what?" Seo-Yun whispered, her voice shaking violently, the adrenaline finally giving way to a terrifying realization of the irreversible crime they had committed.
"We clean this up," Joo-Hyuk replied, his voice grim. "And we disappear. We have the codes; we just need time to unfreeze them. We take the boat and go deep."
They began the frantic, desperate attempt to clean the scene—a futile effort against the forensic might Min-Joon himself had built. The air in the warehouse was now heavy, not just with the scent of diesel and dust, but with the irreversible weight of death and sin.
Far above the dark, blood-stained warehouse, in a realm invisible to human eyes, a celestial entity paused.
This was A-Ra (아라), the Korean Love Goddess. She was dressed not in flowing robes, but in a simple, shimmering white modern Hanbok that seemed woven from moonlight. She had been observing the thread of Kim Min-Joon's life—a thread of ambition and control that she knew lacked the strength of genuine affection.
A-Ra sighed, her expression one of profound weariness. The thread of his life—a strong, gold-braided cord—had just been abruptly and brutally severed, turning to ash in the cosmic tapestry.
"Another life lost, not to broken love, but to broken trust and greed," A-Ra murmured to herself. "The price of the imperfect union. It is time. I must descend."
Her mission was to mend the hearts of the truly heartbroken and restore balance to the world's diminishing supply of genuine affection. The utter, devastating injustice and the extreme emotional violence surrounding Min-Joon's death had created a fissure—a metaphysical imbalance—that demanded her presence. The death was brutal, but the betrayal was an offense to the very concept of Pyar (Love).
With a silent, shimmering motion, the Goddess descended through the night sky, heading toward the sprawling, unsuspecting city of Seoul, where the fallout of the CEO's murder would soon begin.