POV JAEHYUN
The sun rose over Seoul with a reddish hue, as if the sky knew that the city was about to bleed secrets. It was 7:55 in the morning. I was in the security office of the Moon mansion, surrounded by monitors showing every angle of the property and the hotel where the press conference would take place.
Nabi was by my side. She wore an impeccable white tailored suit, the color of purity and new beginnings. She looked serene, but her fingers fiddled with the silver pendant Yuseo had given her that morning: a small feather.
"Three minutes, Jaehyun," she whispered, looking at the global clock on the main screen.
"Everything is ready. The mirror servers in Europe and America are active. Even if Taehoon manages to take down the network in Korea, Hayami's final chapter will be published worldwide," I assured him, placing a hand on his shoulder.
At 8:00 sharp, the digital world exploded.
On our screens, we watched as major news sites changed their headlines in real time. "HAYAMI REVEALS HER IDENTITY: KWON TECH'S DAUGHTER EXPOSES MAFIA MONEY LAUNDERING." Social media crashed. Nabi's name began to rise in global trends at breakneck speed.
"I did it," she said, her voice barely audible. Her eyes were fixed on the download counter, which was climbing by the thousands.
"We did it," I corrected. "Now, let's face them."
The journey to the Grand Hyatt hotel was a military operation. Four armored cars escorted our vehicle. Inside, the silence was thick. Nabi mentally rehearsed her speech, while I checked messages from my security chief.
"Sir," my lead escort's voice came over the intercom, "we've detected three suspicious motorcycles following us from the Mapo Bridge. They have no license plates."
"Don't stop. If they try to block our path, take them off the road," I ordered coldly. I wasn't going to let anyone stop Nabi today.
When we arrived at the hotel, chaos reigned. Hundreds of journalists, Hayami fans with supportive posters, and onlookers crowded the entrance. When I got out of the car and helped Nabi out, the flashes were like an electrical storm.
We walked down the red carpet, not like models, but like warriors. In the front row of the conference room, I saw my parents and Nabi's brothers. Daejung gave me a firm nod, and Raewon gave me a thumbs up, although his face reflected the fear we all felt.
Nabi stepped up to the podium. She looked small in front of the forest of microphones, but when she began to speak, her voice resonated with the authority of an empress.
"My name is Kwon Nabi," she began, and the silence was so deep that you could hear the hum of the cameras. For years, I hid behind the name Hayami because the truth was too dangerous to be spoken aloud. But today, the silence ends. What you read this morning in my latest chapter is not fiction. These are accounting records, names of front companies, and smuggling routes that my father, Kwon Yeonhu, has operated under the protection of Kim Taehoon's criminal family.
The room erupted in shouted questions, but she didn't stop. She laid out step by step how her sister Suyeon's death had not been an accident, but a planned execution when Suyeon tried to blackmail her own stepmother.
I was monitoring the perimeter from the side of the stage. That's when I saw it.
An unusual movement in the upper sound booth. A metallic flash.
"NABI, DOWN!" I roared, lunging toward her.
It wasn't a gunshot. It was a controlled explosion in the hotel's light generators. The hall was plunged into sudden darkness, broken only by the red emergency lights that began to spin, creating a nightmarish scene. The panicked screams of journalists filled the air.
"Hold her!" I heard a rough voice shout through the din.
I felt the impact of a body against mine. Two men tried to pull me away from Nabi amid the smoke and chaos. I punched one in the throat and the other in the face, feeling the adrenaline burning through my veins. My self-defense training, the one my father forced me to take when I was young "in case business got ugly," kicked in instinctively.
"Jaehyun!" Nabi's scream reached me from a few feet away.
I fought my way through the smoke, hitting anyone who got in my way. When the emergency lights illuminated the scene for a second, I saw Kim Taehoon. He was there, in the middle of the chaos, holding Nabi by the arm while a knife glinted near her throat. He wasn't carrying any firearms so as not to alert the police immediately; he preferred the brutal closeness of steel.
"Let her go, Taehoon," I said, my voice coming out like an animal growl. I pulled out my own gun, pointing it directly at his forehead. "One more move and there will be no trial for you, only a funeral."
"You think I care about dying now, rich kid?" Taehoon hissed, his eyes bloodshot. "This bitch destroyed twenty years of my work in ten minutes. If I go down, she's coming to hell with me."
"She's not going anywhere," a voice interjected from the other side.
It was Daejung. He had climbed onto the stage from the back, a metal bar in his hand. Behind him, the Moon family's security team began to surround Taehoon's men, who were trying to cover their boss's escape.
Taehoon smiled maniacally and pressed the knife against Nabi's skin. I saw a drop of blood run down my wife's white neck. The world stopped.
"NO!" Nabi screamed. In a desperate and courageous move, she used her own weight to throw herself backward, hitting Taehoon with her head and giving me the angle I needed.
I didn't shoot to kill. I hit him in the shoulder.
The gangster roared in pain and let go of Nabi. I lunged at him before he could recover, unleashing all the fury of the last few weeks into my fists until my men pulled me away from his bloody body.
"Jaehyun, stop! It's over!" Nabi threw herself into my arms, sobbing heavily.
The police burst into the room seconds later. The lights came back on. Taehoon was handcuffed as he shouted curses. My father and Daejung moved closer to protect us, forming a human circle.
But as the paramedics checked the scratch on Nabi's neck, Yuseo came running over with her tablet, her face as pale as paper.
"Jaehyun... Nabi... you have to see this," my sister said, her voice trembling.
On the screen was a live feed from the Kwon mansion. The police had arrived to arrest Yeonhu and Mrs. Shin, but the video showed something else. The mansion was on fire. And on the main balcony, Mrs. Shin was holding a briefcase, shouting at the cameras before disappearing into the smoke.
"You think you've won," Mrs. Shin's recording said, "but you've only lit the fuse. The files Nabi released are only half of it. The other half is in the hands of Taehoon's international partners in Russia and China. If we fall, Seoul will burn with us."
I looked at Nabi. She was shaking, processing that her victory was not the end, but the beginning of an international war we could barely comprehend.
"This isn't over," she whispered, staring at the flames on the screen. "We've only destroyed the local head. The body is still alive."
I took her hand, squeezing it tightly. The road ahead would be long. There would be betrayals, new villains, and trials that would test our sanity. But as I looked into her eyes, I saw that the girl who had secretly cut herself had died on that stage. In her place was a woman who knew her pen could set the world on fire, and a man who was willing to be the fuel for that fire.
"Then we'll fight until there's nothing left," I declared. "But now, let's get out of here."
We walked toward the hotel exit. The reporters continued to snap photos, but they no longer saw an heiress and her well-dressed husband. They saw the two new rulers of an empire that was being rebuilt on the ashes of the old one.
The war for the Kwon empire and the safety of the Moon family had just escalated. And I, Jaehyun Moon, knew that from today on, my biggest investment would not be money, but the life of the woman I loved.