"Hands tied and legs bound in the center of a dimly lit room sat Kim Seo-yeon. Memories of her mother's death when she was only nine years old surged back. She could still hear her mother's final words: "Seo-yeon — run. Don't look back." Her mother had sacrificed herself as a shield to protect her.Seo-yeon's focus shifted back to the present as faint voices echoed nearby. Two men were speaking.Is the girl awake?" one asked.No, sir. She's just been murmuring 'mother, please don't leave me,'" the other replied."How long has she been out?""Three days now, boss. Since the day we took her.""Splash cold water on her. We're running out of time — get the Kim ring from her, kill her, and bring it to me.""Wait — isn't she — your stepdaughter?"Yes. Enough of this nonsense. Go fetch water from Mina and wake her. We don't have a moment to lose." The boss's footsteps faded as she left, Mina following closely.Seo-yeon had heard every word. She let the voices wash over her, feigning unconsciousness. Her breathing was shallow, steady, her body limp — a performance she had perfected in darker, lonelier hours. When Mina approached with a porcelain bowl, chuckling under her breath, Seo-yeon remained still.The icy water splashed across her face, jolting her awake with a violent gasp. Three days of unconsciousness left her weak and disoriented; light and shadow blurred as she forced her eyes open. Her instincts snapped into place — observe, analyze, count. Three men: one slumped in a chair, another pacing with a cigarette, the third sprawled across a couch. The door was secured with a heavy lock, its keys dangling from the belt of the pacing guard.They muttered the same command again and again: "Get the Kim ring from under her hair."Seo-yeon feigned weakness. A groan, limp wrists. When the guard leaned in to taunt her, believing she was helpless, she struck swiftly — a precise jab to his throat, enough to make him gag and stumble, not die.Chaos erupted. As he staggered, Seo-yeon kicked the lamp beside him. It crashed to the floor, shattering in a burst of glass and sparks, sending jagged beams of light slicing across the room. Shouts filled the air. Mina froze, stunned by the sudden shift.Seo-yeon moved swiftly, crawling low under a table. Her fingers found a loose board, a gap with old wires — just enough space to breathe and hide. The ring, braided into her hair, she tucked deeper, knotting it tight at her nape so it pressed firmly against her scalp.nShe fought not with brute force but with precision. A palm strike to a knee, a shove to throw one man off balance, a sweep to send another cursing to the floor. She wasn't aiming to win a fight — only to create an opening. She spotted the back exit. When the bolt scraped and the cool night air slipped in, she was ready. Moving low and silent, she slipped through like a shadow.Outside, she stuck to hidden paths: hedgerows, service alleys, narrow lanes. Her breaths came ragged, then steadied. At last, she reached a dimly lit street near a 24-hour convenience store. The ordinary sound of workers laughing under fluorescent light felt miraculous.Inside the store, her trembling hands paid for a bottle of water with crumpled cash. No names. No questions. She dialed the one person she trusted."Tom," she whispered. "It's Seo-yeon. I'm out. I'm safe for now."His response was sharp and steady. "Where are you? Don't move. I'll come. Do you have your passport?"She gave him the street name. No further details were needed. He was already moving.Tom's headlights cut through the rain. He kept everything discreet — no sirens, no police. Tossing her a scarf, he said, "We go straight to the airport. Your flight's tonight.
"They moved like operatives: a hurried, private car to a quiet office where Tom produced confirmation numbers and a window seat, then a quick drive to the airport. She slept for a fragmented hour, head on his shoulder, both of them wired but exhausted in different ways. The plane lifted and the city shrank; Seo-yeon clutched the braid at her neck where the ring slept against her skull and let the machine of flight carry her toward Seoul.At the Kim mansion, Chairman Kim sat in a near-empty study with business papers strewn like a battlefield around him. Two days to the Korean Business Excellence awards and his daughter's absence gnawed at him. He pictured the airport she'd promised to land at, the reservations she'd made, the empty chair at the boardroom table. Calls went unanswered; his concern hardened into a concrete, cold worry.
Back in the damp room, the gang's failure hung heavy in the air. Mina dragged on her cigarette with deliberate exaggeration, trying to mask the tremor in her hands. A young recruit nervously dialed the boss, his voice cracking.
"Boss," he stammered, "she's gone. We—she woke up and slipped away."
A sharp silence followed before the boss's voice cut in like a blade. "What do you mean, 'she's gone'?"
"She woke. We tried to restrain her—she fought back. We couldn't hold her."
"You let her escape?" the boss roared. "Where's the ring? Did you get the ring?"
"We… we didn't, boss. She's gone."
Mina's reply came out barely above a whisper. "We thought she'd be easy."
…or bring my head." The boss's voice was a blade now, cold and official. She rose, paced once across the cramped office, and then stopped so suddenly Mina could see the hard set of her jaw. "You have twenty-four hours. I don't care how you do it. You find Kim Seo-yeon and you recover that ring. If she's dead, make it look like an accident. If she won't talk, make her regret the silence."
Mina swallowed. Her fingers tightened around the phone until the knuckles whitened. "Understood."
The boss studied her for a long beat as if cataloguing weaknesses to exploit later. "You think this is about a trinket," she said finally, softer but no kinder. "It isn't. That ring is leverage. It opens doors—doors people die opening. You lose it, you lose us both. Don't make me regret hiring you."
Mina forced a smile that didn't reach her eyes. "I won't fail."
She hung up and let the line go dead, but the image of Kim—short, impossibly quiet, and trained—kept replaying behind her lids. Mina moved to the window, watching the rain smear the city lights into a smear of molten gold. Twenty-four hours, she thought, and already the city felt smaller, boxed tight with the ticking of a clock she could not stop.
She reached for her coat, checked the pistol at her hip, and thought of the one person she could call who still owed her a favor. If Kim Seo-yeon really was who the boss said, brute force would fail. Mina let out a breath that tasted like iron and smiled, not out of humor but calculation. There were always other ways to untie a knot—if you knew where to begin.