The warmth between them evaporated like morning mist under harsh sun. Chairman Kang-dae rose from his seat with a fluidity that belied his age and illness, the mask of power sliding back into place as naturally as breathing. The vulnerable grandfather who'd wept over old photographs disappeared, replaced by the man who controlled nearly a trillion dollars with an iron fist.
"How long until she arrives?" The Chairman's voice carried none of the softness from moments before.
Jin-woo remained seated, confusion washing over him. She? The word hung in the air, pregnant with meaning he couldn't decipher. His instincts, honed by years of reading threats on violent streets, screamed that something had shifted. The Colonel's grim expression hadn't been about external enemies.
It was about family.
Colonel Shin checked his watch, jaw tight. "ETA seven minutes, sir. Security confirmed departure from Seoul Tower helipad eighteen minutes ago."
"Of course she would come immediately." The Chairman moved to the window overlooking the estate grounds, hands clasped behind his back. His shoulders carried a different kind of tension now, not the weight of grief but the rigid posture of a general preparing for battle. "She always did have impeccable timing."
Jin-woo stood slowly, his hand unconsciously moving toward the knife he'd pocketed from the alley fight. The weapon wasn't there anymore, stripped away during his medical examination, but the instinct remained. Something about this conversation made his skin crawl, made the orange-gold eyes that had intimidated street thugs now scan for exits and threats.
"Who's coming?" The question came out harder than intended, street-sharp and demanding.
The Chairman turned from the window. For just a moment, Jin-woo saw something flash across that controlled face. Regret? Warning? Fear? It disappeared too quickly to identify.
"Your aunt. Cheonha Kang-sook."
The name meant nothing to Jin-woo. He'd had no family for twenty-six years, and now they were materializing like ghosts from stories he'd never been told. First a grandfather he'd never met. Now an aunt whose very name made both the Chairman and Colonel Shin stand like soldiers awaiting enemy contact.
"She's your father's younger sister," the Chairman continued, voice carefully neutral. "And the Vice-President of Cheonha Group's Industrial Division. One of the most powerful women in Daehan's corporate world."
Jin-woo caught what wasn't being said, heard it in the spaces between words like he'd learned to hear approaching footsteps in dark alleys. Powerful wasn't the same as trustworthy. The way the Colonel's hand rested near his concealed sidearm spoke volumes about what kind of family reunion this would be.
"You don't trust her." Not a question.
The Chairman's silence confirmed it.
A distant sound penetrated the heavy quiet, the rhythmic thump of helicopter rotors cutting through air. Growing louder. Growing closer. Jin-woo's muscles tensed automatically, the same coiling readiness that preceded street fights. But this wasn't an opponent he could face with fists and a metal pipe.
This was politics. Power. The kind of warfare waged with smiles and words that cut deeper than knives.
"Sir." Colonel Shin moved to the window, watching the approaching aircraft with professional assessment. "Should I have security sweep the helicopter before she disembarks?"
"She'd take it as an insult." The Chairman's mouth twisted into something that might have been amusement on a different day. "Though you're right to suggest it. Have them do a discreet scan after she's inside."
The helicopter sound swelled, no longer distant but immediate. Jin-woo moved to the window beside his grandfather, watching a sleek black aircraft descend toward the estate's helipad with precision that spoke of an experienced pilot. Expensive. Everything about it screamed wealth and power, from the gleaming paint to the smooth landing approach.
"Why is she coming?" Jin-woo kept his voice level despite the unease crawling up his spine.
"Because I made the mistake of calling the executive board into emergency session." The Chairman's jaw tightened. "Protocol demanded it. When the Chairman discovers his missing heir, the board must be informed. She would have heard within minutes of my announcement."
"And she came immediately."
"She always does." Something dark flickered in those pale gold eyes. "Your aunt doesn't delegate when power is at stake. And make no mistake, Jin-woo, your existence threatens everything she's spent twenty-six years building."
The helicopter touched down with barely a tremor, rotors beginning their wind-down sequence. Through the window, Jin-woo watched a door open. A woman emerged, tall, elegant, wearing a charcoal suit that probably cost more than his abandoned apartment building. Even from this distance, he could see she moved with absolute confidence, every gesture calculated and controlled.
She looked up toward the main house, and Jin-woo felt the weight of her stare even across a hundred meters of manicured lawn.
"She knows I'm watching," the Chairman murmured. "She's always known how to read me."
Colonel Shin stepped back from the window, positioning himself slightly between Jin-woo and the approaching figure, a subtle protection detail that didn't go unnoticed. "Sir, perhaps the young master should retire to his quarters while you speak with her first?"
"No." The Chairman's voice carried absolute authority. "Jin-woo stays. She needs to see him. Needs to understand that he's real, that he's home, that nothing she does will change that fact."
Jin-woo watched his aunt cross the grounds with measured steps, unhurried despite traveling from Seoul at what must have been maximum speed. Everything about her movements spoke of control, the kind of person who orchestrated events rather than reacted to them. She reminded him of certain gang leaders he'd encountered, the ones who never got their hands dirty but commanded absolute loyalty through fear and calculated manipulation.
"She was here the night your father died." The Chairman spoke quietly, still watching his daughter approach. "Flew in from Beijing for a 'surprise visit.' She was also the last person to see your mother alive before..." He didn't finish.
Ice flooded Jin-woo's veins. The implication hung in the air like smoke from a gun barrel. She was there. Both times. When his father died. When his mother disappeared. When he'd been taken.
"You think she…"
"I think nothing, I can't prove it." The Chairman turned from the window, his expression carved from granite. "And she knows it. Twenty-six years, Jin-woo. Twenty-six years of searching, investigating, questioning. She's covered her tracks so thoroughly that even I, with all my resources, all my power, have found nothing concrete enough to act on."
The helicopter rotors slowed to a stop. In the sudden silence, Jin-woo heard footsteps approaching the main entrance. Measured. Confident. The sound of someone who belonged here far more than he ever would.
"What does she want?"
"What she's always wanted." The Chairman moved back to his seat, settling into it with the careful control of a man hiding pain. "Control of Cheonha Group. And you, my boy, are the only thing standing between her and absolute power."
The footsteps grew closer. Jin-woo heard voices in the entrance hall, staff greeting the arrival with nervous respect. His hands curled into fists at his sides, street instincts screaming danger even though no weapon had been drawn, no threat openly declared.
Colonel Shin straightened to full military bearing, hand resting on his sidearm with deceptive casualness.
The Chairman's eyes met Jin-woo's across the room, and in that gaze Jin-woo saw both warning and grim determination.
The footsteps stopped outside the door.
The woman who might have destroyed his entire family stood on the other side, separated from him by nothing but carved wood and twenty-six years of carefully constructed lies.
Jin-woo took a breath, steeling himself for whatever came next.
The door handle turned.