Chapter 9: Bloodied Silks
The world came back in splinters.
First, it was the cold. A deep, damp chill that seeped through the thin silk of her wedding sampo and into her bones. Then, the smell—wet concrete, rust, and the sweet-rotten scent of decaying fabric. Da-rae tried to move, and a jolt of white-hot pain lit up her shoulders. Her arms were wrenched behind her, bound at the wrists. The material was rough, unforgiving. She’d been pulling against it for what felt like hours. Days.
She blinked, her vision swimming. Above her, through a shattered grid of glass, the sky was a dull, bruised twilight. A factory. She was in some kind of abandoned factory.
Her mind scrambled, a frantic animal in a trap. The last thing she remembered was the car. Jin-woo’s driver had opened the door for her outside the boutique, his face a familiar, placid mask. Then, a sharp prick in her neck as she slid onto the seat. The world had dissolved into static.
A scuff of a shoe on concrete.
She turned her head, a wave of nausea following the motion. A figure stood silhouetted against a distant, dusty window. Tall, slender. The outline was unmistakable.
“Soo-ah.” The name came out cracked, her throat raw.
Her sister stepped into a pallid beam of fading light. She looked immaculate—a cream-colored trench coat, hair smooth, lips painted a perfect, cruel red. She held a long, silver pair of dressmaking shears. They caught the grey light.
“Little sister,” Soo-ah said, her voice echoing in the vast, hollow space. “You look a mess. This sample dress really doesn’t suit you.” She gestured with the shears toward Da-rae’s torso. The beautiful ivory sheath from the fitting was torn in several places, the delicate fabric snagged and dirty.
Da-rae swallowed against the dryness. “Jin-woo will come.”
“Will he?” Soo-ah paced slowly, the click of her heels rhythmic against the silence. “He’s probably at some emergency board meeting my dear father-in-law conveniently called. Or perhaps he’s chasing a lead I paid a street kid to give him across the city.” She stopped, tilting her head. “He’s not a god, Da-rae. He’s just a man. A man you stole.”
“I didn’t steal anything.” The defiance cost her. Her voice trembled.
“You took my place,” Soo-ah hissed, the cool facade cracking. She knelt suddenly, bringing her face close. Da-rae could smell her perfume, something expensive and floral, clashing violently with the factory’s decay. “You think because he’s kind to you, it makes it right? You’re a placeholder. A stand-in. And when I expose you, he’ll discard you. The Choi name can’t have fraud attached to it. The scandal would ruin them.”
She lifted the shears. Da-rae flinched, squeezing her eyes shut. But Soo-ah didn’t touch her. Instead, she snipped a lock of Da-rae’s hair, letting the dark strands float to the filthy floor.
“I just wanted you to understand how it feels,” Soo-ah whispered. “To have what’s yours taken. To be powerless.”
Footsteps.
Not Soo-ah’s sharp clicks. These were heavier. Faster. A rhythmic, pounding convergence from two directions.
Soo-ah stood up, her eyes widening slightly. She hadn’t expected this. Not yet.
Jin-woo emerged from a shadowed archway to the left. He wore a simple black sweater and dark jeans, but he moved with a predatory silence that made the vast space feel small. From the right, another man appeared—Min-jun, Jin-woo’s head of security, a broad-shouldered silhouette with a calm, alert stance.
“The board meeting was easily delegated,” Jin-woo said, his voice not loud, but it carried, clean and cold as a scalpel. “The street kid took the money and then took my man’s money to tell the truth. Your planning has always been impulsive, Soo-ah. It’s your greatest flaw.”
He was looking only at Da-rae. Taking in the torn dress, the bound wrists, the bloody lip where she must have bitten it. His expression didn’t change, but something in the air did. It tightened, charged.
“Stay back,” Soo-ah said, her voice rising. She grabbed a handful of Da-rae’s hair, yanking her head back, the points of the shears hovering near her throat. “I’ll do it. I swear I will.”
Jin-woo stopped. He held up a hand, and Min-jun halted as well.
“Let her go,” Jin-woo said. “This is between you and me.”
“It was never between you and me!” Soo-ah spat. “It was mine! All of it! The life, the name, the future! She’s nothing! A scared little girl playing dress-up!”
Da-rae’s heart hammered against her ribs. The cold metal brushed her skin. But Jin-woo’s gaze held hers across the distance. In his eyes, she saw no fear, only a terrifying, absolute focus. And a promise.
“Da-rae,” he said, his voice softening just for her. “Close your eyes.”
She did.
What happened next was a series of sounds. A sharp, pained gasp from Soo-ah. The metallic clatter of shears skittering across concrete. A thud. A choked cry. The sounds were swift, precise, and over in seconds.
“Open your eyes,” Jin-woo’s voice came, now much closer.
She opened them. He was kneeling before her, his hands already working at the knots behind her back. Soo-ah was on the ground several feet away, held firmly but without malice by Min-jun. She was crying, great heaving sobs of fury and defeat.
The ropes fell away. The rush of blood back into her hands was agony. She cried out, her body slumping forward.
Jin-woo caught her. He gathered her into his arms, his touch infinitely gentle against the violence of the last hours. He shrugged out of his sweater, leaving himself in just a t-shirt, and wrapped the warm, soft fabric around her trembling shoulders. It smelled like him. Like safety.
“I knew you’d come,” she whimpered into his chest, the words mangled by her split lip.
He held her tighter, one hand cradling the back of her head. His lips pressed against her hair. His breath was a rapid, heated rhythm against her scalp. When he finally spoke, his voice was low, a vibration she felt through his chest.
“I will burn this city to the ground for you,” he whispered, the words for her alone. It wasn’t a lover’s hyperbole. It was a statement of fact, quiet and lethal. “Anyone who touches you ceases to exist.”
Over his shoulder, Da-rae saw Min-jun helping a shaking, broken Soo-ah to her feet. There was no cruelty in his action, just a grim efficiency.
“Jin-woo,” Da-rae whispered, her hand finding his.
He pulled back just enough to look at her face, his thumbs brushing away the dirt and tears.
“She’s your family,” Da-rae said, the words aching. “Indirectly. What will you do?”
He studied her, his eyes tracing the bruise forming on her cheekbone. He saw the compassion there, even now. It was the part of her he cherished most, and the part that frightened him for its fragility.
“I’m not going to kill her, if that’s what you’re worried about,” he said, his voice regaining a fraction of its usual calm. “But she will disappear. She’ll have a comfortable, isolated life somewhere very far away. She will never speak your name again.” He helped her stand, keeping an arm firmly around her. “This ends tonight.”
He guided her toward the exit, his body a shield between her and where Soo-ah stood. As they passed, Soo-ah lifted her head, her eyes blazing with a final, desperate hatred.
“You’ll never know if he really loves you or just the idea of saving you,” she hissed.
Jin-woo didn’t even glance at her. He kept walking, his attention solely on the woman in his arms.
Outside, the cold night air was a shock. A black sedan idled by the cracked loading dock. Their usual driver stood by the open door, his face pale with anxiety. Jin-woo helped Da-rae inside, settling her in the warmth.
He leaned in, speaking to Min-jun in a low tone. “Take her to the containment property. Use the agreed protocol. I’ll deal with the parents tomorrow.”
Min-jun nodded.
Jin-woo slid into the seat beside Da-rae, pulling her close as the car pulled away from the spectral bulk of the factory. He didn’t ask if she was okay. He simply held her, one hand stroking her hair, the other checking the pulse in her wrist, his own heartbeat gradually slowing against her side.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured after a long silence, his lips against her temple. “I should have seen this. I underestimated her desperation.”
Da-rae shook her head weakly. “You came. That’s all that matters.”
She looked out the window at the passing city lights, a stream of gold and white. The world outside was normal, oblivious. Her old life, the fear, the pretending, felt like it was crumbling away in that derelict building, leaving something raw and real in its place.
She turned her face into his neck, breathing him in. “Take me home,” she said, the words thick with exhaustion.
He kissed her forehead, a seal on the promise. “We’re going home.”