I didn't leave immediately after receiving the message.
I simply stood beside the car, staring at my phone screen while my thoughts felt as though they were spinning inside a washing machine that would never stop. *Don't look into my daughter.* The sentence kept circling in my mind, over and over, until I started wondering whether the words had really been sent or whether I was imagining them.
His daughter.
After standing at that man's side for years, listening to his orders and carrying out his plans, I had never—not once—heard anything about his family. Not because I had never been curious. I simply knew which boundaries were not to be crossed. There were things you shouldn't ask someone who stood several levels above you in a hierarchy as dark as this one. Family was always at the top of that list.
But now everything was different. Because someone who had never been mentioned had suddenly become the center of a serious problem, and I couldn't ignore it even though every instinct told me to stay focused on the job.
I opened my conversation with Han Seo-yeon. There were no new messages. I pressed the call button with fingers that suddenly felt heavy. Once. Twice. Three times. The phone rang until it went to voicemail. I tried again. Still no answer.
I began to feel uneasy in a way I wasn't used to. It wasn't fear of the threat in the message. Not that. I was afraid because Han Seo-yeon always answered, even when she was in the operating room, even when her hands were covered in a patient's blood. She always found a way to respond.
Until now.
I typed: *Where are you?*
No reply. No status changing to "typing." Just the darkness of the empty phone screen.
"Hyung."
I turned. Park Do-hyun stood several yards away, his face worn out. "Min-seok is still alive, but he won't talk."
I nodded mechanically, only half listening. I opened the car door. But before I could get all the way inside, I stopped. "Do-hyun," I called.
"Yes?"
"From now on, find out everything you can about the boss's family. Everything."
He looked startled. "Without his knowledge?"
I looked him straight in the eye. "Yes."
"Tae-jun, this is dangerous. If he finds out—"
"I'm responsible," I cut him off.
Do-hyun let out a long breath, and I could see the calculations unfolding in his head—risk versus loyalty, the job versus safety. In the end, he nodded. I got into the car. The engine started. I sat behind the wheel for several minutes without driving, fully aware of what I was doing.
I was breaking a fundamental rule I had never violated in all these years. I was investigating my boss's private life. And if my suspicions were right—if all these puzzle pieces fit together in the horrifying way I feared—I might be investigating the life of the woman I loved.
I reached the hospital about forty minutes later without any clear plan for what I would say or do. I didn't call again. I just wanted to see her, to make sure she was all right, to confirm that I was panicking without any solid reason.
As soon as I entered the lobby, I went straight to the information desk. The nurse there knew me from my previous visits. "Dr. Han Seo-yeon?" I asked, perhaps with too much intensity.
"Dr. Han isn't here," she replied.
Something cold settled in my stomach. "Where is she?"
"She took the day off. She called this morning and said she had a family matter to take care of."
I fell silent, processing the information. A family matter. The combination of those words shouldn't have meant anything, but in the context of the message I'd just received, they seemed packed with hidden meaning.
My phone vibrated.
A message from Han Seo-yeon: *Sorry I didn't answer earlier.*
I replied immediately: *Where are you?*
*Home.*
*Is something wrong?*
A long pause. Then no reply at all. I called. This time, she answered.
"Hello." Her voice was quiet, as if she were whispering or afraid someone might hear her.
"Are you all right?"
"Yeah."
"Why didn't you tell me you went home?"
"I just got here."
There was something different in her voice. Something closed off, sealed tight like stone. "Seo-yeon, is someone with you?"
Silence. Long. Terrifying.
"No," she said at last.
I wasn't convinced. I knew she was lying—not because of my skill at reading people, though that played a part, but because I could hear it clearly beneath her carefully chosen words. Lies had a different texture to them.
"Why are you asking that?" she asked, and I could hear the concern in her voice.
"I'm worried."
She was quiet. I could hear her breathing on the other end. "I'm fine," she said softly.
I smiled faintly. A lie meant to offer comfort. Just like the one I was about to tell. "All right."
"I'm sorry for canceling our plans," she said.
I closed my eyes. Under normal circumstances, I might have said it didn't matter, that there would be another time, that we could reschedule. But now, with everything going on, those words felt hollow. "It's okay."
"Are you angry?"
"No."
"You sound angry."
"I'm just tired," I lied again, and she knew I was lying, and I knew she knew, yet we both chose not to call it out.
"I have to go," she said at last.
"Seo-yeon, if anything happens—anything—call me. I'll come."
"I know," she said, and for some reason, that brief answer felt like the most serious promise she'd ever made to me.
"Promise?"
"Promise."
After the call ended, I lowered my phone slowly, feeling the unease digging deeper. The conversation had only made me more worried, not less. Because I knew Han Seo-yeon well enough to know when she was lying, and I had heard a lie in every word.
That night, I returned to the Black Hawk office.
Do-hyun was already waiting, holding a file folder that looked heavy. "It's not much, but it's enough to connect a few things," he said as he handed it to me.
I opened the file folder slowly, afraid of what I would find. There were several documents—not many, which meant the information had either been deliberately hidden or erased from the official records. But one page made me stop breathing.
Han Seo-yeon.
I stared at the name, my thoughts moving in slow motion. Date of birth. Place of birth. Detailed family information. Then I turned to the next page and found an old family photograph. A man stood in the center, his posture one I recognized perfectly. A woman stood beside him. And a little girl.
I read the name printed beneath the photograph.
Han Seo-yeon.
My hand stopped.
"Who provided this?" I asked, my voice sounding distant.
"An old archive that should have been locked."
"Why did it show up now?"
"Because her family records were deliberately sealed. But the system had a loophole."
I lifted the photograph close to my face. I knew the man's gaze. Not as the father of a doctor, but as a name almost never spoken in this place. A name that appeared only in the most confidential internal memos.
"Who is her father?" I asked, even though part of me already knew the answer.
Do-hyun didn't answer for a long time. When he finally spoke, his voice was low. "Her father's name is Han Jae-hyun."
I set the photograph down. Then picked it up again. Set it down. Picked it up. As if repeating the motion could change the name printed beneath it.
Han Jae-hyun.
I knew him. Not as a publicly recognized face. Not as a businessman or public figure. I knew him from closed rooms. From a voice heard over the phone. From orders given without explanation. From the heavy, unspoken presence behind every important decision in Black Hawk.
"So this is all..." I began, but Do-hyun cut me off.
"I didn't know the two of you were that close," he said, and there was a mistake in his assumption—he thought I had just learned about Han Seo-yeon's connection to the organization, when I had actually just learned her father's identity.
I stood and walked to the window. The concern I'd felt earlier suddenly made perfect sense—and terrified me all at once. Every conversation I'd had with Han Seo-yeon resurfaced in a different order, with their meanings completely changed.
*"My father sees the world like a chessboard."*
*"I love him, but I'm angry with him."*
*"I left because I couldn't accept the path my father chose."*
I closed my eyes and tried to connect all the points that had come together to form a horrifying picture. Han Seo-yeon was my boss's daughter. My boss knew about our relationship. Someone was targeting Han Seo-yeon because of her connection to the organization. And Han Seo-yeon knew nothing about any of it.
"Don't tell her anything," I said.
"Hyung—"
"I'm serious. Don't tell her. I'll handle everything."
At 11:48 p.m., the office door opened.
I stood immediately when I saw who entered. Han Jae-hyun. My boss. The father of the woman I loved. He walked with the same stride I'd seen countless times—confident, yet calculating every step. His eyes fell at once on the family photograph still open on the desk.
He knew.
Of course he knew. Nothing could happen in this organization without his knowledge.
"So you've found it," he said, not as a question.
I didn't answer right away. "Why?"
"What do you mean?"
"Why did you hide it?"
He sat in the chair across from me, moving in a way that made every motion feel like a calculated decision. "Because I wanted her to live a normal life. Far from this world. Far from everything that could hurt her."
I almost laughed at the irony of that statement. "Did you think I'd never find out? Did you think we could keep pretending none of this existed?"
"I hoped you would never fall in love with her."
The sentence left me speechless. There was no anger in it. Only genuine concern. The concern of a father who understood exactly what would happen when his dark world collided with his daughter's bright life.
"How long have you known?" I asked.
"Since the first time you brought her to the hospital."
He stood and walked toward the window. For several minutes, we stood in silence together, looking out at Seoul glittering in the night. Then he said in a very quiet voice, "If you truly love her—and I believe you do—then don't drag her into this world. Never."
Something like a knife twisted in my chest. "And what if I can't?"
He turned to look directly at me. There was a sadness in his eyes I'd never seen before. "Then leave all of this behind. Leave Black Hawk. Leave me. Leave the life you've built here. And go with her."
He walked toward the door, then stopped. "For the first time in your life, you have something that doesn't belong to the organization. Something pure. Don't let us destroy it."
The door closed.
I stood alone beneath the weight of the decision I had to make.
That night, I went to the Han River—the place I visited least often because it was too close to the normal life I'd spent so long avoiding. I sat on a bench we'd once passed together and opened my phone.
There was a new message from Han Seo-yeon: *Tae-jun, are you still awake?*
I typed: *Yeah.*
*Me too.*
*Why?*
Her reply made my heart move strangely: *I'm thinking about you.*
I fell silent, processing the simple statement that felt as though it carried the weight of the entire world. There was so much I wanted to say. I know who your father is. I'm his right-hand man. I've lived in the world you've hated all this time. We can't keep doing this. I have to leave.
But I deleted every one of those sentences.
I wrote only: *Go to sleep, Seo-yeon. Tomorrow's going to be a long day.*
She replied: *Good night, Tae-jun.*
I turned off the phone screen.
That night, I made a decision that would change everything. I would distance myself from her. At least for a while. I would resolve the problem with Red Viper. I would find out who was threatening her. I would make sure she was safe from everything that was coming. Then I would leave—go as far away as necessary—without explaining anything to anyone.
But I never had the chance to carry out that decision.
Because the next morning, when I opened my apartment door, a black envelope lay on the floor at my feet. There was no return name. No address. Only one sentence printed across the front in large letters.
FOR KANG TAE-JUN.
I opened it with fingers that had suddenly gone numb.
Inside was a single photograph. Han Seo-yeon walking out of the hospital, her eyes lowered, her body bent as if she were thinking about something heavy. It was a secret photograph, taken from far enough away to show that whoever had taken it either had a camera with a powerful zoom lens or had gotten very close.
Written on the back of the photograph in red ink that stood out starkly against the white paper were the words:
*"If you want her to stay alive, leave Black Hawk."*
I clenched the photograph until its edges began to bite into my hand. For the first time, someone was no longer threatening me with my own private life. They were threatening the person who had become the center of my life. The woman I loved. The woman who had no idea she was a pawn in a game far bigger and darker than anything she had ever imagined.
And I knew with an icy certainty that the real game had just begun.