Chapter 3

The Incheon Docks smelled of the ocean, and for people who were familiar with it, knew that it smelled of something else, smelled of things that had died in it.

The air was thick with a briny, chemical soup, a mixture of diesel fumes, rusting iron, rotting seaweed, and the distinct, metallic tang of industrial grease. It was a stark, violent contrast to the sterilized, climate-controlled air of the penthouse in Gangnam. 

Here, the world was stripped of its veneer. Here, the world was grit, rust, and silence.

The armored Cadillac Escalade idled on the wet pavement, its engine a low, predatory purr that vibrated through the chassis. Outside, the sky had bruised into a deep, angry charcoal. The rain had started twenty minutes ago, not a cleansing storm, but a miserable, freezing drizzle that slicked the asphalt and turned the dust of the shipping yard into black sludge. 

Inside the car, the silence was absolute.

Han Min-jae sat in the back seat, staring out at the labyrinth of stacked shipping containers. They towered like steel canyons, red and blue and rust-orange, creating a maze where secrets were easily buried and even more easily exported. He wondered why it always had to rain when he was miserable. 

"We’re here," came the gravelly rumble from the front passenger seat.

Min didn't move immediately. He watched a droplet of water race down the tinted glass, tracing a path that looked like a tear. He felt a phantom weight on his chest—the lingering pressure of Jun’s body from the couch, the echo of why he wanted to stay in that position for longer. He pushed the thought away, locking it in the same mental vault where he kept his grief and his rage.

"Let’s go."

Min opened the door. He didn't wait for the driver. He stepped out, his Italian leather boots splashing into a puddle of oil and rainwater, ruining the finish instantly. He didn't care.

The cold hit him like a physical blow, seeping through his black trench coat. He didn't use an umbrella. Umbrellas occupied hands that might need to hold a weapon.

Baek Do-hyun stepped out from the front seat, unfolding his massive frame.

If Min was a blade—sharp, refined, and hidden—Baek was a sledgehammer. He was six-foot-four, a wall of dense, corded muscle packed into a dark tactical suit that strained at the seams. His head was shaved, but his face was smooth as butter. You would have expected the one with the scar on his face to be Beak, but God has a sense of humour and gave that scar to Min.

Beak’s scar was on a above his shirt ‘s collar revealing a jagged scar that ran from behind his left ear down to his collarbone, a souvenir from a knife fight in Busan five years ago.

Baek fell into step beside Min, holding a waterproof tablet. He didn't hover. He didn't fret. He simply occupied the space at Min’s right flank, a position he had held for twenty years.

"Status," Min commanded, his voice cutting through the sound of the rain.

"Container 404," Baek said, tapping the screen. The blue light illuminated his grim, weathered face. "It was flagged by our contact in customs an hour ago. The manifest says it’s empty, a return shipment of void containers heading back to a logistics hub in Busan."

"And?"

"And it’s not empty," Baek replied, his voice dropping an octave. "It’s bleeding."

Min’s jaw tightened. He didn't ask for clarification. In their line of work, descriptions like that were rarely metaphors.

They began to walk deeper into the yard. The security lights buzzed overhead, casting long, distorted shadows that stretched across the wet pavement.

As they walked, Min glanced sideways at Baek. In the dim light, the years seemed to fall away, and for a fleeting second, Min didn't see the lethal enforcer of the Han Syndicate. He saw a scrawny, angry teenager in a frayed uniform that was two sizes too small.

Min was twelve. Middle school. A ghost in his own life.

He was curled in a ball behind the gymnasium, the gravel digging into his cheek. Three boys, sons of minor politicians who knew Min’s father wouldn't care, were taking turns kicking his ribs. They called him "The Bastard." They called him "The Runt."

Min didn't cry. He had promised himself he wouldn't cry after the day Jun arrived. He just took it, dissociating, floating above his own body.

Then, a shadow had fallen over them.

Baek Do-hyun was fifteen then. A high school scholarship student from the slums of Guro-gu. He was poor, his blazer was second-hand, and he had a reputation for violence that kept everyone at bay.

Baek just stood there, silent, didn’t utter a word. He hadn't run to get a teacher. He had simply dropped his bag, walked over, and broken the nose of the ringleader with a single, efficient cross.

The other two fled.

Min had stayed on the ground, waiting for Baek to mock him. To ask for money. To spit on the rich kid who couldn't fight back.

Instead, Baek had crouched down. He didn't offer a hand to help Min up. He just looked at him with dark, unimpressed eyes.

"Get up," Baek had said.

Min had scrambled to his feet, clutching his ribs. "Thank you. My father... I can pay you..."

Baek had scoffed, spitting on the ground. "I don't want your daddy’s blood money. You're pathetic. You have two hands, don't you?"

Min had blinked, stunned. "What?"

"Make a fist," Baek ordered.

Min did, his thumb tucked inside his fingers.

Baek sighed, grabbed Min’s hand, and corrected the grip, pulling the thumb out. "Do it like that, and you'll break your thumb. Keep your wrist straight. When they come back, and they will come back, you aim for the throat. You don't stop until they stop moving."

That afternoon, behind the gym, Baek Do-hyun had become the first person in Han Min-jae’s life to teach him how to survive, rather than just how to endure.

"We're here," Baek said, pulling Min back to the present.

They had reached a secluded section of the yard, shielded from the main road by a wall of rusted containers. A group of six men in dark raincoats stood in a nervous circle, their flashlight beams cutting through the drizzle. These were lower-level enforcers, men who knew violence but were terrified of the man walking toward them.

They parted instantly as Min approached, bowing low, their heads dipping into the rain.

"Boss," the squad leader stammered. "We... we haven't touched anything inside. We just opened the doors."

Min didn't acknowledge them. He walked straight to the gaping maw of Container 404.

The smell hit him first.

It wasn't just the metallic tang of the docks anymore. It was the copper-penny stench of blood, mixed with the musty, expensive smell of old paper and canvas.

Min stepped onto the metal ramp and looked inside.

To be fair he had expected drugs, maybe weapons, or the worse of the worse that he never dabbles in, trafficked humans. But it was non of that, rather what he least expected.

It was a museum.

Dozens of wooden crates had been pried open, their lids splintered and tossed aside. The interior of the container was a chaotic jumble of priceless artifacts.

To his left, leaning precariously against the corrugated metal wall, was a Joseon-era landscape painting that Min knew hung in his father’s private study, or at least, a replica did. The real one was here, getting damp in the Incheon air.

To his right, a crate had tipped over, spilling a collection of jade statuettes onto the dirty floor.

"Millions," Baek muttered, stepping up behind him. "There’s fifty, maybe sixty million dollars in here. Just sitting in a tin can."

"It’s not just sitting," Min said softly. "It was ransacked."

He moved deeper into the container. The assets weren't just packed; they had been searched. Crates were overturned. Straw packing material was scattered everywhere like hay in a barn.

And there, in the center of the container, was the source of the bleeding.

A massive Ming Dynasty vase—blue and white porcelain, easily worth two million dollars on its own—lay shattered in a thousand pieces.

Pooled around the shards, soaking into the straw and the wooden floorboards, was a dark, viscous puddle.

Min stopped at the edge of the pool. The blood was tacky, beginning to coagulate in the cold dampness. It was a lot of blood. Enough to kill a man, or at least leave him wishing he was dead. But there was no body.

"Who moved the body?" Min asked, his voice lethal.

"No one, Boss," Baek said, his hand resting on the gun holstered beneath his jacket. "It was empty when the boys opened it. Just the blood."

Min crouched down, his expensive coat trailing in the sawdust. He ignored the blood seeping toward the soles of his boots. His eyes scanned the red mess.

Something glinted.

Buried in the center of the blood pool, half-submerged like a drowning victim, was a small object.

Min reached into his pocket and pulled out a silk handkerchief—monogrammed, pristine white. He reached out and picked up the object, careful not to touch it with his bare skin.

He stood up, bringing the object into the beam of Baek’s flashlight.

It was a ring. A signet ring. Heavy, solid gold, with a thick band that looked like it had been worn for decades.

Min brought it closer to his face. The blood dripped from it onto the handkerchief, staining the white silk crimson.

The crest engraved on the face of the ring wasn't the Han family crest. It wasn't the insignia of any of the rival gangs Min had spent the last five years crushing into submission.

It was a snake. A serpent, coiled in a perfect circle, devouring its own tail.

"Ouroboros," Min whispered. The word felt heavy on his tongue, ancient and foreboding.

"I’ve never seen that mark on the street," Baek said, leaning in. "Is it a new player?"

"No," Min said, his mind racing, connecting dots that he hadn't known existed. "It’s not new. It’s old. Very old."

He looked around the container again.

"These are the assets from the Chairman’s private vault," Min said, his voice cold. "The vault that only he and I have the biometrics for. The vault that is supposed to be underground in the Seongbuk-dong estate. The vault that though I had access to never knew what was inside"

Baek’s eyes widened slightly. "If they are here..."

"Then someone moved them," Min finished. "Someone with access. Someone who knew the Chairman was gone before we did."

The realization hit him with the force of a physical blow.

His mighty father, chairman of the Han dynasty, could be dead! This container was tagged for a shell company Min didn't recognize, destined for a port in Southeast Asia.

Someone was liquidating the Chairman’s hidden fortune. Someone was scrubbing the Han legacy clean, turning heritage into cash, and shipping it out of the country.

This wasn't a robbery. This wasn't a kidnapping.

"This is a coup," Min said.

"The Vultures?" Baek asked, referring to the step-siblings.

Min shook his head slowly. "One is too stupid. The other  is too impulsive. And I never hear of the third one, she might be dead for all we know This is precise. This is logistical. This required bribes at customs, falsified manifests, and a silence that money alone can't buy."

He looked at the ring again. The snake eating itself. Eternal, cyclical destruction.

"Clean it up," Min ordered abruptly. He wrapped the ring in the handkerchief and shoved it into his inner pocket, close to his heart. "Get a truck. Move the assets to the safe house in Itae-won. Not the main warehouse. No one knows about the Itae-won safe house except you and me."

"And the blood?" Baek asked.

"Burn it," Min said. "Scrub the floor with bleach, then torch the wood. Make it look like an electrical fire. Pay off the customs officer who flagged it, triple his salary for a year to forget he ever saw this container number. If he hesitates, kill him."

"Understood." Baek signaled to the men outside.

Min turned and walked out of the container, back into the rain.

He needed air. The smell of the blood was clinging to the back of his throat.

He walked back to the SUV, his mind shifting gears rapidly, grinding against the friction of this new reality. He had spent his entire life preparing for a war with knives and guns. He had learned to box behind a gymnasium and every martial art style he could get behind,  because Baek told him to. He had learned to shoot. He had learned to intimidate board members with a single glare.

But this?

This was a paper trail. This was shell companies, offshore accounts, hidden trusts, and international maritime law. This was a web of white-collar deceit that buried secrets under mountains of redacted ledgers.

He paused, his hand on the door handle of the SUV. The rain ran down his face, looking like sweat.

He looked at his hand. He clenched it into a fist, thumb on the outside, just like Baek had taught him.

He knew how to break bones. He knew how to run an empire of fear.

But he didn't know how to navigate the complex, labyrinthine web of corporate espionage. He didn't know how to look at a shipping manifest and see the ghost hidden in the tracking numbers. He didn't know how to untangle a trust fund designed to be invisible.

He needed a specialist.

He needed someone who knew the law better than the criminals. Someone who could walk into a boardroom and dissect a contract with the precision of a surgeon. Someone who had graduated top of their class from Columbia Law with a specialization in corporate fraud and asset recovery.

He didn’t trust the lawyers under his payroll. Even Mr Song

Min froze.

The image of Han Jun-woo flashed in his mind.

Jun, sitting at the kitchen island in the oversized shirt. Jun, with his wide, terrified eyes. Jun, who had spent the last ten years in America becoming one of the most brilliant legal minds of his generation.

Jun.

Min’s lip curled in a sneer of pure self-loathing.

Fate has a sick, twisted sense of humor.

He hated him. He hated that he had protected him. He hated that he had felt a spark of humanity when he looked at him.

And now, he needed him.

Min pulled the door open and climbed into the back seat of the SUV. The dry warmth of the car felt alien after the cold rain.

Baek slid into the front seat a moment later, water dripping from his shaved head.

"The boys are handling it," Baek said. "Where to?"

Min stared at the partition between them. He felt the weight of the gold ring in his pocket. It felt like a shackle.

He couldn't do this alone. And he couldn't trust anyone in the family. The Vultures were enemies. His stepmother was a variable.

Jun was the only one who was an outsider. Jun was the only one who didn't want the throne. And because he didn't want it, he was the only one Min could use to save it.

"Get me to the Mansion," Min commanded, his voice devoid of the earlier hesitation. "Drive fast."

"The will reading?" Baek asked, starting the engine.

"Yes," Min said, his eyes narrowing as he watched the rain distort the lights of the docks. "I have a will to listen to. And I have a job offer to make."

The engine roared to life. The car tore away from the docks, kicking up a spray of black mud, leaving the blood and the rain behind. They sped toward the city, toward the collision course that was the Han family gathering, and toward the boy who Min had sworn to hate, but whom he was now destined to need.

Min leaned his head back against the leather seat and closed his eyes.

Don't make me regret this, Jun-woo.