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CHAPTER 20

Author: GOLDEN TREE
last update Huling Na-update: 2025-05-22 07:07:40

A DESPERATE GAMBLE

They thought the final war had ended with fire. But empires don’t die in explosions—they die in secret and the dead never stay buried when their blood still owes the deed to the world.

The encrypted call came at midnight.

Han’s voice was gritted with urgency. “Chaewon. You need to come to the vault… Now!.”

The estate’s underground war room had been untouched since Dojin Kim’s fiery collapse, but tonight, it pulsed with heat—data feeding in from a source even Jian couldn’t track.

Chaewon swept in, still in silk and barefoot, eyes sharp. Jian followed, fully dressed in tactical black, as if his body never forgot how to prepare for war.

“What is it?” she demanded.

Han looked up from the glowing console. “A name. Hidden deep in the final AI core we thought was wiped during Dojin’s downfall.”

Jian frowned. “Another executor?”

“No,” Han said grimly. “A hostage.”

He tapped the screen. A low-res video played:

A man, emaciated, barely breathing, tied to a chair.

Chaewon’s k
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  • The Billionaire’s Gilded Cage   CHAPTER 30

    THE SWORD AND THE BLOODLINEThe morning sun never rose. It hovered behind gray clouds like a secret withheld from the world.Inside the estate, the air vibrated with tension. All twelve heirs had stayed, choosing to side with Chaewon—against blood oaths, against legacy, against centuries of silent control.But one seat remained empty. It was Ezra’s and it wasn’t just absence. It was a warning.“Where is he now?” Jian asked Han, who stood at the tactical console with a vein ticking in his neck.Han swiped through the screens. “All facial recognition systems are jammed. Flight logs, hacked. Surveillance teams are finding identical anomalies in Shanghai, Busan, Kyoto—he’s ghosting us.”“Or baiting us,” Chaewon muttered. “Ezra doesn’t run. He draws lines. And we just stepped over his.”Jian turned to her. “Then we strike first.”“No,” Chaewon said, lifting her chin. “We finish this the way we should’ve from the beginning. On our ground. On our terms.”She looked out the window, where Haon

  • The Billionaire’s Gilded Cage   CHAPTER 29

    THE HEIRS OF ASHES The storm had moved on, but its residue lingered in the tension clinging to the air like a second skin. Every corridor of the Lee estate pulsed with quiet anticipation, the hush before explosion.Twelve heirs. Twelve legacies.Each summoned by Chaewon under the veil of a singular promise:Choose your future—or be devoured by your past.The first to arrive came in silence—a blindfolded woman in a pearl-gray hanbok, escorted by three cloaked guards. She removed the blindfold herself before stepping onto the courtyard stones, her voice like ice.“I come as the last of the Moon family,” she said. “Speak your terms, Chaewon Kim.”By nightfall, they were all there. A Russian heir with blood on his gloves. A twin pair from the Middle East known for their intelligence empire. The Latin heir with a face no one had seen in a decade.And finally, from the shadows, Ezra stepped forward. Not as a brother. Not as an enemy. But as an equal.“I see you’ve assembled your council,”

  • The Billionaire’s Gilded Cage   CHAPTER 28

    CHAPTER 27: BLOOD IS NOT ENOUGHThe truth echoed through her bones like a strike of lightning.“You were born of my vengeance.”Chaewon stood frozen in the ruined warehouse, the smoke still curling from a shattered bullet casing near her heel. The rest of the world faded into silence. Even the rain outside the port seemed to still, as if giving space for the weight of revelation to take root.Mrs. Lee—the woman Chaewon did think of only as her cold mother-in-law, Jian’s manipulative architect—had just revealed she was something far more complicated. Her real mother.“You’re lying,” Chaewon whispered, her voice waver.Mrs. Lee smiled, tired, cruel, triumphant. “You always had her eyes. But you had my fire.”Jian stood at her side, eyes narrowed, gun still trained on Ezra, who’d slipped into the shadows during the chaos. But all his focus was on Chaewon now.“Don’t listen to her,” Jian said quietly. “She’s trying to fracture you. Break your foundation.”“She doesn’t need to,” Chaewon sa

  • The Billionaire’s Gilded Cage   CHAPTER 27

    FIRE IN THE BLOOD The moment Haon said the words—“I’m the one who ends it”—the wind shifted. The air around Chaewon felt heavier, tighter, like fate had just exhaled a warning.She didn’t respond immediately. Not because she doubted him. But because deep down, she believed it too, and that terrified her more than anything.Jian stood behind them in the garden, watching mother and son beneath the cherry blossom tree. His hands were in his pockets, but his stance was taut—ready for war. Always.“Han just confirmed the names,” he said. “After decrypting the last wave of Ezra’s files.”Chaewon rose, brushing Haon’s hair with a soft touch. “Which names?”“The heirs of the twelve surviving blood families. All bound by the first oath.” Jian stepped forward. “They’ve been called. Summoned to Tokyo. Someone’s activating the emergency council.”Her eyes narrowed. “Without Kang, they shouldn’t be able to convene.”“They can’t,” Han said, stepping out from the side entrance, tablet in hand. “But

  • The Billionaire’s Gilded Cage   CHAPTER 26

    THE WILL OF YOO MINThe envelope lay undisturbed on the mahogany desktop in Jian's study, deceptively innocent-looking but quivering with tension like a loaded gun.Her fingers lay still on it for hours before finally stirring. Rain tapped against the glass at her back—gentle today, nearly cleansing. Haon slept upstairs in a bed that she never expected he’d rest in. Jian moved behind her in tense quiet, the storm in him held back by a whisper.“Are you sure you want to open it?”"I don't know anything anymore," Chaewon replied, curling her fingers around the wax seal. "But if my mother left me this, it wasn’t to keep me safe from it—if anything, to prepare me for the next."She broke the seal. Inside were three sheets of faded paper, handwritten in her mother’s elegant script. One sentence stood out instantly, scrawled in red:“Your blood is not your only inheritance.”Chaewon’s breath hitched.Jian stepped closer. “What does that mean?”She read the next line aloud: “There is another

  • The Billionaire’s Gilded Cage   CHAPTER 25

    FATHER OF SHADOWS The rain returned like a curse—slicking down the marble terraces of the Lee estate, whispering against the glass windows like fingers tracing old ghosts.Inside, Jian stared at the security footage frame by frame. The black car. The silhouette. Then the flash of unmistakable eyes—cold, calculating, President Kang was alive and watching them from the dark.“Impossible,” Han muttered, slamming the pause button. “We saw his compound destroyed. The fire... no one walked away from that.”“He didn’t walk away,” Chaewon said, stepping into the room. Her voice was steady, but the fury was barely contained. “He planned to vanish. Kang’s always had a shadow escape built into his strategies. That fire was a smokescreen.”Jian turned to her. “He’s coming for the boy.”“Haon,” she corrected softly. “Not the project. Not the weapon. My son.”Jian’s gaze didn’t flinch. “Then we protect him.”Han looked between them. “He left us a message.”“What?” Chaewon asked.Han pressed play:

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