Busan — Han Riverfront, 10:45 p.m.
The night stretched thick and heavy over the water, the air cool but smothering, like a storm waiting to break.
Ji-Yeon stood on the balcony of her private club, a glass of soju in hand, the city sprawling before her like a neon jungle. The music inside was muffled by thick glass, but the pulse of the bass still trembled underfoot.
She was tense.
The ambush at the dockyards.
The slaughter of the Red Scarves.
Whispers on the street about a ghost killing them all.
Her phone buzzed — another report of a missing courier, two unaccounted lieutenants. She gritted her teeth.
And then something cold brushed her instincts.
A shiver down her spine.
The Killzone
Two kilometers away, hidden on the upper floor of an abandoned parking tower, a figure lay prone, cloaked in shadow.
The Sniper.
A slick foreigner named Ivan, mercenary for hire, had spent the last eight hours tracking Ji-Yeon's routine. He had her in his crosshairs now, the scope lined perfectly over her heart.
He exhaled.
Finger on the trigger.
A perfect kill.
Thump.
A bullet snapped through the air.
But not his.
Ivan's head jerked back, blood misting the air as a round punched clean through his skull.
His rifle clattered from his hands.
Somewhere in the shadows, a second sniper lowered his scope.
A figure cloaked in the mist, unseen.
The Chaos Unfolds
At the same instant, Ji-Yeon felt the bullet whiz past her shoulder, close enough to tear a piece of fabric from her sleeve.
She ducked, dropping behind the steel railing.
Her guards scrambled onto the balcony; guns drawn.
"Sniper! Sniper!"
"Where?!"
The first team stormed the east perimeter while Ji-Yeon, heart pounding, made for her armored car.
Within minutes, her men found Ivan's body in the parking tower.
A clean headshot.
His phone, sniper rifle, and silencer left untouched.
But this time, there was a lead.
The Betrayer Revealed
Ji-Yeon's fury was volcanic.
She traced Ivan's comm logs and cash transfers through one of her hackers, and by dawn, she had the name.
The Black Fangs — a mid-tier gang of smugglers and arms runners operating out of Incheon, long resentful of Ji-Yeon's control over the docks.
They had bankrolled Ivan's hit, hoping to claim her routes once she was dead.
Ji-Yeon smiled coldly.
"They made their move," she said to her top enforcer.
"Now watch them die."
But little did she know, death was already on its way to them.
And it wasn't hers to command.