The rain had fallen for three days straight the night everything ended.
Mira had been seventeen.
The hospital was quiet except for the steady beep of her father's heart monitor. Each tone felt like a countdown slow, cruel, inevitable.
She sat beside him, holding his cold, bruised hand, too afraid to ask how long he had left. Her mother stood near the window, arms wrapped tightly around herself, trembling in silence.
There were no doctors anymore.
No answers.
Just shame.
And debt.
And the headlines on TV.
Han Group executive cleared of charges in offshore scandal.Myung-Shik Han claims innocence in alleged embezzlement scheme.Local doctor accused of falsifying patient records in exchange for bribes.
Mira's eyes had burned reading those lies.
Her father, Dr. Jeong had been one of the best surgeons in Seoul. Loved. Respected. He treated everyone, even those who couldn't pay. That's what made him a target.
But before everything turned dark, there had been light.
She remembered him carrying her on his back through the first snow of the season, laughing as she shouted for him to run faster.
"Appa! Appa! You're too slow!"
"You're too heavy!" he had teased, his breath fogging in the cold as he jogged through the park, her tiny hands clinging to his shoulders.
She remembered him in the kitchen, still in scrubs, trying to cook ramyeon and accidentally setting the burner too high, causing her to shriek and giggle.
He'd turned to her, flour on his cheek, grinning sheepishly.
"Shhh, don't tell your mother. Chef Appa is experimenting."
On weekends, they'd sit under the cherry blossom tree behind their clinic, sharing warm red bean buns and watching patients go by, many of whom stopped to bow and thank him.
"Remember this, Mira," he once told her, brushing a fallen petal from her hair. "What we do for others.... that's the only thing death can't take."
Now, years later, Mira traced the worn edge of that memory in her mind like a prayer.
Back in the hospital, when his breathing slowed, she leaned down and kissed his temple.
And in that moment, something inside her shattered.
She didn't cry.
She didn't scream.
She stood, walked to the window, and watched the rain drown the city.
"I'll make him pay," she whispered.
"I'll take everything he built.… and burn it down from the inside."
Her mother called her name softly, but Mira didn't turn around.
That was the night the old Mira died.
And the one who survived began building a new self layer by layer. Smart enough to infiltrate Han Group. Silent enough to go unnoticed. Cold enough to carry revenge in her bones.
Now, in the quiet of her apartment, Mira sat curled on her couch with the rain tapping against her window.
She stared at an old photo in her hand.
Her father smiled in it, young and strong, standing in front of the clinic he built with his bare hands.
She touched the edge of the frame.
"I haven't forgotten," she whispered.
She would never forget.
And as Han Group moved around her like a viper's nest, she knew one thing for sure....
Her time was running out.
But so was theirs.....