CELESTE
The black sedan was waiting for us at arrivals.
No sign. No driver holding a card with our names. Just a sleek, expensive car with windows so dark I couldn't see inside, and a man in a black suit who opened the door without speaking. He didn't ask for identification. He didn't ask if we needed help with our luggage.
He knew exactly who we were.
My stomach twisted as I buckled Luna into the back seat. She pressed her nose against the window, watching the airport bustle with wide, curious eyes.
"Maman, where are we going? Is it a hotel?"
"Something like that," I lied, sliding in beside her.
The driver got in without a word, and the doors locked with a heavy click that sounded too final. Too much like a cell door closing. I tried the handle anyway. It didn't budge.
We weren't passengers.
We were cargo.
The drive through Seoul was a blur of neon and steel. The city had grown since I'd last seen it—taller, brighter, more suffocating. Luna pointed at everything, chattering about the signs we couldn't read and the buildings that touched the clouds. I held her hand and said nothing, watching the streets pass and feeling the noose tighten around my neck with every kilometer.
We didn't stop at a hotel.
The sedan turned into a complex of buildings that made my chest constrict. Glass and chrome towers rising like monuments to power and money. A sign in Korean and English: Choi Medical Complex.
"Maman?" Luna's voice was smaller now. She felt it too—the weight of this place.
"It's okay, baby." Another lie. "This is where we're staying for a little while."
The car descended into an underground garage, spiraling down, down, down into the belly of the beast. Fluorescent lights flickered past. Concrete walls pressed in from all sides. When we finally stopped, the driver got out and opened our door without looking at us.
An elevator. Private. No buttons inside except one labeled P.
Penthouse.
My mouth went dry.
The elevator rose so fast my ears popped. Luna squeezed Monsieur Hopps and leaned against me, and I wrapped my arm around her shoulders, holding her close as we ascended into whatever hell waited above.
The doors opened with a soft chime.
The apartment—if I could even call it that—was stunning.
Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Seoul's glittering skyline. White marble floors so polished I could see our reflections. Furniture that looked like it belonged in a museum. A kitchen with gleaming appliances I'd never seen before. Everything perfect. Everything cold.
Everything a cage.
Luna's eyes went wide. "Maman, it's like a palace!"
"Stay close to me," I whispered, pulling her back as she started to explore.
I walked to the windows and looked down. We were so high. Too high. The city sprawled below us like a circuit board, and I felt the distance between us and the ground like a physical weight.
There were no door handles on the inside of the elevator.
I walked to the main door—solid, heavy, with a biometric scanner glowing red beside it. I pressed my thumb to it experimentally.
Access Denied.
My pulse hammered in my throat. I tried the handle. Locked. Of course it was locked.
"Maman, I can't open this door," Luna called from across the apartment.
"Don't try," I said, forcing my voice to stay calm. "Just… come sit with me."
A gilded cage. That's what this was. Beautiful and comfortable and completely inescapable.
I heard it before I saw it—the biometric lock on the front door chirping green.
The door swung open.
And there he was.
Jae-won.
My breath stopped in my lungs. My body forgot how to move.
Three years hadn't softened him. If anything, they'd carved away everything human and left something harder behind. Something colder. His black suit was perfectly tailored, every line sharp enough to cut. His hair was shorter than I remembered, pushed back from his face, revealing those features that had once made my heart race for entirely different reasons.
His jaw was tighter. His shoulders broader. His eyes…
God, his eyes.
They swept over the apartment with detached efficiency, landed on Luna for half a second—just long enough to assess, to categorize, to dismiss—and then locked onto me with a focus so venomous I felt it in my bones.
Luna stepped behind me, her small hand gripping my shirt.
Jae-won didn't move from the doorway. He stood there like a king surveying property he owned, his hands loose at his sides, his expression carved from ice.
"The child's assessment is at 08:00." His voice was exactly as I remembered. Smooth. Controlled. Lethal. "You will be in Lab 4 at 08:30. Your access is monitored. You are an asset, not a guest."
Each word landed like a physical blow.
I opened my mouth to respond—to argue, to negotiate, to something—but he was already turning away.
"Wait—" The word burst out of me before I could stop it.
He paused. Didn't turn around. Just waited, his back to me, radiating contempt.
"She's scared," I said, hating how my voice shook. "She doesn't understand what's happening. Can you just—can you give us tonight? To settle in? Please?"
The silence stretched so long I thought he wouldn't answer.
Then he looked at me over his shoulder, and the expression on his face made me wish he hadn't.
"You lost the right to make requests three years ago." His voice dropped lower, colder. "08:00. Don't be late."
He walked out.
The door swung shut behind him, and the lock chirped red again.
I stood frozen in the middle of that beautiful, terrible apartment, staring at the closed door, feeling the walls press in from all sides.
"Maman?" Luna tugged at my hand. "Who was that man?"
My legs gave out.
I sank to the floor right there on the cold marble, and Luna dropped down beside me, her little arms wrapping around my neck.
"Maman, why are you shaking?"
I pulled her into my lap and held her so tight I was probably hurting her, but I couldn't stop. Couldn't loosen my grip. If I let go, I would fall apart completely.
"I'm okay," I whispered into her hair. "I'm okay. We're okay."
But we weren't okay.
The cage door had shut.
And the dragon was circling outside, waiting to see what I would do when I finally realized there was no way out.
Luna pulled back to look at my face, her eyes—his eyes—searching mine. "Are you sure we're safe here?"
I wiped my tears and tried to smile.
But I couldn't lie to her. Not about this.
"I don't know, baby," I whispered.
And somewhere in the building below us, in an office overlooking the same city, Jae-won Choi stood at his window and smiled.