"I told you before, you can come after me as many times as you want… but you don't touch my woman," Shin said.
There was no theatrics in his voice, no wasted breath. The weight of it settled like a blade already halfway through flesh.
Shin wasn't here to warn him or negotiate. He was here to end him.
Just as Shin's finger began to tighten on the trigger, Bryce suddenly pulled something from his coat.
He held it up between them, almost playfully, like a child showing off a new toy. A giggle slipped from his lips, light and unhinged.
"Then… want to play a game?" he teased. "Guess if this is real or not."
Shin's eyes narrowed, he already knew the answer.
Even if his bullet traveled faster than thought, the moment Bryce triggered the bomb, there wouldn't be enough time for anyone to get clear.
The blast would swallow everything in reach, indiscriminate and absolute.
There was, of course, another option.
An easier one: He could use his demon power.
But the moment that thought surfaced, it soured.
A large-scale use of his demonic ability wouldn't go unnoticed. Not by them but the ones from the Light Realm who watched from above with their sanctimonious silence and inconvenient rules.
Before becoming human, Shin had struck an agreement with them, his power was to remain sealed, contained.
The few times he bent that rule, like raising Rogue's corpse, were small enough to slip beneath their notice.
This?
This would be a flare in the dark sky.
Bryce's smile widened as if he could taste Shin's hesitation. "Taking revenge over a woman… ah, Shin, I don't know what to say~"
"A large group is approaching from the west lane. Must be his backup," Junho reported quietly from behind.
Shin didn't respond immediately, his gaze remained fixed on Bryce, cold and unreadable.
Then, without a word, he gave a slight gesture.
Retreat.
Bryce's grip tightened around the bomb, clutching it like a sacred relic, the only thing standing between him and death.
He watched as engines roared to life, Shin stepping into his car while the rest of Hexion followed suit, vehicles peeling away into the night.
For a moment, Bryce simply sat there.
Then his grin faded. In its place, something darker took root as he stared at the road where Shin had disappeared.
If not for the bomb… he would be dead.
He felt it in his bones, the realization lingered only briefly before a distant explosion tore through the night.
The ground trembled faintly beneath it.
Bryce's head snapped toward the sound, eyes narrowing.
Moments later, one of his men came sprinting toward him, breath ragged.
"Boss! Those bastards from Hexion dropped a modified bomb on the villa… it's gone. Completely destroyed."
Bryce's expression twisted.
This was the first time since his return to the country that he had suffered a loss of this magnitude. Not just a blow, but a statement.
He kicked the man without warning, sending him crashing to the ground before turning on the others.
"Useless! All of you— completely useless!"
"Boss, we could report Hexion to the Mafia Association," one of them suggested cautiously, his accent thick with tension.
Bryce's head snapped toward him, eyes blazing.
"Shut up, you idiot," he snarled. "Conflicts between mafia organizations that don't involve civilians and happen outside the city? The Association doesn't care! I could shoot you right now, and those retards wouldn't even blink."
The man went pale, swallowing his words along with his fear.
Bryce dragged a hand through his hair, forcing himself to think, to regain control. He had just begun issuing new orders when his phone vibrated.
A message.
[Since you like playing with fire, I made sure you'd enjoy your current villa. No need to thank me.]
Bryce didn't need a signature to know who it is.
A memory surfaced instead.
He was eleven, standing at a distance, watching the Keir family villa burn. Flames clawed at the sky, devouring everything in their path.
Tragic yet magnificent.
Now, as smoke curled upward from what remained of his own villa, that same image overlapped with the present.
For a fleeting second, something unfamiliar brushed against him: Foreboding, then it vanished.
"It's a pity you didn't die in that fire…" Bryce muttered.
----
Yeri came down with a fever shortly after the incident at the hospital. She couldn't quite pinpoint the cause. Perhaps it wasn't just her encounter with Bryce, but the weight of everything piling up at once, exhaustion threading through her like a slow-burning fuse.
By the time Shin returned, dawn was beginning to stretch faint light across the horizon.
After hearing everything from Jj, the fury that had surged through him earlier had nearly torn something open.
If not for Tristan stopping him, he might have ripped apart the boundary and dragged Bryce into the Demon Realm himself.
Since Bryce liked chaos and violence, reveled in it like it was his natural habitat. Shin would have liked to see how long that arrogance lasted in a place where chaos wasn't entertainment, but law.
A minute, perhaps or less.
Shin exhaled slowly, the tension easing just enough as he reached out. His fingers brushed against Yeri's forehead, gently moving aside strands of hair that clung to her skin.
Warm.
His gaze softened, almost imperceptibly, as he let his power flow, controlled, restoring her vitality without leaving a trace loud enough to be noticed.
Behind him, there was a quiet shuffle.
Carpet had been practically vibrating with excitement at Shin's return moments ago.
Now, the golden retriever stood at a distance, body stiff, ears lowered. The dog couldn't see it but it could feel it.
Something terrifying and monstrous.
Shin glanced over his shoulder, catching the trembling figure.
A quiet chuckle escaped him.
"Fluffy bug," he muttered.
Then he stood and left the room, the faintest shadow of something inhuman lingering in the air long after he was gone.
----
In the quiet VIP room, Hadi had woken up early.
After several days of rest, his condition had improved, and he finally felt like himself again.
According to the doctor, aside from the stab wound in his abdomen, there was nothing critically wrong.
He reached for the remote and turned on the television, cranking the volume higher than necessary as a football match flooded the room with noise.
Ever since the last time Shin had beaten him half to death and left him hospitalized, the stillness of hospital nights had carved itself into his nerves.
So now, he filled it with sound, light, anything.
This time, he didn't bother turning on all the lights. His personal guards stood outside, a wall of flesh and suits.
"Are you there?" Hadi called, raising his voice.
The door opened almost instantly. A man in a black suit stepped in and gave a short nod.
Hadi relaxed, leaning back as his attention shifted to his phone.
"Jade, that bitch… I'll make sure you rot in prison," he muttered bitterly. "Daring to stab this young master…"
Actually, Jade had asked to see him multiple times since the incident. As if he would agree.
She was unstable, the kind of person who might smile sweetly one moment and sink a blade into him the next.
The door creaked open again but Hadi didn't look up, assuming it was just one of the guards.
"Repent… we have to repent…"
Hadi froze.
Slowly, instinctively, he turned his head and screamed.
"AHHH— GRANDMA, SAVE ME!"
His phone flew straight at the figure like a poorly aimed missile.
In the dim lighting, all he saw was a woman in white, hair disheveled, face obscured. Something straight out of a nightmare he never signed up for.
The guards burst in immediately, flipping on the lights.
There was Hadi, clinging to the headboard like a panicked lizard, limbs awkwardly splayed.
"Get this ghost out of here!" he shrieked. "Damn it, call an exorcist! How did she even get past all of you?!"
One of the bodyguards cleared his throat, struggling to keep his voice steady.
"Young Master… that's Miss Venice Zhi. You said yesterday to let her in if she came."
Silence.
Hadi blinked, and looked harder.
"…Oh."
It was indeed Venice.
Hadi slowly slid down from the headboard, pretending none of that had happened.
"Get out," he snapped at the guards. "All of you."
Once the door shut, Hadi turned on Venice, irritation quickly replacing embarrassment.
"What the hell is wrong with you? Showing up like this, not even turning on the lights, are you trying to scare people to death?"
But Venice didn't react the way she normally would.
"Repent," she murmured again, her voice uneven. "We have to repent…"
"What are you talking about? Repent for what? We're the victims here. And you lost the child—"
"It's gone!" Venice cut him off sharply, her voice breaking. "The baby is gone! We didn't protect him… and now it's condemning us. We have to repent."
Hadi stared at her.
A quiet, uncomfortable thought crept in. Did she lose her mind too? Like Jade?
He swallowed, unease prickling under his skin as he subtly shifted away from her.
"Venice… listen," he said, softening his tone as if coaxing a child. "I'm sorry I couldn't protect you back then, but have you forgotten? You used me as a shield. There was nothing I could do. The child is gone, but at least we survived, right?"
"I hear it!" Venice cried, clutching her hair. "Every night! Every time I close my eyes, I hear it crying! It won't let me sleep!"
Before Hadi could react, she grabbed his wrist. "Come. We have to kneel."
Hadi's patience snapped.
He yanked his hand back violently. "Are you insane? This young master kneels to no one!"
"We have to pray!" Venice insisted, lunging at him, and somehow she overpowered him.
Hadi, caught completely off guard, was dragged off the bed like a disgraced sack of laundry.
Thud.
His knees hit hard.
"Venice Zhi, you fu—!"
His words cut off as she kicked the back of his knees again, forcing him down fully.
"Now we kowtow!" she declared, grabbing his head and slamming it toward the floor.
"Ahhh-! Damn it! Are you useless out there?!" Hadi screamed toward the door. "Get this crazy woman off me!"
The guards rushed in once more, this time with far less urgency.
It took a moment, but they managed to pry Venice away.
"You- you-! I'll send you to a mental hospital!" he snapped, pointing at her. "You're completely insane!"
Truthfully, he had already planned to discard her anyway. The child was gone and her value had expired.
The guards helped Hadi back onto the bed and escorted Venice out of the room, her murmurs of repentance fading into the hallway.
----
That morning, as Venice insisted she could hear a baby crying, the hospital staff conducted a thorough search of her room.
To everyone's surprise, they discovered a tiny device, the source of the eerie, infant-like wails.