The room stayed silent for a long time.
Soo-jin was the first to speak.
"Make them fight each other?" He leaned back, raising an eyebrow. "Sounds poetic, but you're talking about four entire crews. Each with at least a dozen men, guns, and their own informants. You can't just whisper something and expect them to kill each other."
Tae-min didn't flinch. "You're right. But they all have one thing in common."
He paused, letting the tension stretch thin.
"They're greedy. And they're paranoid."
Sang-ho smiled faintly, recognizing the sharp edge behind Tae-min's calm tone. "Go on."
Tae-min reached over, grabbed a napkin from the table, and began to draw crude symbols, four circles, connected with lines, forming a web. "Let's call them by their real names for now: the Dong-il Crew, Cheonghwa Unit, Iron Wolves, and Blue Serpents. The first two are from our loan division, the other two from assault. All four are in bed with the Red Pins and Black Runners."
Vlad watched, arms folded. "And how do you make them turn on each other?"
Tae-min looked up. "Simple. You give them a reason to doubt their loyalty."
He pointed to the napkin.
"We start with the Dong-il Crew. They're the ones collecting cuts from the Red Pins' gambling dens. But the Iron Wolves also collect their protection fees. I leak a rumor that Dong-il's leader, Kim Seong-jun, has been pocketing more than his share and snitching to the Wolves. You feed that to both sides, quietly. A text, a photo, a fake recording, even something small, but believable. Gangsters don't need proof; they just need suspicion."
Soo-jin frowned. "And the other two?"
"From what you've told me the Cheonghwa Unit is already unstable. Their lieutenant, Park In-soo, wants to overthrow his boss. If we can get him fake intel that the boss is planning to sell him out to the Red Pins, he'll act first. Internal collapse." Tae-min's tone was detached, almost clinical. "And when chaos hits, we move in from the shadows. We clean what's left."
Vlad smirked. "You sound like you've done this before."
Tae-min's gaze flicked toward him. "You don't need to do it before to understand how people work. Everyone has an angle. You just have to know which fear to whisper in their ear."
Sang-ho leaned back, tapping his cigarette on the ashtray. "So we light four separate fires, watch them burn each other out, then move in?"
"Exactly," Tae-min said. "While they're busy tearing themselves apart, we take their men, their clients, their assets. No open war, no unnecessary attention."
Soo-jin's usual smirk returned, faint but genuine. "You really are Sang-ho's protégé."
"Protégé?" Vlad said with a short laugh. "Nah. He's colder."
Sang-ho shot Vlad a warning look but couldn't help the ghost of a grin forming at the edge of his lips. "You've got guts, kid. I'll give you that."
The Planning Begins
Hours passed in the dim seafood restaurant. The napkin soon became a map of deception, notes, arrows, codes, and fake connections drawn across its greasy surface. Sang-ho added his input, expanding on Tae-min's plan. Soo-jin offered contacts, the kind of people who specialized in quiet manipulation: informants, club owners, drug runners who owed him favors.
Vlad, though less subtle, offered muscle and intimidation where finesse would fail.
By the end of the night, they had the skeleton of a plan, precise, layered, and ruthless.
But Tae-min wasn't done. "There's one more thing," he said, eyes sharp. "When we strike, Gwon Tae-sik will realize we're moving against his men. He'll retaliate. We need to make it look like it's coming from inside his own circle, not ours."
Soo-jin's brow furrowed. "And how do you suggest we do that?"
Sang-ho added "By using his own greed against him."
He explained: Tae-sik had been laundering money through a real estate company on the outskirts of Seongrim. If they make it look like one of the traitor crews robbed one of Tae-sik's fronts, he'll direct his rage at them first, buying Sang-ho's group time to expand and clean house within Jinho.
Soo-jin whistled softly. "That's… dangerous. One wrong move and we'll have the entire association hunting us."
Tae-min looked up, dead calm. "Only if we fail."
The silence that followed wasn't fear, it was respect. The kind of silence that comes when everyone in the room realizes the balance of power has quietly shifted.
Sang-ho broke it with a quiet chuckle. "You're colder than I thought, Tae-min."
Tae-min didn't answer. He simply looked down at the napkin, the crude map of betrayal he had drawn. "Being cold keeps you alive."
Later That Night
After Soo-jin left, the three men stayed behind, the air filled with cigarette smoke and quiet contemplation. The city outside was asleep, but inside that dim room, new lines of war were being drawn.
Vlad finally stood up, cracking his knuckles. "I'll start digging around Cheonghwa Unit. I know a guy who can make fake recordings sound real enough to start a civil war."
Sang-ho nodded. "Good. I'll handle Dong-il and Iron Wolves. I've done business with their lieutenants before. They'll believe me if I whisper the right words."
He turned to Tae-min. "And you?"
"I'll visit Seongrim," Tae-min said simply.
Vlad frowned. "Why?"
"To see Baek Ha-ryun."
Sang-ho nearly choked on his smoke. "What? You're insane,.."
"She has connections. Information brokers, corporate insiders, a wider reach than us. If I can get her to feed false intel to one of the rival crews, the whole city will believe it came from Seongrim. It gives us credibility."
Sang-ho shook his head, half-laughing, half-serious. "You really don't fear anyone, do you?"
Tae-min looked at him, tone quiet but firm. "Fear's useless if you let it decide what you do."
The Night Drive
When Tae-min finally left, the roads of Nampo were empty, silver under the moonlight. He drove in silence, the engine humming softly, the sea wind carrying faint traces of salt. His mind replayed everything, the blood, the whispers, the plans.
He wasn't sure when it happened, when collecting debts turned into manipulating the city's underworld. But he knew one thing: the line he'd crossed was long gone now.
He had changed.
The boy who once feared failure now sat calmly in the driver's seat, plotting the fall of men twice his age. The thrill he once felt after his first fight was gone, replaced by something sharper, purpose.
At a red light, he caught his reflection in the rearview mirror. For a brief second, he saw what Sang-ho saw not a subordinate,
But a rising storm.
The light turned green. He pressed the pedal and disappeared into the night.