A sleek, jet-black private boat—crafted for one, and one alone—cut through the waves like a phantom. Silent. Swift. Sinfully luxurious. Its minimalist frame masked bleeding-edge technology: a single obsidian leather seat, sleek touchscreen controls, and a concealed cabin below deck that whispered of royal comfort yet reeked of ghostly solitude.
Inside, Seungho sat nestled into the supple leather, the hum of the engine barely a breath beneath his boots. The boat moved on its own, needing only coordinates—latitude, longitude, and altitude. A creation born from his own mind, the system was surgical in precision, laced with a personal signature only he could trace. He'd embedded this advanced system into three boats—each one owned, naturally, by the Kims.
To the world, only two of the Neuralis crafts existed. One had supposedly been destroyed, lost to an "accident." But the third? Very much alive, gliding now across the open sea. It belonged to the Kims still—but not the public-facing empire. No, this one sailed in shadows, operated by the Red Dragons, and used for the kind of work whispered about in coded silence and erased files.
While his brothers had scattered to their sanctuaries, driven by the fallout of the disastrous meeting with their father, Seungho had chosen the ocean. It didn't question. It didn't judge. He'd dropped Haejoon off at their main base—an island forgotten by maps and forsaken by men. To outsiders, it was nothing more than a lumpy, lifeless piece of rock. But hidden within its jagged mountainous structure lay the heart of their global syndicate—a fortress carved into nature's blind spots, undetectable and untouchable.
Many had tried to find it—ambitious officers, righteous investigators, even foreign agents. None succeeded. The island devoured them whole, leaving no trace but the echo of their last breath. A perfect illusion, a death trap disguised as mere geography.
Now, as the wind hissed past the hull and salt stung the edges of his mouth, Seungho leaned back, eyes half-lidded but sharp. He wasn't running. He was waiting—for the sea to whisper what came next.
The ocean stretched endless before him, wild and whispering.
Seungho stood alone on the deck, eyes on the horizon—
the same one she once called home.
No words. No movement.
Just the wind, the salt,
and the memory of a woman who taught him how to listen
before the world taught him how to stay silent.
His usually unreadable face—chiseled in ice and precision—softened, if only for a breath. A flicker. His gaze unfocused as his mind wandered to a rare fragment of childhood untouched by blood, orders, or the brutal drills his father called training. Just a fleeting moment—warm, uncorrupted, human. A memory he allowed himself to revisit only sparingly, like a secret indulgence… a reward for surviving.
Then, without a word, he turned and disappeared into the cabin—expression locked back into stone.
The water struck the sleek metal hull in steady, rhythmic slaps, each splash echoing faintly into the open void around him. It blended with the relentless tapping of his fingers against the keyboard—sharp, insistent, almost manic—and the low, constant hum of the engine beneath his feet, like a pulse in the silence. The boat cut through the ocean like a phantom, and within it, so did he—driven, hunted, unrelenting.
He was still chasing the ghost Helena had left behind. That message—casually sent in the afternoon, laced with calculated mischief—had hinted at a backdoor access point. It had appeared in their system like a whisper in a storm, elusive and inviting. But just when Seungho had tried to trace it, the backdoor vanished. Not shut. Vanished—without a single trace, like it had never existed at all.
But Seungho wasn't the type to back down from a challenge. Especially not one thrown at him like a gauntlet.
The sleek, matte-black laptop resting on his lap purred softly, its fans barely audible beneath the soft thrum of the boat's engine. His fingers moved like a blur across the keyboard, typing at a relentless pace, the glow of lines of code reflecting off his sharp eyes.
'They never outpaced us. Not once. Not in code, not in kills, not in control. For years, we've been neck-and-neck in this global black market—a silent war fought in dead drops, firewalls, and bloodied currency. They were the new blood, the fresh glitch in a system we mastered long before they learned how to encrypt. But now? Something shifted. A breach. A win that wasn't ours. For the first time… they moved a step ahead.
And Jaehyun doesn't tolerate anomalies in our system.'
— He thought.
The only light inside the cabin came from the multiple screens he'd pulled up—each filled with script, security feeds, encrypted tunnels, and failed trace attempts.
Outside, the ocean roared softly under the boat, but inside, it was war.
He scoured the shadows of the system, desperately searching for even the faintest hint—an IP ping, a cache trail, anything—that might show him where that damn backdoor had led. Where Helena had wanted him to go. She had baited him, and worse, she'd made them, Haejoon and him, hesitate. That hesitation haunted him more than her smirk ever could.
'Just when I thought I'd finally get some damn sleep—after teaching that rookie idiot a lesson for trying to bribe our dealer. Wiped his digital footprint clean. His entire existence—gone. And Junseo? Took care of what was left in the flesh. Efficient. Clean. But no. Of course not. The Black Panthers just had to make their move now. Timing's never been their strong suit, but they sure know how to piss off that devil in disguise of our father.'
His phone vibrated next to him, the screen lighting up with a familiar message:
Hyunsik hyung: "Why are you still chasing that trace? Let it go, Seungho. Drop it."
Seungho didn't even glance at the message. His jaw clenched, muscle twitching with quiet defiance. His fingers moved faster, the clack of keys almost violent. Obsession wasn't a flaw—it was survival. It was the only blade he had left in a game rigged by shadows and blood. He had to know. Not just for the sake of winning this digital war—but to stay a step ahead of the puppet master they all feared. If he wanted to keep breathing under the weight of that tyrant father of theirs, he needed answers. Now. Before the strings tightened around his neck.
Then, a quiet ping broke the rhythm of his focused typing. A small notification blinked on the corner of his screen:
"Anomaly detected in surveillance footage — 'Brews & Sip' Bar."
His eyes narrowed. That bar wasn't just another business under their cover—it was one of their clean fronts, equipped with military-grade surveillance systems that even seasoned hackers found difficult to breach.
Seungho's fingers flew over the keys like lightning summoned to war. Windows opened, feeds loaded, recordings started playing.
At first glance, the footage looked flawless. Too flawless. No motion lag, no flickers, no skipped frames. The lighting remained consistent, audio levels balanced, every frame too perfectly aligned. It was the kind of pristine that only came after tampering.
He leaned closer, narrowing his gaze, scrutinizing every inch of the footage with a predatory focus.
And then—he saw it.
Just for a frame. Maybe two. A single pixel, in the top-left corner, glitched—just a flicker of off-color, a shade that didn't belong. Blink and you'd miss it. But Seungho didn't blink. He paused the video and zoomed in. That was all the confirmation he needed.
This footage was edited. Subtly. Expertly.
And there was only one hacker he knew who could weave through layers of digital protection and still leave behind a trace so faint it barely existed.
SHN.
Seo Hana.
He didn't know her face. Didn't know her voice. But he knew her work—her signature precision, her calculated defiance. She was the tech ghost of the Black Panther syndicate. And she'd just slipped her fingers through his systems like it was nothing. Again.
But this time, she'd left a thread.
She was always two steps ahead.
But this time?
This time, he'd make sure she and her damn boss bled for every byte she stole.
Seungho cracked his knuckles, his expression sharpening into something darker.
The game had begun.
He launched a series of decryption protocols, isolating the corrupted frames and beginning the arduous process of restoring the original footage.
Why did they edit this? What happened in that bar? And more importantly—why didn't Helena or the Black Panthers want the Red Dragons to see it?
As his laptop began compiling the raw data, a voice crackled faintly from the communication line—muted. He hadn't put his earpiece in.
Somewhere on the other end, Hyunjae's voice was trying to reach him.
But Seungho didn't hear a word.
His focus was absolute, locked in, and burning. Whatever secrets that footage held, he would uncover them.
If only he knew this was a bait too. That the single pixel—just slightly off in shade—wasn't a careless oversight, but a deliberate breadcrumb. A signal. As if Hana wanted him to notice the footage had been tampered with. Not a flaw.
A message.
One hacker to another.