The ballroom glowed with chandeliers carved from Austrian crystal, each one dripping light like icicles suspended in golden air. Beneath them, the great and beautiful of Seoul moved like honey — fashion titans, tech moguls, international royalty, influencers wrapped in couture like gods dressed for war.

And at the center of it all stood her.

Han Soo-Ah.

Resurrected.

Reborn.

Revived from coma and memory like a phoenix rising from her marble tomb.

She was divine in a midnight black Givenchy gown that sculpted her like it had been grown from her skin — minimal, devastating, sleeveless, the back cut low to expose the graceful line of her spine. Diamonds glittered like frost along her collarbones, and her dark eyes were painted with a smoky melancholy that made every man in the room want to be a poem on her lips.

And yet…

The room didn’t stare at her so much as glance. Reverently. As if unsure of whether to approach a living relic or a woman with her own agency.

Soo-Ah sipped her champagne and let the world orbit her.

And orbit it did.

A tall European aristocrat — Count Lorenzo di Savona, if she recalled — leaned in with a sly smile. “It’s wonderful to see you again, Lady Han,” he purred, accent silk-wrapped. “When I heard you had awakened, I hardly believed it. You look… exquisite.”

She gave a polite nod. “Thank you, Count.”

“I hope you’ve considered returning to Europe. I’m hosting an estate gala next month in the Loire Valley. You’d be our honored—”

The man stiffened suddenly. His glass clinked against the floor as he hastily placed it down, bowing ever so slightly.

Soo-Ah blinked.

“What’s wrong—?”

Then she saw him.

Across the room.

Dark suit. Sharpened posture. Cold, liquid eyes.

Kang Dae-Hyun.

He hadn’t said a word. Hadn’t moved with haste or even visible irritation.

But the Count had fled — vanished into the crowd like a servant who’d dared touch a crown.

She frowned.

Ten minutes later, it happened again.

A scion of an old chaebol family — third-generation wealth, handsome enough in a disposable sort of way — brushed close to her side, murmuring something about Paris, Milan, a new yacht he wanted to name after her.

She hadn’t even replied when he suddenly turned pale and made an awkward excuse.

Gone.

Soo-Ah turned, scanning.

There — again — in the shadows.

Dae-Hyun, near a massive portrait of the host’s grandfather, stood like a statue carved out of lunar obsidian. His expression was placid. His posture relaxed. But his eyes never left her.

And then it dawned on her — the men weren’t leaving out of courtesy or failure.

They were being watched.

They were afraid.

She handed off her champagne flute and drifted toward the bar, ignoring the soft murmurs of admiration and curiosity trailing in her wake.

“…he’s really here—”

“—insane that he showed up, considering—”

“—heard his net worth eclipsed the Saudis and the old tech titans combined—”

“—some AI superstructure thing… and the energy patents from the North Sea merger…”

Soo-Ah froze.

She turned, her brow tightening.

“…you’re joking,” a young designer whispered to a fellow guest.

The woman shook her head. “No. He’s the richest man on Earth now. No one even knew until the financial data leaked. They say he owns more equity privately than any sovereign wealth fund.”

“Who?”

The woman tilted her chin subtly toward the far end of the room. “Kang Dae-Hyun.”

Soo-Ah’s breath hitched.

It wasn’t that she didn’t know he was powerful — she had seen his transformation, his ruthless efficiency, his impossible rise to the summit of both the Kang and Han conglomerates. But this… this was another level entirely.

He hadn’t inherited his place.

He had ascended, alone.

While she slept, he had become something more than a husband or a CEO.

He had become an apex.

She turned on her heel and made her way through the crowd, her heels like gunshots against marble, until she reached him.

“Dae-Hyun.”

He looked down at her, unreadable. “Soo-Ah.”

“You didn’t tell me,” she said quietly, fiercely. “You never told me.”

He tilted his head slightly. “Tell you what?”

She glared. “Don’t be cute.”

He didn’t blink. “What would it have changed?”

“You’re the richest man alive.”

“And?”

“You didn’t think I should know that?”

His eyes flicked across her face, slow and deliberate. “I didn’t think it mattered. I’m still just your husband.”

She wanted to scream. But the anger wasn’t clean. It was complicated. It was love, awe, betrayal, grief, relief. All tangled.

He reached up, brushing a hand down her bare arm, slow and possessive.

“Does it scare you?” he asked softly.

“No,” she said, voice just as soft. “But it shocks me. Dae-Hyun… how much did you suffer without me? How far did you go?”

He didn’t answer immediately.

Instead, he leaned down — whispering so only she could hear.

“I went as far as I had to. And I’ll go farther. If anyone tries to take you from me, Soo-Ah, they’ll disappear.”

Her spine prickled.

She looked up into his face — so beautiful, so haunting — and for a moment, she didn’t see the boy who used to laugh in the kitchen with Min-Jun in his arms.

She saw the man who walked alone to the top of the world.

And built a throne on the bones of his grief.