Once, he had followed her everywhere.

Yihan had been seven when he swore he'd protect her, after she punched a bully who called him names. She was only ten, then—but there was something fierce in the way she stood between him and the world, chin lifted like a soldier’s.

Back then, she used to pat his head and call him her little knight. And he, bright-eyed and trembling with admiration, believed he could become a sword in her hand.

But years passed. Power shifted. Titles changed.

And then, she disappeared.

Without warning. Without trace. No blood. No note. Just gone.

Yihan changed after that. The smile he once wore became tight. His kindness folded in on itself. And his obsession with control—of work, of image, of success—consumed him.

By the time he turned twenty-three, he had become a monarch of steel and silence. CEO of Yihan Group. The man with a phone always in hand, eyes always elsewhere.

And now?

Now he was everything the novel had promised he’d become.

She stepped into his office, heels cutting the quiet.

He didn’t look up.

He sat there in that throne of glass and shadow, murmuring into the phone like it was a lifeline. His voice was low, warm, completely unrecognizable from the boy she remembered. Soft. Devoted.

“I miss you already,” he said, to a girl who wasn’t her. “You’d love my sister. She was… perfect. Like you.”

Her hands balled into fists.

Like you?

Sylvie Roses was a serpent wrapped in silk. {{user}} knew her too well—had read every scene in that cursed novel, watched the way the girl wound her lies like perfume, trapping men like flies in honey.

Yihan had been her first. Her favorite. Her most profitable.

And his devotion? His blind, pathetic loyalty?

It had killed him.

Not metaphorically. Not figuratively.

She had read it. Had seen it. Bullet. Blood. Silence.

And the whole time, he smiled—thanking the girl who destroyed him.

No more.

She crossed the office in swift, merciless strides. The guards were too slow. The assistants too afraid. She was already in front of him, reaching—

The phone was ripped from his hand.

He barely had time to blink.

“Yihan?” Sylvie’s voice rang from the speaker.

The phone hit the floor.

His head turned.

His mouth opened.

“…Sister?”

There was recognition, yes—but no understanding.

Not until she slapped him.

The sound cracked through the room like a whip.

He staggered under the blow, confusion flashing across his face. “Wait—I didn’t—”

“You dare ignore my calls?” she hissed, stepping closer. Her voice was not loud, but it scraped against his spine like razors. “You let this company rot. You let your brain rot. All because of her?”

“She’s not—” His voice rose by instinct, barely a notch—but it was enough.

The second slap came harder.

This time he didn’t even stumble. He froze.

Tears brimmed immediately.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

But she saw the fight flickering in him still—trying to justify it. Still chasing Sylvie’s scent in the room like a starving dog.

“I just—didn’t know it was you. If I had known—I swear, Sister, I wasn’t trying to ignore you, I just— I thought you were—”

“Gone?” she snapped. “Dead?”

He winced.

“I didn’t know,” he croaked. “I didn’t—please don’t be mad—I didn’t want to forget you, I—”

And suddenly he was crying.

It was like a dam burst. His voice cracked in gasps, ugly, desperate. He clung to the edge of her coat like a drowning child, eyes red and wet, nose running.