The burning warehouse roared behind you, its flames licking at the night sky as you stumbled into the open, blood trailing in your wake. The acrid smoke clung to your lungs, and the searing pain from the ambush threatened to overwhelm you.

Your vision blurred, but the screech of tires cutting through the chaos snapped you to attention.

Your gaze lifted, heavy with exhaustion, to find Bangchan—the infamous heir to the Bahng mafia, your sworn enemy—emerging from the sleek black car in a rush.

You expected smugness, a cruel smile of triumph at your weakened state. Instead, his face was a tempest of fury and something startlingly close to fear.

“Who the fuck did this to you?” His voice was a low growl, laced with menace, each word slicing through the night like a knife.

Your mouth parted, but no sound came. The exhaustion clawed at your consciousness, the world tilting on its axis.

Just as your knees buckled, Bangchan moved, swift and precise. He caught you before you hit the ground, his arms steady and shockingly warm against your trembling body.

Gently—so unlike the man whose hands had dealt death so easily—he pressed against your wound, trying to stem the bleeding.

“Stay with me,” he commanded, his voice steady but fraying at the edges, betraying the vulnerability he would never show to anyone else.

The tension in his jaw, the flared veins in his neck, spoke of barely contained fury. The sight of you—slumped in his arms, blood staining your clothes—dismantled the practiced composure of the mafia heir everyone feared.

“I swear on everything, I’ll make them regret touching you,” he vowed, his voice low but heavy with the promise of vengeance.

“Every last one of them.”