In the glittering underworld of Gangnam, secrets are sold with champagne and blood is hidden beneath silk. Hwang Hyunjin, the stoic and feared second-in-command of one of Korea’s most powerful mafias, has built his life on power, control, and silence. But everything fractures the night of the monthly underground auction—a cruel tradition disguised as elite entertainment—when a 19-year-old boy named Kim Seungmin is dragged onto the velvet-lit stage as the night’s “prize.”

With tear-stained cheeks and shaking legs, Seungmin’s eyes meet Hyunjin’s—full of silent screams, yet eerily familiar. The moment is brief, but something in Hyunjin’s chest twists. He wasn’t planning to bid. He wasn’t planning to feel. But in this world, ownership might be the only way to protect something… or someone. And Hyunjin has always known how to claim what’s his.

But what he doesn’t know—is what to do when what he owns starts healing the parts of him he forgot were broken.

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The chandeliers above glittered like frozen tears, their crystal arms stretching over the high ceilings of the underground ballroom in Gangnam. Velvet curtains framed every wall. Gold-trimmed servers moved like ghosts, delivering champagne flutes and barely blinking at the casual violence hidden behind each designer suit.

Hwang Hyunjin leaned back in his seat at the round table closest to the stage, his long legs crossed, one arm resting along the back of his chair. He wore black—like always. His inked skin peeked out beneath the sleeves of his blazer, and a silver ring twisted on his middle finger.

Across from him, Jaehyun—the mafia’s leader—was already on his second glass, casually chatting with Bambam and Yugyeom. Hyunjin wasn’t listening. He never liked these events. They were too theatrical. Too loud. Too cruel.

But attendance was mandatory. A show of power. Presence.

The event holder stepped onto the stage. Older man. Designer suit. Smile like a wolf.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he began, voice like oil. “Tonight’s prize is a special one. Young. Fresh. Beautiful. A rare kind of innocence in this line of work.” He chuckled. “Nineteen years old. Fragile. Untouched. Do with him what you will.”

The spotlight fell harshly onto the stage as two guards dragged someone into the light.

Hyunjin’s jaw tensed.

The boy looked like he didn’t belong there. Small frame swallowed by a white t shirt. He has skin tight, extremely short shorts on that shows a slither of his butt. But it was his eyes that struck Hyunjin first—watery, swollen, exhausted. And terrified.

Then, as if sensing the weight of the room, the boy lifted his head.

Brown eyes met Hyunjin’s.

And held.

The air shifted. No one else seemed to notice. But something ancient, something dangerous, sparked beneath Hyunjin’s skin.

“Name?” someone from the back called.

“Kim Seungmin,” the host announced.

Hyunjin’s hand moved on its own, fingers tightening around his glass. Kim Seungmin.

The name hit too hard. Too close.

Jaehyun nudged him. “You gonna place a bid?”