The smell of cheap Soju and stale cigarette smoke was the soundtrack of Hana's life. She stood in the tiny kitchen of their basement apartment in Seoul, her fingers trembling as she washed a single cracked bowl. The cold water stung the fresh welt on her forearm, a gift from her mother's heavy-handed frustration earlier that evening.
"Hana! Where is the money?" her father roared from the living room. The sound of a glass shattering against the wall made her flinch, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird.
"I... I had to pay the rent, Appa," she whispered, though she knew he couldn't hear her over his own rage.
She lived in a constant state of flinching. At twenty-one, her world was the size of a postage stamp: the convenience store where she worked the morning shift, the dry cleaners in the afternoon, and this suffocating basement at night. She was a ghost in her own life, fading into the grey wallpaper to avoid being noticed.
Suddenly, the front door—the one that barely hung on its hinges—wasn't just knocked on. It was dismantled.
The wood groaned and splintered as four men in tailored charcoal suits stepped into the cramped space. They looked like gods of death dropped into a trash heap. The room suddenly felt very, very small.
Hana's father scrambled up, his face red and bloated. "Who the hell—? This is my house! Get out!"
He lunged forward, but the largest man simply caught his wrist and twisted. A sickening crack echoed through the room. Her father screamed, dropping to his knees.
Hana backed into the counter, her eyes wide with terror. "Please," she gasped, her voice cracking. "We don't have anything. We don't have any money left."
The men didn't answer. They parted like the Red Sea, and a man walked through the middle of them.
He was taller than the rest, wearing a black overcoat that seemed to swallow the dim light of the kitchen. His face was a masterpiece of harsh lines and cold precision, but when his eyes landed on Hana, the ice in them didn't just melt—it evaporated.
Nikolai Volkov took a step toward her. His shoes clicked on the linoleum floor, a sound of absolute authority.
"Don't be afraid, Zolotse," he said. His voice was deep, laced with a thick Russian accent that felt like velvet over gravel.
He ignored her screaming father and her sobbing mother. He walked straight to Hana, stopping just inches away. He didn't reach out to grab her. Instead, he tucked his hands into his pockets, giving her space, though his presence felt like a physical weight.
"Who... who are you?" Hana breathed, her back pressed so hard against the sink it hurt.
Nikolai leaned down slightly, his gaze dropping to the bruise on her arm. A muscle jumped in his jaw, a flash of pure, unadulterated fury crossing his face before he smoothed it back into a mask of calm.
"I am the man who is going to take you away from this," he said softly. "I have watched you carry the world on your shoulders for too long, Hana. It's time to let someone else carry it for you."
He held out a hand—large, scarred, but remarkably steady.
"You can stay here and wither," Nikolai said, his eyes locking onto hers with an intensity that made her soul shiver. "Or you can come with me and never feel pain again. The choice is yours. But I should warn you... I am very bad at taking 'no' for an answer."