The drones screamed like vengeful gods, their rotors shredding the night. Bullets pinged off their armored shells as they unleashed hell—incendiary rounds tearing through the patriarch's men, turning the rooftop into a slaughterhouse. Yoochan crouched behind a ventilation shaft, blood dripping from his split lip, and grinned.
Chaos is currency.
A thug lunged at him, knife glinting. Yoochan sidestepped, grabbed the man's wrist, and slammed his head into the drone's spinning blades. Bone and metal sparked. He didn't flinch.
"Yoochan!" Sooyoung's voice crackled through his earpiece. "Exit's clear! Move!"
He sprinted through smoke and screams, vaulting over charred corpses. A sniper round grazed his shoulder. He didn't slow.
---
The safe house was a tomb of flickering monitors and paranoia. Miyoung lay unconscious, her heartbeat a fragile rhythm on the EKG. Sooyoung bandaged Yoochan's shoulder, her hands steady but her voice venomous.
"You used yourself as bait. Idiot."
He shrugged. "They took it."
"And if the drones failed?"
"They didn't."
She jerked the bandage tight. "One day, your luck will."
"Luck?" Yoochan stood, wincing. "I calculated the odds."
"Of dying?"
"Of winning."
The monitors lit up—news footage of Kang Tower's rooftop massacre. "Chaebol Civil War!" anchors screamed. "Heir Presumed Dead!"
Yoochan muted the sound. "Where's the patriarch?"
"ICU. Stable." Sooyoung handed him a tablet. "But he's still issuing orders. A hit's been called on your mother."
Yoochan scrolled through security feeds—black vans circling the hospital. "Then we'll make him rescind it."
"How?"
He tossed her a burner phone. "Call Minwoo."
---
The underground garage reeked of gasoline and betrayal. Minwoo leaned against his armored sedan, a cigarette dangling from his scarred lips. "You look like shit."
Yoochan ignored him, slamming a briefcase onto the hood. Inside: cash, forged passports, and a photo of Minwoo's mother's grave.
"Burn the hospital," Yoochan said.
Minwoo stiffened. "There's kids in there."
"There's him in there." Yoochan tapped the patriarch's photo. "Or I burn your mother's remains to ash."
Minwoo's fist clenched. "You're worse than Joonho."
"I'm what he made me."
A pause. Minwoo took the briefcase.
---
The hospital fire lit the skyline crimson. Yoochan watched from a distance as flames devoured the ICU wing, sirens wailing uselessly. Sooyoung stood beside him, her face a mask of disgust.
"He'll be moved to a private bunker," she said.
"I know." Yoochan checked his phone—a live feed of the patriarch's ambulance fleeing through backstreets. "Minwoo's tracking him."
"And the patients? The nurses?"
"Collateral."
She grabbed his arm. "When does it end?"
He shook her off. "When they're dust."
---
The bunker was a concrete coffin buried beneath a mountainside. Yoochan disabled the cameras, his gloves slick with rain. Inside, the patriarch wheezed on a ventilator, tubes snaking from his corpse-like frame.
"Yoo…chan…" The old man's eyes bulged.
"No last words?" Yoochan ripped off the ventilator. "Good."
He plugged in a syringe—a cocktail of adrenaline and cyanide. "You'll feel everything. Then nothing."
The patriarch's hand twitched, clawing at a panic button. Yoochan stomped his fingers. Bones cracked.
"This is for her." He injected the serum.
The patriarch convulsed, a guttural scream echoing off the walls. Yoochan watched, unblinking, until the silence settled.
---
Dawn bled through the bunker vents. Yoochan emerged, the patriarch's ring cold in his palm. Sooyoung leaned against the car, arms crossed.
"It's done?"
He tossed her the ring. "Make the announcement."
"And the board?"
"Will kneel or burn."
She hesitated. "What's left after this?"
Yoochan lit a cigarette, the taste of ash and victory on his tongue. "Whatever I want."
--