Chapter 30: The Ties That Strangle
Three weeks had passed since the exposé. The city moved on, as cities always do—but for Ji-hoon, Eunha, and those caught in the wake of truth, life had changed irreversibly.
Eunha sat alone in the small office of an independent press organization that had taken her under its wing. She was going through submissions—stories from interns, background dancers, and assistant stylists. Each one told of power plays, broken contracts, and silent suffering.
But one letter caught her eye.
It was handwritten.
> "He wasn't always like that. Baek Do-jin was just a pawn. The real power was someone else… someone who made people disappear."
There was no name. No return address. Just the letter and a photograph of a man standing beside a much younger Ji-hoon.
Her eyes widened.
It was Ji-hoon's mentor.
The one she'd seen before in the Luma board files.
---
Ji-hoon wasn't surprised when Eunha showed him the photo. He sat across from her, his face blank.
"That's Chairman Kang Min-jae," he said. "He mentored me when I was just a stage actor. Pulled me into the world of celebrity. Groomed me for it."
"You never mentioned him," Eunha said softly.
Ji-hoon looked at the photo again. "Because I wanted to believe he wasn't involved. But he always knew too much. He warned me not to look into Sae-jin. He said—" Ji-hoon stopped, voice tightening, "he said some stories don't have heroes."
---
Meanwhile, in a sleek glass building downtown, Kang Min-jae watched the fallout of the Luma scandal unfold on a private news stream.
"They think this is about one studio," he said, swirling a glass of wine. "How quaint."
A younger man stood nearby—an actor with a rising profile and a hollow look in his eyes. He was this week's project.
"Have you signed the NDA?" Kang asked.
The young actor nodded silently.
"Good," Kang said, smiling. "Then let's begin."
---
Eunha and Ji-hoon began mapping the network of agencies tied to Kang Min-jae. It wasn't just Luma. Three others had overlapping board members, shell companies, and investor trails. All carefully shielded behind subsidiaries and dummy accounts.
Every connection made the picture clearer—and more dangerous.
One night, as Eunha worked late, her power flickered. Her laptop crashed. A virus.
She froze when a line of text appeared on her screen:
> "Back off. Or we erase more than files."
She stared at the black screen, then slowly closed the laptop.
But she didn't run.
She picked up her burner phone and called Ji-hoon.
"They know we're getting close," she whispered.
---
Ji-hoon met her the next morning with a new plan.
"We stop playing defense," he said. "If Kang Min-jae is the one pulling the strings, we make him step into the light."
Eunha raised an eyebrow. "How?"
Ji-hoon pulled out his phone. A message was queued, ready to be sent to a very specific contact.
"She used to work with Kang. She knows where the bodies are buried—figuratively. Maybe literally."
"And she'll talk?"
"She hates him more than we do."
---
Somewhere far from the cameras and the headlines, the war wasn't over.
It had only just changed levels.
Because monsters didn't live in fairy tales.
They wore suits. Signed contracts. Smiled for the camera.
And now, the real story was finally taking shape.