Location: Incheon Decommissioned Ricci Pharmaceutical Lab (Front)
Time: 03:14 AM
The silence was too perfect.
Min-Jae crouched beside the keypad, disabling the front lock with a flick of his wrist. The green
light clicked on. They were in.
Yuna followed closely behind, black boots quiet against the tiled floor. Gone was the suit-clad
financial analyst from the Seoul headquarters. Now she wore tactical gear, a sidearm holstered at
her thigh, and eyes that had seen betrayal, death, and something far worse truth.
"This used to be a clean lab," she whispered. "Now it's a grave."
Min-Jae scanned the room with a silenced MP5. "That's the thing about the Ricci Syndicate. Even
their ghosts have security systems."
They stepped into the dark corridor of the Project Phoenix site the last place her father's decrypted
video had led them.
Flashback: Project Phoenix (Three Years Ago)
The underground program had begun as a biomedical surveillance project collecting DNA
signatures for advanced disease tracking. But somewhere along the way, the mandate shifted.
The line between health tech and weaponization blurred.
The lab had gone "cold" in 2021. But Yuna suspected it never really shut down.
And tonight, she would find out.
Location: Underground Vault Level B3
Yuna's access card didn't work on the sublevels. Min-Jae grunted, pulling out a small EMP spike.
"Shortcut," he muttered. "Old school."
The door hissed open.
A stale, antiseptic breeze met them along with blinking green lights and still-active servers.
Someone had kept the place alive.
Yuna moved to a console and plugged in her encrypted tablet.
"Decrypting the mainframe," she said. "Give me three minutes."
Behind them, a vent shifted slightly.
Min-Jae turned sharply. His finger on the trigger.
Too late.
Flashbang. Smoke. Chaos.
Attack Begins: Sable Operatives Strike
Black-clad mercs dropped from the ceiling. Silent. Trained. Sable's elite.
Min-Jae fired three clean shots, dropping two.
Yuna ducked behind the console, yanking her pistol free.
A voice crackled through a speaker.
"Hello, Ms. Kim. You're braver than your résumé suggested."
Kazuo Shin.
She recognized the voice. The young Sable lieutenant Lucien once called "a psychopath dressed
in Gucci."
Kazuo stepped out from the smoke with a knife in one hand and a gun in the other.
"I hear your father sends his regrets."
Meanwhile: Lucien's Inbound Extraction Team In Route
On a private encrypted channel, Lucien monitored the breach.
"Status," he ordered.
Daniel responded, "They triggered Phoenix Protocol. Sable's already inside."
Lucien didn't flinch.
"Launch Echo Strike. I want Kazuo's head, and I want it gift-wrapped."
Back in the Vault: Close Combat
Yuna fought dirty.
She slammed a server tower into one attacker, rolled beneath a desk, and put two bullets into
another's knee. Min-Jae bled from his shoulder but kept firing.
Kazuo cornered Yuna, knife slicing down her arm.
"You're cute when you bleed," he sneered.
She spites in his face. "Lucien sends his love."
Before Kazuo could respond
Boom.
The wall exploded inward.
Smoke. Fire. Ricci mercenaries stormed in black suits, gold pins, and no mercy.
At their front?
Lucien Ricci, unarmed, unflinching, walking through the chaos like it was a boardroom.
Lucien vs. Kazuo: A Message in Blood
Lucien didn't say a word.
Kazuo turned, laughing. "Ah, the great CEO. Come to get your hands dirty for a girl?"
Lucien's punch shattered Kazuo's nose before he finished the sentence.
Then came the knee to the ribs. The elbow to the throat.
The silence that followed was louder than the gunfire.
Lucien leaned down, voice like frost. "You don't touch what's mine."
Kazuo's reply was a mouthful of blood.
Aftermath: The Data Revealed
As the room cleared, Yuna reopened the terminal.
Min-Jae stitched himself in the corner while the system decrypted.
What came up stunned them all. Files. Thousands of it.
Names, dates, Syndicate financial movements, government backdoor deals—and one project
header that made Lucien's jaw tighten:
"PHOENIX: Gene-Track Asset Implantation Initiative Phase 2: Integration Through
Bloodlines"
Lucien scrolled.
One name glowed red on the list.
KIM, YUNA
"High-priority target. Genetic compatibility confirmed. Phase 2 viable."
"Assets to be monitored: Jung Tae-Min / Yuna Kim / Project Threshold."
"Secondary interest: Lucien R."
Yuna whispered, "They were using me… for something in my DNA?"
Lucien said nothing. But his silence spoke volumes.
The Promise
Outside the lab, as dawn broke over Incheon's gray skyline, Lucien and Yuna stood beside a
black SUV.
She shivered.
He took off his coat and draped it around her shoulders without a word.
"You knew something like this was possible, didn't you?" she asked.
Lucien nodded once. "I suspected. I didn't want to be right."
She looked up at him. "Why do they want me?"
Lucien met her gaze unflinching, unshaken.
"Because they can't control me. But if they control you… they control my choices."
He leaned in; his voice low. "And I only make one when it comes to you."