Chapter 20: Unmasking the Devil
The night air was sharp with silence. A thick, uneasy quiet followed the chaos—gunshots, screams, bloodied footsteps. All of it now felt like a surreal storm receding behind Seo-Ah as she stood outside the abandoned warehouse, the scent of rust and gunpowder still clinging to her skin.
Min-Jun stood a few steps away from her, no longer in the tailored suits she once associated with him. Now, he wore all black—tactical gear, gloves, bruises along his jaw, and a cold gleam in his eyes that was not the man she thought she knew.
She had seen him kill tonight.
Not in self-defense. Not by accident.
Calculated. Efficient. Unforgiving.
Seo-Ah wrapped her arms around herself, trying to still the trembling that wouldn't stop. She had always known there were parts of Min-Jun he kept locked away. But she never imagined this.
Min-Jun stepped closer, the glow of streetlights casting hard shadows across his features. "You're safe now," he said softly, as if trying to make his voice smaller, gentler—for her sake.
She nodded slowly. "Thank you... for saving me."
But then her gaze lifted to meet his, and something flickered in her expression. Not gratitude. Not relief.
Distance.
"I need you to take me home," she said, her voice measured but brittle. "Please."
Min-Jun stilled. "Seo-Ah…"
"I need time," she interrupted. "To process everything. The kidnapping. The men who came for me. The fact that… they knew where I was because of someone trying to expose you."
He said nothing. He didn't deny it.
She exhaled, her breath curling in the cold. "I saw what you did tonight, Min-Jun. You were someone else. Someone terrifying."
"You would've died if I hadn't—"
"I know," she whispered. "And I'm thankful. Truly. But you didn't even flinch. Not once. You looked at them like they weren't even human."
Min-Jun's fists clenched at his sides. "Because they weren't. They would've hurt you. They've hurt others. I've dealt with men like that for years."
She blinked. "Years?"
The word hung between them like smoke.
He looked away. "There's a side of me you were never supposed to see. But Ji-Hyun… she found something. She pried into things that were buried long ago. And when they realized I was alive, they went for the one person they knew I'd come for."
Seo-Ah flinched slightly at his admission, though part of her had already guessed.
"I don't even know who you are anymore," she said, her voice cracking.
"I'm still me."
"Are you?" she asked, softly but honestly.
Min-Jun didn't answer right away. The wind pulled at his coat as he turned his face upward, as if trying to escape the weight of the moment.
"I did what I had to do," he said finally. "I became what I had to become to protect what I love. What I couldn't protect before."
Her eyes widened a little, but she didn't respond to the implication in his words.
He stepped forward again, slower this time, his voice rougher now. "Let me take you home, Seo-Ah. And when you're ready… if you ever want the whole truth—I won't hide anymore. But I won't force you to understand what you're not ready to."
She studied him for a long moment.
This wasn't the CEO she used to bicker with across glass offices. This wasn't the guarded man who shared coffee and silence with her on rainy mornings.
This was someone else.
Someone whose demons walked beside him in daylight.
Still, she nodded.
"Take me home, Min-Jun."
He moved to open the car door for her, careful not to touch her, not to crowd her space.
She paused before stepping inside.
"You were right," she said quietly. "Some truths... do feel like betrayal."
And then she slid into the passenger seat, leaving Min-Jun standing in the cold, the devil unmasked, wondering if he'd just lost her forever—or if this was the painful beginning of finally being seen.
_________
The door clicked shut behind her, and the silence of her apartment felt too wide, too loud.
Seo-Ah leaned her back against the wooden door, her legs threatening to give out beneath her. Her fingers, stiff with dried blood and dust, trembled as she removed her coat. It slid from her shoulders like a weight she'd carried for years.
She should have been relieved. She should've cried in gratitude. But there was only an eerie hollowness coiled inside her chest—like grief for something she hadn't yet understood.
She walked into the bathroom, turned on the faucet, and stared at her reflection in the mirror.
Her lip was split. A cut traced the curve of her cheekbone. Her eyes—dark, hollow—weren't hers anymore. They belonged to a version of herself who had witnessed men beg for mercy, who had heard the echo of gunfire and seen Min-Jun move through chaos with terrifying ease.
That wasn't the man who walked her home under moonlight. That wasn't the man who once looked at her like she was his peace.
But he was real.
Min-Jun's hands weren't just used to sign billion-dollar contracts. They had killed. Protected. Buried secrets deep enough to be forgotten… until they weren't.
She turned off the tap. The water had long gone cold.
Seo-Ah sat on the floor and pulled her knees to her chest. Her heart felt too loud, her thoughts too tangled.
Who was he?
And why had her chest still tightened when he said her name?
---
He sat in his car long after dropping her off, engine still running, watching the dim light from her apartment window.
She hadn't screamed. She hadn't cried. That was worse.
She had thanked him—and then looked at him like he was a stranger wearing the face of someone she once trusted.
Min-Jun rubbed his jaw, where bruises still throbbed from the fight. His body ached, but it was nothing compared to the suffocating dread that gripped him now.
She had seen what he truly was.
Not the clean-shaven CEO of Lee Financial.
Not the quiet man who brewed two cups of coffee every morning, one always a little to no sweet.
But the devil.
He could still hear his father's voice in his head:
> "The world doesn't care about your kindness, Min-Jun. You lead, or you're hunted. You kill, or you bleed."
And for years, Min-Jun had led. Killed. Survived.
Until Seo-Ah.
Until her laughter chipped at the walls. Until her stubborn presence made him forget the man he had to be just to stay alive.
But the past always comes back. And this time, it had found her.
Min-Jun punched the steering wheel once, the leather creaking beneath his fist.
He couldn't leave it like this.
He needed to protect her—but not just from the world.
From him.
And for that, he would need to disappear again.
To dismantle what remained of his underworld ties.
To end the last chapter of his dark life.
But he wasn't sure if she'd wait for him when he returned.
If he returned.