chapter 9: Blood Ties

Location: Seoul Ricci Korea HQ Rooftop Garden Time: 11:47 PM

Yuna Kim sat cross-legged on the rooftop, a silk shawl wrapped loosely over her shoulders. Below, Seoul shimmered like a circuit board of dreams neon, blinking, fast. But up here, in the elevated stillness of Lucien Ricci's private domain, the city felt worlds away. Silent. Watchful.

Lucien had returned hours ago, but she hadn't gone to him. Not yet.

In her hands, the photograph still trembled. Her mother… standing beside the Ricci man with the same piercing eyes as Lucien. Eyes like midnight storms and buried sins. The silence of a thousand questions clawed at her throat.

"You've been quiet."

His voice emerged from the dark behind her, low and controlled. She didn't turn.

"I've been thinking," she said. "Trying to figure out what part of my life was real."

Lucien stepped closer. His suit jacket brushed the wind as he moved, hands in his pockets. "The part where you outsmarted my audit team. That was real. The part where you survived an ambush in Incheon… very real."

Her jaw clenched. "Don't do that. Don't deflect with compliments."

A pause. Then, "You saw the photo."

She nodded.

"I suspected for years," he said quietly. "Your mother worked in a banking unit once tied to the Ricci vaults. When her records vanished, I assumed someone was hiding her lineage."

"And you didn't think I deserved to know?"

Lucien's tone turned cold. "I didn't think you'd survive long enough for it to matter."

Yuna turned to face him. "But I did. And now I'm the reason your enemies are crawling out of the shadows."

He studied her—this woman who had become his uncalculated constant. "No. You're the reason I still have a conscience."

A silence stretched between them, brittle and hot. Then Yuna looked up, eyes fierce.

"What is Project Phoenix?"

Lucien exhaled. "The worst thing the Ricci Syndicate ever allowed to exist."

Flashback: Black Site - Vatican Ruins

Gabriel Ricci's scream echoed through the dark stone chamber. Electrodes hummed as data streamed onto cold steel monitors. Aleksei Drevin, silent and meticulous, watched the feed with detached curiosity.

"Pain is truth," Drevin murmured to Kazuo, who leaned against the wall, still favoring a cracked rib.

"He'll break," Kazuo said.

"No," Drevin replied. "He's already broken. Now we polish what's left."

On the monitor, DNA strands mapped across the screen. The genome Yuna carried was rare fragments of enhanced immunity, cellular regeneration potential… and latent neuro-adaptive traits.

"She's not just leverage," Drevin whispered. "She's the prototype. And Lucien has no idea how unstable she might become if triggered."

Location: Seoul - Ricci Korea HQ War RoomTime: 04:12 AM

Lucien stood at the center of a darkened command room. Digital maps flickered on the walls, tracing Syndicate activity across East Asia. The intel from Incheon had exposed one certainty: someone had reopened the Phoenix program under Sable's control.

"Get me the full archive," he ordered Min-Jae, who tapped rapidly on a secure console.

Min-Jae paused. "Sir… there's something else."

He brought up a blurry photo Yuna's mother, standing not beside a Ricci man… but with Drevin.

Lucien's breath caught. "That's impossible. Drevin died in Zurich five years ago."

"No, sir. He faked it. Sable went dark right after."

Lucien's jaw set. "Then we've been playing his game all along."

Location: Seoul - Underground Safehouse

Time: 05:27 AM

Yuna stared at the encrypted message again. The words "Asset K-001" echoed in her skull. What was she to them? A tool? A trigger?

She opened the chip Min-Jae had retrieved from the Ricci vault.

Files unfolded like a grave opening: surveillance logs, bloodwork records, psychological assessments dating back to her childhood.

And a file marked: "TRIGGER SCENARIOS."

Yuna's vision blurred as she read them designed events meant to provoke changes in her physiology. Emotional trauma. Betrayal. Death of a loved one.

One line stood out: Trigger Effect: If Subject K-001 bonds with Target R-001 and experiences betrayal, latent neural adaptation activates.

Target R-001: Lucien Ricci.

Her hand trembled.

They built me… to destroy him.

Location: Jeju Island – Abandoned Ricci VillaTime: 09:45 AM

Lucien, Yuna, and Min-Jae arrived by stealth helicopter. They needed distance. Time. Answers.

Lucien rarely returned here. The villa had been his father's old base now crumbling, ivy-covered, haunted with ghosts.

In the villa's underground vault, they uncovered something worse than secrets videotapes of Sable's early experiments.

On screen: children. Tested. Modified.

One of them was Yuna.

Lucien's hand curled into a fist. "They started it in Korea. They've been grooming her since she was seven."

Min-Jae looked pale. "Sir… she was never meant to be an analyst. They placed her in your company for proximity. For activation."

Yuna walked in, having heard everything.

She didn't scream. Didn't flinch.

"I want to burn them all," she said.

Lucien looked into her eyes and saw the storm building. "Then we start with Drevin."

Location: Tokyo Port Midnight Exchange

Kazuo Shin knelt before Drevin inside a warehouse, presenting a small black case.

"She's in play," he said. "Ricci's taken her off-grid."

Drevin opened the case. Inside: a hypodermic with liquid fire.

"Phase Two," Drevin murmured. "It's time to push the king off his throne."

He looked at Kazuo.

"And we'll use the queen to do it."