01. The summit
The meeting room was lit with a cold, almost clinical light, as if the space were designed to remind everyone that emotions did not exist in there... only power.
A round table made of dark, polished wood occupied the center of the room. Around it, leaders and representatives from various criminal organizations and disreputable factions from across the sphere spoke in low voices, but with a tension that filled the air like thick smoke.
Bangtan was not exactly a name that belonged to that kind of world... but if it were, their presence would carry the same weight as the silence commanded by the man seated on the right.
Jeon Jungkook remained reclined with a calculated indolence in his leather chair, projecting a deceptively relaxed posture that brutally contrasted with the bloodthirsty reputation he carried on his shoulders: that of the most feared and relentless executioner in all of Gangnam. Beside him, Kim Namjoon, the brotherhood’s imposing strategic leader, discussed tactical details in a dense murmur alongside Kim Taehyung, whose fascination with human anatomy was only rivaled by his surgical mastery with combat knives and blades. A couple of seats down, Jung Hoseok—the mastermind behind the group’s military logistics and infrastructure—maintained a cordial and impeccable smile opposite Kim Seokjin, the grand negotiator of organized crime, whose diplomatic elegance failed to conceal the cold, predatory surveillance radiating from his eyes. Jimin, for his part, famed for terrifying precision in both assault combat and long-range target shooting, kept his fingers busy tracing millimeter-sized crosses over a notebook, using a polished steel fountain pen with diamond encrustations that shimmered in the dim light.
Min Yoongi, on the other hand, remained in sepulchral silence, sunk in the shadows of his leather armchair with an aura of absolute annoyance and boredom. Beneath that apathy lay one of the most terrifying minds on the criminal map: a brilliant strategist capable of dismantling empires or breaching the most complex high-security systems in a matter of minutes. With the poise of a predator at rest, he toyed with the frosted glass of his whiskey tumbler, watching the speakers out of the corner of his eye as if all that pageantry were nothing more than a regrettable and unnecessary waste of time. His expression was icy, cutting, and unapproachable—the sharp gaze of someone who had never needed to raise his voice to completely dominate a room.
They all dressed with a dark, intimidating elegance, wrapped in tailored suits made of black silk, cold wool, and dark velvet with an impeccably chic cut. They possessed the immaculate, aristocratic, and untouchable aura of those who do not compete on the criminal map, but rather rule the game from the heights.
“It’s always the same story,” Hobi murmured, leaning in slightly toward Yoongi.
Yoongi didn’t answer. He merely tilted his head a fraction, as if the comment didn’t even merit the effort of confirmation.
It was at that exact moment that the central door of the hall swung wide open.
The atmosphere underwent an immediate shift. An almost imperceptible, dense, and expectant silence swept across the main table as dozens of gazes drifted toward the threshold.
You were late.
Not in a rush, but with the calculated ease of someone who knows all too well the impact of their arrival. The firm click of your footsteps on the polished floor became the only sound capable of fracturing the room’s monotony.
You wore an impeccably tailored navy blue pantsuit of soft texture—a second skin that didn’t weigh like armor, but rather clung with precise exactitude to trace every curve of your small and symmetrical silhouette.
The dark tone of the fitted jacket and straight trousers—slightly flared—contrasted disturbingly with your skin. You left your curves to the imagination in a light blue shirt and the magnetic play of a tie whose knot suggested a strict etiquette at the service of a promised intimacy.
From your hands, gloved in burgundy leather, stuck out the subtle shimmer of a white gold bracelet on your right wrist. At your side rested a matching small handbag, while high-heeled boots completed a bearing overflowing with authority and confidence.
There was an innate sensuality in the way you commanded the space, an indolent freedom that made it clear it was the heat of your body giving life to the garment. Nothing about you was excessive; every centimeter of your stature was impossible to ignore.
Your chestnut hair, bright as the night, fell with a calculated disarray over your shoulders, framing the lines of your neck with a grace as fortuitous as it was studied. Barely touched by subtle makeup, your face reflected the serene and hypnotic maturity of a woman accustomed to being gazed at, but never... undressed with the right depth. Nothing about you was superficial.
You were neither a fleeting nor a youthful presence.
You were desire in its purest and most finished form.
A resolute, complete woman, sharpened into a magnetic appeal that required no effort. One of those carnal and dominant presences that never need to raise their voice, because the air grows dense and hot long before they dare to speak.
Yoongi perceived it in his skin before processing it in his mind. And it was precisely that lack of immediate control that first managed to unsettle him.
Your slow, fluid movements captured his gaze without giving him the option of resistance. Without uttering a single word, you advanced with a firm step to the only empty chair at the table and settled in with poise directly opposite him.
Face to face.
He kept his face impassive, but his eyes betrayed him. First, he shot a quick glance, an automatic reflex to gauge the terrain. Then he returned with a second look, much slower, sweeping over you with an almost carnal thoroughness.
Something inside his posture altered completely. He shifted in the leather armchair, rising a mere few millimeters, just enough for the tension in his body to become evident and for Namjoon to notice it out of the corner of his eye. Yoongi continued fixing his eyes on you, devouring you in silence, like someone assessing the most lethal danger of their life... or the most irresistible temptation.
The ease with which you settled into the chair and removed your gloves, the crushing security of every gesture, and that subtle glimmer of command in your features were magnetic. Everything about you seemed out of place at that table... and yet, it gave the impression that that seat had always belonged to you.
His eyes descended without haste down the line of your suit, caressing the fabric with brazen slowness. It wasn’t mere tactical analysis; it was an unhurried, almost carnal journey that devoured the perfect fit over your waist and the way the fabric hugged your body’s anatomy with insulting elegance.
And then, his gaze rose again to your face. Your lips.
But this time it wasn’t a passing brush. It was an anchor.
Yoongi didn’t look away as he usually did with anyone. He didn’t even blink. He held the gaze for a dangerously long span, frozen, as if his mind demanded an extra second to assimilate the impact of your presence... and yet found itself incapable of deciphering the temptation before him.
His face barely betrayed the shake, but his composure began to fracture in the details: his clenched jaw tightened, his breathing grew dense, calculated, deep. That impeccable and distant poise that always defined him yielded a millimeter, betrayed by a dry swallow that gave away his vulnerability.
Then the fragrance reached him. An intoxicating thread of night-blooming jasmine and sweet almond melting into a base of warm amber drifted into the air, wrapping him in an almost hypnotic atmosphere. The outside world lost its sharpness, blurring into the shadows until nothing was left but the weight of that moment, the density of the scent, and the ruthless pulse of desire.
Without being able to anticipate or stop it, his body reacted with an unfamiliar firmness: a sudden heat and an inevitable erection took hold of him, something that had never happened to him quite like this with any other woman in public. For the first time in his life, his senses were completely beyond his control.
It wasn’t just desire. It was profound bafflement.
And something much worse: a sickly fascination.
Because you didn’t fit in. Not in his frozen world, not in his flawless logic, not in his years of calculated experience. And yet, there you were, brushing against the unreal, filling the room with a presence as magnetic as it was defiant.
Without realizing it, his gaze returned to you. Too sustained. Too dangerous. As if, for the first time in years, a crack had fractured the armor of his self-control.
You didn’t notice it right away. You maintained your composure, focused on the thread of the meeting, the exchange of veiled grievances, and the diplomatic tension between the groups. Until the density of that attention burned your skin.
You raised your eyes.
The impact was devastating.
Your gazes collided in the center of the table, an electric clash that melted away the room’s murmur. For an interval suspended in mid-air, neither of you moved. You held the tension for too long. A second longer than allowed.
Your heart gave a violent lurch, throwing off the breath you were now clumsily trying to recover. Those black, feline eyes pierced your armor, penetrating to the very depths of your soul while you felt your pulse beating wildly in your throat.
An almost imperceptible reflex made them break contact at the same time, as if that visual brush had turned out too intimate, too bare for an environment of predators.
But it was only a pause. A second later, Yoongi fixed his eyes on you once more.
This time, without the slightest disguise.
The murmur of the room suddenly transformed into a distant echo; you had completely lost the thread of the conversation.
An inevitable blush set your cheeks on fire: you had never faced a man so handsome and intriguing. A slight, almost involuntary smile curved your lips as you mentally wondered, “What is his deal?“, laughing silently at your own vulnerability.
It took you a few seconds to return his gaze. You had to force yourself to remember that you were in a room full of people, and that this magnetic crossing was not, despite how it seemed, a private space between two strangers.
But when you did, it was no longer a coincidence.
It was recognition. And something more.
As soon as your eyes met his again, you felt your heart skip a beat—dry, treacherous, out of rhythm. The air seemed to thicken for an instant in your chest, forcing you to swallow hard without anyone noticing.
His gaze wasn’t just fixed... It was consuming.
As if he wasn’t simply looking at you, but unarmoring you in silence, piece by piece, without moving, without saying a single word.
And the worst part was that you didn’t want to look away.
You found yourself holding his gaze longer than necessary once more, trapped in that eye contact that had nothing accidental about it. It was too conscious, too direct.
As if falling into those eyes wasn’t just a possibility... but an inevitability that had already begun.
He didn’t smile; only a defiant smirk touched his lips. He didn’t change his posture. But his attention remained anchored to you as if the rest of the meeting had ceased to exist.
Namjoon, without saying a word, noticed it. Hoseok did too.
Yet neither intervened; they merely exchanged glances and turned to look at the reason why Yoongi looked utterly entranced. They smiled and were amused by it.
Because in that kind of world... When two gazes hold each other that fiercely, it’s usually not just curiosity. It’s a warning.
Suddenly, without anticipating it, a smile betrayed you.
Small. Almost imperceptible.
And with it, a soft, contained laugh that escaped before you could fully stop it. It wasn’t nervous, exactly... but it was human. Real. And for a second, it forced you back to solid ground, to remember where you were.
Your laugh cut through the air of the room, immediately drawing the attention of several people present. Your business partner, Park Seo-joon, and his right-hand man, Park Hyung-sik, turned their faces toward you at the exact same time. Their expressions crossed with curiosity and a veil of wariness after having caught the unusual intensity pinned on Yoongi’s eyes.
They weren’t the only ones. Very close by, Taehyung, Jungkook, and Jin noticed the scene almost instantly, exchanging looks of astonishment and bewilderment among themselves at their companion’s unusual behavior.
At a negotiation table. Surrounded by dangerous names. By heavy silences.
And yet, he was still looking at you. And suddenly, he returned your knowing smile—the shared secret that, even though everyone was watching, nothing mattered more than the two of you and that crackling electricity.
You understood with an uncomfortable clarity that you had caught that man’s attention. Not in a superficial way. Not like it happened so many times in that world. This was different.
Denser. More persistent.
You had received looks before. You had learned to read them all: the calculated ones, the arrogant ones, the false promises disguised as interest. You knew the speeches by heart. The strategies. The hidden intentions behind every masculine gesture that tried to get too close.
You weren’t naive. You weren’t new to this.
And you didn’t have time for games.
Yet... something about him didn’t fit into any of those patterns.
The thought crossed your mind almost like an automatic defense, an attempt to regain control.
“He’s just... incredibly attractive... but young, very young, that’s all. Stop getting distracted...”
Even that thought crumbled when you looked at him out of the corner of your eye.
Because it wasn’t his age that confused you. It was the intensity.
The fact that he didn’t seem to be acting. He didn’t seem to be trying anything. He simply... looked at you as if the rest of the room had lost all importance.
And that was what threw you off.
You took refuge in the screen of your phone, fixated on the data, the names, and the maps. The coldness of the digits was a safe, predictable territory under your absolute control.
But the illusion didn’t last long. Even while forcing yourself to return to your tactical center, you couldn’t stop intrigue from eating you up: how was it possible that someone could disarm your composure with such ease? How could a man you had never even exchanged a word with provoke such vertigo in the middle of a crowd? You tried to block out the distraction, but it was useless; every time you wanted to concentrate, your mind inevitably drifted back to the subtle burn of his gaze watching you from the shadows.
Suddenly, the phone vibrated in your hands.
A single faint pulse. Enough. It was the message you had been waiting for.
Without a second thought, you stood up. Yoongi’s dark eyes followed you instantly, fixed on you like a magnet.
The movement was flawless, firm, and secure—with the composure of someone accustomed to altering the course of an entire room just by rising. The chair barely scraped the floor. The conversation at the table continued its course, but you were already moving on a different frequency.
You crossed the space with calculated poise until you reached the chair of Seo-joon, your partner in that slightly criminal structure you two had built shoulder to shoulder. You leaned in just enough to murmur a few words in his ear; a subtle closeness that made Park Hyung-sik tense up in his seat, alert to your every move. He glanced at you for a second.
What you two shared wasn’t a simple business agreement. It was pure strategy. It was control. It was, in every sense, shared power.
Beside him, Moon Ga-young—the final piece of the machinery—contemplated the scene in dense silence, processing everything behind a facade of unshakeable calm that hid a brilliant, constantly running mind.
You hadn’t sprouted in neat offices or etiquette assemblies. You came from a cruder, bloodier, and more direct world. Growing up by hunting opportunities... and taking mortal risks. You were hustlers before businessmen; predators before partners, carrying names that didn’t even need to be spoken out loud to command respect.
Today your facade was different: legitimate businesspeople, sheltered by the economic elite that had just opened its doors to you. Though it was barely your second appearance at a summit of that caliber, no one ignored your true weight. Your ties to the mafia and the criminal underworld were not only intact, but your greatest strategic asset: the key to solving in the shadows what the law could not and ruling both sides of the coin with cold detachment.
Seo-joon picked up on your cue on the fly. He stood up beside you without asking for explanations, a coordinated and natural reflex showing how he flowed at your exact pace. Ga-young remained seated, guarding the table with absolute serenity, observing the board without needing to intervene.
The shift in dynamics didn’t go unnoticed by anyone, but in Yoongi, it triggered a violent internal shock.
From his end of the table, his eyes didn’t leave you for a millimeter. It was no longer simple curiosity or desire; it was a possessive instinct, an almost desperate need to hold onto you with his sight and not let you slip away.
He watched you stand up, cross the room, and position yourself inches from Seo-joon, speaking into his ear with a closeness and tactile familiarity you hadn’t shown anyone else all afternoon. Yoongi’s jaw clenched so hard a muscle in his neck stood out beneath his skin—a harsh, imperceptible gesture to others, but loaded with poison.
He didn’t understand what the hell that man was to you. And that lack of information, on his turf, wasn’t just dangerous: it was unbearable. In that underworld, crossing certain limits—even the most superficial ones—amounted to an open declaration of war.
All the more so when the guy next to you was undeniably attractive, impeccably dressed, surrounded by an aura of absolute power, and too self-assured to simply overlook.
Yoongi couldn’t figure out what role you played in that man’s life. Nor what role Seo-joon played in yours.
But if he was sure of one thing while white-knuckling the wood of the table and watching the ease with which Seo-joon stood up to follow you, it was this: it burned him from the inside out just watching the way you moved beside him, as if that space of intimacy belonged to him and no one else.
Beside him, Tae was the first to sense the thick tension in the air. He narrowed his eyes, amused, and shifted a sidelong glance toward you... and then toward Yoongi. A single spark between the two of you. Short. Dangerous. Enough.
“You’re in trouble, hyung“, Tae muttered to him teasingly, letting out a low chuckle while flashing a smug grin.
“Oh, yeah?... I don’t care,” Yoongi replied without blinking, taking a slow sip of his whiskey with a crushing serenity that bordered on intimidating.
“Wait, you really don’t care that she’s La Gárgola?” Namjoon chimed in with a deep whisper, straightening up in his chair. “We’re not talking about just any woman, by any stretch. In her domain, she commands an entire squad of thugs... She’s a lethal weapon herself. Sort of like me, but with curves...” he added, making a dramatic pause to dart his gaze toward your figure and raising a single eyebrow, “...and what curves.”
Yoongi stared straight into his eyes, locking into a posture so relentless it looked like he was pointing two rifles at him. It was a subtle yet blunt warning—a purely visceral reaction to mark his territory against his own brother.
Namjoon let out a comical click of his tongue and threw his hands up in a gesture of peace; he had caught the hint loud and clear.
“Wait... she’s La Gárgola?” Jin blurted out, choking back an exclamation while adjusting the lapel of his Gucci suit, mixing astonishment with his usual touch of irony. “The one responsible for the Tokyo ’98 and São Paulo 2000 disasters? Damn. If my math is right, she ages ridiculously well... And trust me, I know what that woman is capable of.”
Without taking his eyes off you for even a millisecond, letting the ice in his glass melt between his fingers, Yoongi murmured:
"La Gárgola, you say?...” A slight, nearly imperceptible curve touched the corners of his lips. “...Now I’m even more interested.”
Yoongi knew of your legendary feats, completely unaware of who you actually were. To the global organized crime syndicate, you were a living myth: a former international anti-crime agent who had fought cartels all across America, from Alaska down to Patagonia.
You had been the victim of a vicious betrayal by those who swore to watch your back, clandestinely sold out in the shadows to a corrupt politician whose sick fascination with you bordered on delusion, all in exchange for a handful of favors and influence for the leadership of your former agency. It wasn’t the first time a powerful man had lost his mind over you and set the world on fire—or rather, consumed himself in blind rage provoked by your constant rejections. That final blow forced you into a self-imposed exile deep in the guts of Europe, surviving as an elite hitwoman available only to the highest bidder, since governments—knowing what you were capable of—preferred to keep their distance rather than provoke your wrath. Moving always under the severity of your own codes of honor, you conquered a territory in blood and fire that historically belonged to men, rising as an untouchable shadow, an urban legend, and the most lethal instrument of vengeance in international organized crime.
Your track hadn’t been tasted on the Asian continent since the silent slaughter of Tokyo in ’98—that bloody scene where you burned in fire that your gender, your stylized figure, and that disarming beauty were, in reality, the perfect camouflage of a relentless predator. Clean files, biometric records, and sharp photos of your face simply did not exist; no one in the underworld held a direct line or parameter to track you on the map: you found them. You operated like a ghost, submerged in the shadows of total secrecy.
If Kim Namjoon had identified you among the summit’s crowd, it was because he witnessed firsthand the surgical execution you carried out in the first-class cabin of that night flight between Zurich and Hong Kong back in 2018. Mid-flight, thirty thousand feet in the air and without breaking the serenity of the cabin, you eliminated two scum of the high mafia without causing the slightest stir. Namjoon, traveling three rows back with the exact same contract in his pocket, watched as you beat him to the punch with terrifying grace. Since that night above the clouds, the image of your cold eyes had been burned into his memory as the very face of death.
"Hyung, what the hell is wrong with you?” Jungkook questioned, leaning impatiently over the mahogany table, his hunter eyes opening wide, caught between bewildered and fascinated. “I’ve never seen you look at a woman like that in public... You’re literally drooling over her.”
Yoongi didn’t flinch. He held his gaze fixed on you in the distance before letting out a thick, imperceptible sigh. He set the glass back on the wood with a sharp thud that echoed like a hammer strike across the table, and declared with glacial gravity:
“That’s not just a woman...” He paused briefly, devouring you with his eyes once more from the shadows. “Gentlemen, that is my future wife.”
A collective snort shook the group. Seokjin nearly choked on his drink, Taehyung let out a low, deep chuckle while playing with the hilt of his blade, and Namjoon shook his head, flashing a mocking grin at the sheer absurdity of the moment. However, within seconds, the laughter died instantly. A dense, heavy, almost suffocating silence took over the table. Behind their facades, all six of them knew perfectly well that Min Yoongi never joked about stuff like that. Never. Absolutely never.
“Well,” Jimin chimed in with a sarcastic laugh that broke the tension, spinning his diamond pen between his fingers with hypnotic dexterity, “in that case, I wish you all the luck in the world, hyung. ’Cause I have zero clue how you’re gonna get her to accept as much as a coffee with Hyung-sik and Seo-joon stuck to her like lethal shadows.”
Hoseok let out a dry laugh and snorted, leaning back into his armchair:
“Those two haven’t caused trouble with us; they’ve kept the agreements strictly by the book. But let’s not kid ourselves... They’re still two attack dogs ready to bite if anyone makes a wrong move.”
Yoongi turned his head slowly toward Jimin, holding the whiskey glass between his long fingers with a calm that commanded more respect than any scream ever could. His small, sharp eyes narrowed, reflecting the glint of the room’s dim lights as a small, sly, dangerous smirk curled on his lips.
“You think Hyung-sik or Seo-joon are a problem for me, Jimin-ah?” Yoongi asked in a raspy, low, measured voice that commanded absolute silence across the entire table. “Those ‘shadows’ are only there to protect her from the idiots who don’t know who they’re dealing with. But I’m no idiot, and she’s no damsel who needs permission from her bodyguards.
He took a short sip of his drink, letting the bitter liquid settle in his throat before continuing with relentless conviction:
“La Gárgola is a hunter. If I go to her like a subordinate asking for an audience with her partners, she’s going to ignore me or put a bullet right between my eyes. What she needs is someone who isn’t afraid of her reputation, someone who speaks her same language of blood and steel. I won’t reach out through her security... I’m going to make her walk straight to me.”
Jungkook tilted his head, fascinated by his hyung’s cold demeanor, while Namjoon nodded in silence, knowing full well Yoongi’s calculating mind when he set his sight on a target.
“And what if she decides to pull the trigger before listening to you?” Taehyung inquired with a cheeky grin, flipping the blade between his knuckles.
Yoongi let out a dry, almost inaudible laugh, fixing his eyes back on your figure on the other side of the room.
“Then I’ll die happy having seen how drop-dead gorgeous she looks when she kills me. But trust me... that woman is not going to shoot me. She’s going to want to know just how far I’m willing to go.”
Yoongi’s eyes gleamed; never in his life had he wanted something with such vehemence. He was well aware of La Gárgola’s feats: she and her new partners were practically an urban legend, ghosts almost no one had ever met face to face. Their operations spanned half the globe, and although Seo-joon was the dominant presence in South Korea controlling the western markets, your home ground was Europe or America. What the hell were you doing in Seoul this afternoon? Whatever the reason, Yoongi thanked it in silence if it had led you to that very table.
When all was said and done, he was a strategist, too. Together with Namjoon, he had led his crew to amass everything: a colossal fortune and indisputable power. In that underworld, every faction respected their territories and truces through unwritten rules. Those formal summits were nothing more than a formality to handle trivial business, for everyone knew that when real conflict erupted, only weapons and spilled blood dictated the final word.
Bangtan hadn’t faced serious disputes in years; they were feared and respected by anyone, including Seo-joon himself and his people. And while there was no open enmity between them, they didn’t sit down to share a meal, either. There was a cold courtesy, an invisible respect, and above all, a cautious distance that no one dared to cross. Until now.
You passed in front of his table on your way to the exit, and in that brief stretch, time seemed to condense.
Yoongi hadn’t stopped looking at you. You noticed—it was impossible not to feel the weight of that intensity. And yet, you didn’t break stride; you maintained your firm, almost untouched bearing. You only turned your face a fraction of a second as you crossed his line of sight.
It was just an instant. A brief, veiled look, loaded with an indecipherable mystery. And then, a smile. Small. Discreet. Exclusively for him.
In that single second, Yoongi’s chest lurched violently. A surge, both ice-cold and burning hot, shook his heart, completely dismantling the calculating coldness that usually defined him. His pulse hammered in his throat, and blood burned through his veins with an unfamiliar rush.
That was more than enough reason for him. It was all he needed. He understood in a heartbeat that what was sparking between the two of you was stronger, darker, and more dangerous than he thought... and he knew, with an absolute certainty consuming him from within, that you wanted him to make his move.
You continued your way alongside Seo-joon toward the door, disappearing down the hallway as the wooden door swung shut behind you with a dull echo. On the other side, you left Yoongi facing an entirely unprecedented sensation in his chest: a turbulence he couldn’t put a name to, but which was already starting to bug him due to the sheer urgency and irrepressible desire to have you all to himself.
“Jimin, follow me...” Yoongi instructed, standing up in a single, swift motion that cut off every murmur at the table.
