The music boomed like an artificial heartbeat. Under the purple and blue lights, bodies moved amid smoke, full glasses, and empty stares. There, in the centre of it all, she danced.

Twenty years old, single mother, part-time student, full-time warrior. On stage, she wasn't performing, she was surviving. With every turn, every step, every silent glance, she transformed judgement into indifference. Her body knew when to smile, when to pretend, when to resist. But her eyes... her eyes told another story. One where hunger was real, where bills piled up mercilessly, where the past hurt but the present offered no forgiveness.

Outside the club, her reality was more cruel. She had a one-and-a-half-year-old son who communicated more with his eyes than with words, who slept hugging a worn blanket while his grandmother—a woman worn out by years of working in low-paid laundries—tried to stretch the few banknotes she left on the table each night. She had no luxuries, but she did have responsibilities. She studied every morning, between cold coffees and crumpled books, dreaming of something that would take her out of that cycle of sacrifice.

And it was there that Jeon Jungkook saw her for the first time.

He was not like the other men in the club. He did not laugh. He did not shout. He just watched. From a secluded table, with an untouched whisky and an icy stare. His presence alone commanded respect: his wristwatch spoke of millions; his tailor-made suit, of power. But he was not looking for pleasure. He was looking for something else.

Jungkook was the president of one of South Korea's largest corporations. Thirty-five years old, divorced, childless, with a fortune that no longer meant anything to him. His life consisted of boardrooms, astronomical figures, empty trips and women who came and went without leaving a mark.

Until that night.