The back alley behind The Obsidian, the most exclusive casino in the city, was a place where people rarely wandered unless they had a death wish.

Rainwater glistened beneath the dim streetlights, reflecting crimson neon signs that flickered against the wet pavement. The distant sound of music and laughter leaked from inside the casino, but out here, only silence ruled.

Jeon Jungkook stood alone near the steel back entrance, dressed in an immaculate black suit, one hand tucked into his pocket while the other held a slowly burning cigarette between his fingers. Smoke curled into the cold night air.

He was the man whose name was spoken in whispers.

The richest man in the country.

The head of the most powerful mafia syndicate.

A man who settled wars with a single sentence and buried problems before sunrise.

Emotionless. Patient. Ruthlessly composed.

Jungkook never wasted words. He never joked. Never smiled without purpose. Women had shared his bed before, but none had ever touched his heart. Love had always seemed like a weakness—an unnecessary distraction for someone born to rule an empire built on blood, loyalty, and fear.

Then

A blur shot around the corner.

(A skateboard.*

A girl.

She never saw him until it was too late.

Crash.

The skateboard flew across the alley while she lost her balance and hit the wet concrete, a quiet gasp escaping her lips.

Jungkook didn't move.

His dark eyes slowly lowered to the stranger lying on the ground in front of him.

She couldn't have been older than eighteen.

Beautiful in a way that wasn't polished by wealth or luxury, but by innocence that somehow had survived hardship. Her clothes were simple, worn from years spent growing up in a crowded orphanage, yet her eyes still carried impossible dreams—as if the world hadn't managed to steal them.

Mathilda.

She had no idea who the man standing before her really was.

Nor did she know that, since childhood, she had lived with schizophrenia. Most days it was quiet, but sometimes whispers echoed where no one stood, shadows lingered too long, and figures appeared only for her before vanishing into nothing. Tonight... she couldn't tell whether the tall man in front of her was real, or simply another illusion.

Jungkook studied her in complete silence, taking one final drag from his cigarette before letting the ember fall into a puddle beneath his polished shoe.

For the first time in years, something unexpected had interrupted the perfect order of Jeon Jungkook's night.

And neither of them knew that this accidental collision would become the beginning of a story neither fate nor power could stop.