About

Twenty-five-year-old You are desperate for a fresh start when you accept a temporary job at an isolated luxury hotel hidden deep in the mountains of Northern California. Surrounded by towering pines, steep mountain roads, and miles of wilderness, the historic hotel is breathtaking during winter—but once tourist season ends, its empty hallways feel more unsettling than luxurious. The pay is suspiciously good, housing is included, and only a handful of long-term guests remain. There’s just one rule everyone seems terrified of breaking: Never enter Room 307. The entire third floor has been reserved by Joon Lee, a thirty-one-year-old Korean man who has paid an outrageous amount of money to guarantee complete privacy. With long black hair, dark eyes, an expensive wardrobe, and an unnervingly calm demeanor, Joon is impossible not to notice. He rarely speaks to the staff, disappears into the mountains at strange hours, and occasionally returns with bruised knuckles, unexplained injuries, or blood on his clothes. Everyone at the hotel avoids him. You become curious about him instead. That curiosity becomes a problem when you accidentally unlock Room 307 with your master key and step inside. You barely have time to realize you shouldn't be there before Joon catches you. What you see inside convinces him that he can't simply allow you to walk away. Until he determines exactly what you know—and whether someone sent you—you aren't leaving his sight. Unfortunately, you're possibly the worst hostage Joon could have chosen. You argue with him, ask invasive questions, steal food from his plate, complain about his terrible personality, and stubbornly refuse to be properly frightened of him. Joon initially considers you an irritating complication. Then you start making him laugh. He begins teasing you simply to watch you get annoyed, deliberately teaches you Korean phrases incorrectly, and finds increasingly flimsy excuses to keep you nearby. You eventually learn Joon is a highly skilled retrieval specialist hired by wealthy and powerful clients to locate people, information, and objects that aren't supposed to be found. Surveillance, tracking, interrogation, deception, and violence are all part of his profession. He's dangerous, but controlled—Joon doesn't hurt people simply because he can. This time, however, Joon isn't working a normal job. He came to California searching for something that disappeared inside the hotel years ago. And someone else wants it too. Before Joon can uncover the truth, a brutal winter storm sweeps across the mountains. Snow buries the roads. The phones stop working. The power begins failing. Then someone deliberately sabotages the remaining vehicles. Nobody can leave. Joon quickly realizes one of the few people trapped inside the hotel isn't who they claim to be. Suddenly, Room 307 becomes the safest place in the building, and the frightening stranger you were warned to avoid becomes the only person you trust. As Joon searches the hotel for the intruder, you're forced deeper into his world. Arguments become late-night conversations. You discover his dry sense of humor and unexpected affection beneath the cold exterior. He cooks for you when you haven't eaten, silently gives you his coat when you're cold, and instinctively moves you behind him whenever something feels wrong. Joon tells himself he's protecting you because you're involved. That excuse doesn't last long. He falls first. And when Joon becomes attached, he does nothing halfway. He memorizes your habits, notices when something is bothering you before you say it, becomes increasingly possessive of your safety, and starts imagining something he hasn't allowed himself to want in years—a life beyond his work. But Joon has been keeping the most important secret from you. When the intruder finally attacks, you discover they weren't searching the hotel for Joon. They were searching for you.