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  Seo-hyun’s shoulder slammed into Tae-yoon’s chest.

  Warm body temperature.

  Solid, unyielding arms.

  And a profound, terrifying stability. His breathing hadn't faltered for even a microsecond.

  The vehicle violently brushed past them. To everyone else, it looked exactly like a drunk driver’s mistake. But Tae-yoon knew. That was no accident.

  Seo-hyun clung to Tae-yoon’s lapel, gasping for air. Her lips trembled as she looked up at him.

  "You... what the hell are you?"

  Tae-yoon knew the price of that question. It was the price of her life. If he answered honestly, Seo-hyun would dig deeper. The moment she did, she would officially become an 'Involved Party.' And involved parties rarely survive.

  So, Tae-yoon smiled. The exact, foolish smile of Manager Kang.

  "Me? I'm just... a very lucky manager."

  Seo-hyun stared right through him. Luck? That wasn't luck.

  She subconsciously rubbed her wrist, feeling the phantom pressure of his grip. That wasn't the strength born of a sudden adrenaline rush. It was the kinetic force of a body that moved before the brain even registered the command. The strength of someone highly trained.

  Even as she let go of him, she couldn't tear her eyes away.

  It wasn't luck... he moves like a trained operative. The thought anchored itself in her mind.

  Before she could interrogate him further, Tae-yoon took a step back. He bent his waist, hunched his shoulders, and instantly reverted to the pathetic subcontractor.

  "Wow... that was close! The Foundation’s parking lot is pretty scary, huh?"

  Seo-hyun didn't answer. If she answered, she felt like she would be admitting that she had already seen through his lie.

  Tae-yoon turned around. And the moment his back faced her, the foolish smile vanished from his face entirely.

  They attached a tail.

  The invisible blade was now aimed at Seo-hyun. The tips of Tae-yoon’s fingers twitched slightly. It wasn't fear. It was pure, freezing rage.

  A 'vessel', you called her. S-2's mocking word echoed in his mind.

  Tae-yoon swallowed a silent, venomous vow. You didn't just touch a heart. You touched a human being.

  Meanwhile, Sungjin Group was putting on a massive, spectacular "Cleanup Show" for the outside world.

  The First Son took the frontline. His eyes were cold, his words clipped, cutting through the reporters' questions like a seasoned commander. Standing before the flashes, he spoke of "Reform," "Eradication," and "External Hacker Syndicates." And with every word he spat, the public sighed in relief.

  Yes, Sungjin is taking action. They are catching the bad guys.

  But watching the broadcast in the hideout, Tae-yoon felt his stomach churn. It was too perfect. Too exemplary. It was exactly the picture someone wanted the world to see.

  The First Son arrested his own subordinates. Some were genuinely guilty; others were simply the necessary sacrifices. The Chairman was already immobilized, bound by other charges, entirely stripped of his power to counterattack. The household was quietly purged, and the absolute authority naturally flowed to the First Son.

  Min-su watched the TV, grinding his teeth.

  "That bastard is 'cleaning up'? He's the one who needs to be cleaned up!"

  Hyun-ah spoke in a low, hollow voice.

  "It's terrifying how easily people are fooled. The media, the comments... everyone is praising the 'Sungjin Reform'."

  Tae-yoon stared straight into the First Son’s eyes on the screen.

  Those were not the eyes of a master.

  A true master doesn't make that much noise. A true master simply sits in the dark and issues approvals. They categorize people with a single line of text, and they discard them just as quietly.

  "The more real the First Son tries to look," Tae-yoon said quietly, "the more the real master is laughing in the shadows."

  Seo-hee, who had been watching in silence, muttered darkly.

  "It's an act."

  Ha-jun looked at Tae-yoon, his face pale.

  "Hyung... then what we're looking at right now... that's not 'S'?"

  Tae-yoon nodded slowly.

  "It's a mask."

  While the 'Mask Show' captivated the world, S-2 struck precisely at Tae-yoon’s most vital weakness.

  Da-yeon.

  Unfamiliar faces began to multiply around Da-yeon’s cafe. A man sitting for hours pretending to be a customer. A delivery driver lingering a bit too long by the door. Pedestrians who glanced through the window one too many times.

  Min-su was the first to sound the alarm.

  "They attached a tail to her. It's confirmed."

  The moment Tae-yoon heard those words, his insides turned to ice. S-2’s message surfaced in his mind like a curse.

  Your warmth is your weakness.

  Tae-yoon had to get closer to Da-yeon to protect her, but simultaneously distance himself to keep her out of the crossfire. That paradox was enough to tear a man's sanity to shreds.

  He gave Da-yeon stricter orders. Close the cafe early today. Don't go outside. Keep your phone on and stay in contact with me.

  At first, Da-yeon endured it with a forced smile. But gradually, the light in her eyes began to sink.

  "Oppa," her voice dropped, heavy with exhaustion. "I feel like... I'm being imprisoned again."

  Tae-yoon held his breath.

  "This isn't imprisonment. It's protection."

  Da-yeon let out a bitter, mocking laugh.

  "Protection? Or... are you just hiding me?"

  Tae-yoon froze. Da-yeon didn't miss that momentary stiffness. Her intuition had always been too sharp.

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  "Are you going to hide things from me again?" she asked, her voice cracking. "Are you going to lie to me... again?"

  Tae-yoon couldn't answer. The moment he answered, the moment he explained the truth, Da-yeon would step deeper into his hell. And if she stepped in, she would become bait.

  But hasn't she... already become bait?

  Suddenly, Da-yeon’s phone vibrated on the counter. An unknown number. A short text message.

  Da-yeon’s eyes wavered violently as she read it.

  [ If your brother is Phantom... you are the bait. ]

  The moment Tae-yoon saw that sentence over her shoulder, his mind went completely blank. He quietly reached out and covered her phone screen with his hand.

  Da-yeon slapped his hand away.

  "Why?" she cried out, her voice trembling violently. "Why can't I look at it?"

  Tae-yoon spoke in a whisper, his voice raw.

  "Because... if you look, you'll be terrified."

  Da-yeon swallowed a sob.

  "I'm... I'm already terrified."

  Hearing those words, Tae-yoon felt something inside him collapse.

  Warmth is a weakness. But if he abandoned that warmth, he would no longer be human. He made a silent, brutal resolution.

  I have to divert their eyes.

  He had to shake the company—Daon Solution—so violently that the enemy would believe, without a shadow of a doubt, that "Phantom is at the company." He had to throw himself to the wolves to pull their fangs away from Da-yeon.

  The team immediately initiated 'Bait Operation 2'.

  The condition was simple: Do nothing strictly illegal. Manipulate the enemy's gaze entirely within the boundaries of "what is permitted."

  Lee Hyun-ah moved first. She altered the internal company schedules under the guise of "administrative adjustments." A meeting canceled here, a site inspection delayed there, a personnel swap for a minor project.

  On the surface, it looked like mundane corporate shuffling. But to a watcher, those minor discrepancies create 'discomfort.' Watchers aren't field agents; they are control freaks. When their predictions are thrown off, they immediately report upward.

  Han So-hee used her legal routes to shake the audit team's schedule.

  "Current site inspection cannot proceed due to incomplete documentation."

  "Internal settlement verification with the subcontractor must take priority."

  Just that much. It was enough to create a bottleneck.

  Seo-hee and Ha-jun technically bled "fake traces" into the network. It wasn't an actual breach, but the digital shadow of a breach. A ghost in the machine.

  Min-su coordinated the physical movements. Who moves where, who stops when, who ducks out of sight.

  Tae-yoon tied all those threads together into a single, lethal trap.

  "If the enemy wants to bite Da-yeon, we throw the company at them," Tae-yoon declared. "If the enemy bites the company, we protect Da-yeon."

  Ha-jun swallowed hard. "Hyung... will they really bite?"

  "They will," Tae-yoon said quietly. "Their fangs are already bared."

  His intuition was flawless. A moment later, a short signal pinged through their anonymous monitoring channel. A cold, clinical sentence.

  [ Bait confirmed. 2F approval pending. ]

  Hyun-ah’s eyes widened. "2F..."

  Seo-hee’s gaze turned glacial. "The Second Son's line is moving."

  Tae-yoon let out a long, slow breath.

  "Good. It means they swallowed the bait exactly as we intended."

  Late that night, Oh Se-na broke down.

  Se-na had always been timid. She was the one who always asked, "Is it okay if I do this?" The one who avoided eye contact, spoke in a whisper, and had trembling fingertips.

  But tonight was different. Se-na set her pencil down in front of the team and bit her lip so hard it almost bled.

  "I... I have something to tell you all."

  Tae-yoon looked up. Se-na’s hands were shaking violently.

  "The reason I disappeared from the former company..."

  Min-su raised an eyebrow. "Didn't you just run away?"

  Se-na shook her head. Tears welled up in her eyes.

  "It was an escape, but... I didn't run just because I was scared. I ran... because I saw something."

  Seo-hee’s pupils dilated minutely. Se-na choked up even more upon seeing that reaction.

  "Log manipulation," Se-na confessed, her voice cracking. "A human did it, but they fabricated it to look like a system error. And... the atmosphere in the agency made it so that no one dared to speak a word about it."

  Han So-hee’s lips trembled. "Then back then..."

  Se-na nodded.

  "I heard... who was in charge. I didn't see the face directly, but I knew the line it came from. It was... the second-in-command line of Sungjin Group."

  2.

  The number dropped into the room like a lead weight.

  Two again.

  Tae-yoon looked at Se-na. And in a very low, absolute tone, he spoke.

  "That wasn't running away. That was survival."

  A tear slipped down Se-na's cheek.

  "You don't have to do it alone anymore," Tae-yoon added.

  At those words, Se-na's shoulders curled inward as she swallowed a heavy sob. Seo-hee turned her head away slightly. She hated scenes like this. Because she hated showing weakness, she forced herself to act even colder.

  Tae-yoon took Se-na’s confession and forged it into absolute trust for the team.

  "Good. Then it's confirmed."

  S-2 erases people, voids records, and burns connections. And that horrific methodology had been running for a very long time.

  And finally, the 'Exposure' arrived quietly.

  Daon Solution was pretending to be having a perfectly normal day. The printers were humming, the phones were ringing, and Team Leader Park was searching for his blood pressure medication.

  Then, suddenly, the company server shook. Someone had intentionally induced a "glitch." It was calibrated perfectly to throw the ordinary employees into a panic without crashing the entire grid.

  Team Leader Park's face drained of color. "No, no! What now?! If Sungjin complains again, we're completely finished!"

  While the employees ran around in confusion, Tae-yoon slowly stood up from his seat. His movements were the sluggish, hesitant motions of Manager Kang.

  But his eyes had changed.

  Hyun-ah saw those eyes. So-hee saw them. Se-na saw them.

  The eyes from that day.

  Tae-yoon placed his hands on the keyboard. And in the blink of an eye—the shaking stopped.

  The employees blinked in a daze. "Huh? What happened?" Team Leader Park stared at Tae-yoon, his jaw slack.

  "Kang... Manager Kang... what did you just do?"

  Tae-yoon instantly pulled out the Manager Kang smile again. "Me? I just... hit refresh..."

  But Team Leader Park wasn't an idiot. He was a man who knew the harsh reality of corporate survival. And people who know reality trust 'results' more than 'explanations.'

  Park swallowed hard and asked in a very small voice.

  "Are we... going to survive this?"

  Tae-yoon looked at him. For a brief, fleeting second, his mask slipped, revealing a profoundly human expression.

  "You will live," Tae-yoon said. "I will make sure you survive."

  Park nodded slowly. It wasn't necessarily trust; it was the ultimate choice for survival.

  But it was too late.

  The watcher had seen it. That split-second transition. The miraculous resolution. A coincidence that was far too perfect to be a coincidence.

  Somewhere, a single line of a report was transmitted straight to the headquarters.

  [ Probability of Phantom at Daon... 90% range. ]

  When Seo-hee intercepted the report, she ground her teeth. "We're exposed."

  Ha-jun's face went white. "Hyung... are they really coming for us now?"

  Tae-yoon laughed quietly. It was a cold, metallic sound.

  "Let them come. We have no reason to hide anymore."

  Hyun-ah looked straight at him. "Manager... no, what should we call you now?"

  Tae-yoon paused. Names didn't matter anymore. The only thing that mattered now was the 'Team'.

  "We can figure out what to call me later," Tae-yoon said lowly. "Right now... we make the first move."

  At that exact moment, his phone vibrated again. No number. No caller ID. A chillingly precise line of text.

  [ Protect your warmth. Only then can I break it more painfully. ]

  Tae-yoon stared at the screen for a long time. S-2 was mocking him. He knew Tae-yoon’s weakness and was intentionally cultivating it, watching it grow so the shattering would be louder.

  Da-yeon. Seo-hyun. The Team. The more warmth he gathered, the more weaknesses he accumulated.

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