The Seoul–Yangyang Expressway.

A black sedan cut through the winter peaks of the Baekdu range, heading for Seoul. In the back seat, Ha Eunhui gazed absently at the scenery going by.

Snow-patched mountains and bare trees swept past, fast.

Even after she'd left her brother's home in Sokcho, her nephew Ha Tae-ung's last question stayed lodged in her head.

—Aunt, whose hand will you take?

Ha Eunhui hadn't been able to answer on the spot.

If she took her brother's family's hand, she'd have to turn her back on her siblings in the Ha family.

If she took her siblings' hand instead, she'd be turning her back once more on Ha Donghwi, the brother she had only just found again.

Neither choice was easy. But that wasn't the only reason she hadn't been able to answer.

It was the look on her nephew's face when he asked. His tone hadn't changed, and he hadn't looked angry. And yet she couldn't brush off that indifferent expression.

He looked like someone who already knew what was coming, all the way to the end. No. It was closer to the truth to say he had already decided how it would end.

The family had Ha Tae-ung badly wrong.

He was nothing like the twenty-year-olds people knew.

And he was certainly no mere chaebol offshoot who'd made a little money and been lucky enough to make a name.

Her nephew knew exactly who had come after him.

Whatever his third uncle Ha Donggeon was plotting, he had no intention of dodging it, or of forgiving it.

If anything, he was waiting for it.

His eyes said he was waiting for the other side to cross the line first. He looked like a man who had already decided what price he'd make them pay the moment they did.

Ha Eunhui remembered her father, Ha Cheolgon, as he had been long ago.

Back then he had driven out the uncles trying to carve up the group and cut away the executives who'd joined their attack, clean as a knife.

When the enemy was clear, Ha Cheolgon…