Chapter 9 - THE HIDDEN VAULTThe elevator doors opened into a cold, concrete corridor lit by flickering fluorescent tubes.
The air down here smelled of old paper, dust, and damp concrete. At the end of the hall, the heavy steel door of Archive Sub-Level 3 stood ajar. A single yellow warning light blinked above the frame.
"Hello?" I called out, my voice echoing off the concrete walls. "Security?"
There was no answer.
I walked cautiously down the corridor, my heels clicking softly against the floor. As I reached the open vault door, I pushed it gently aside and stepped inside.
Rows of towering metal shelving units stretched out into the dim shadows, loaded with dusty cardboard banker's boxes.
And right in the center aisle, kneeling beside an open box of legacy financial records, was a man.
He wore a dark raincoat, the hood pulled low over his face. In his hands, he wasn't stealing money or vandalizing equipment. He was holding a heavy, leather-bound ledger stamped with a red confidential seal—a ledger that bore the name Park Holdings Legacy 1995.
"Put the ledger down," I said, my voice sharp and steady as I reached into my coat pocket and pulled out my phone, ready to trigger the silent alarm.
The man froze.
Slowly, he stood up and turned around. He pulled back his hood.
He was older, in his late fifties, with iron-gray hair, sharp, hawklike features, and a small, jagged scar running along his left jawline—a twin to the scars Jae carried on his wrists.
My breath caught in my throat.
I had never seen him in person, but I had seen his photograph locked inside Jae’s private safe in the penthouse—a photograph Jae never spoke about.
It was Min-ho Park.
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Jae’s father. The man the federal government had spent thirty years trying to put behind bars before he supposedly vanished into international exile a decade ago.
The man everyone believed was dead.
