Rome, Italy
6:03 AM

The morning sun hadn't fully broken through the clouds yet, but light was creeping in—quiet, golden, deceptive. Birds chirped in the olive trees outside, but inside the Park estate, silence snapped like glass.

A scream cut through the stillness.
Sharp. Guttural. Broken.

Kian was on his feet instantly.

He stormed down the hall barefoot, ignoring the chill of the marble against his skin. Her room door wasn’t locked—never was when the nightmares came back.

“Kiana—”

She was thrashing, caught in a war with something that wasn’t there. Her breaths came in strangled gasps, her hands pushing against an invisible force. Her cherry red silk sheets tangled around her legs like chains.

“No, stop please,” she cried out, tears streaking down her temples. “Not again…”

Kian crossed the room in three strides. “Kiana, wake up—hey, it’s me—”

Her eyes snapped open.

For a second, they weren’t hers. For a second, she wasn’t even here.

Then reality rushed in, and she blinked. Hard. “Kian?”

He nodded once. “You’re safe.”

She didn’t answer. She just sat up slowly, palms digging into the mattress. Her breath trembled.

“I saw him again,” she whispered.

“Who?”

She swallowed, throat raw. “His face… still blurred. But this time, it was worse. I was on the floor. And someone was kicking me. Over and over. And he said my name.”

Kian went still. “Your real name?”

She nodded. “Harin.”

Kian’s fingers curled into fists. “That’s not who you are anymore.”

“I know,” she murmured, brushing a hand through her sleep-messed hair. “But he said it like it belonged to him.”

Kian didn’t ask more. Not yet.
Because something in her eyes told him this wasn’t just a dream.

An hour later, the twins were going through the motions of their daily routine.
The gym echoed with movement—Kian’s jabs slamming into the punching bag with brutal precision, while Kiana moved in tight, efficient sets, her focus somewhere far beyond the treadmill.

They showered, dressed, and returned to the world they ruled so well.
Cold. Composed. Clean.

Kiana walked into the sunlit breakfast room like nothing had happened—cherry red waistcoat cinched at her waist, matching trousers tailored like armor. Gold hoops in her ears. A gold chain barely peeking from her collarbone. Not a single flaw in place.

She took her seat beside her brother, not opposite. Always beside him.

Kian, in contrast, wore a black turtleneck and sleek pinstripes, his obsidian rings catching the light as he scrolled through his morning brief on a tablet.

“Nice outfit,” he said without looking up. “Trying to seduce the devil?”

“Already did,” she replied, buttering her croissant with surgical calm. “He said I overdressed.”

Kian smirked. “Can’t imagine why. You look like a blood-stained stockbroker.”

“You look like grief in Gucci,” she said sweetly.

Their new assistant, Iris, nearly choked on her tea but managed to keep a straight face as she brought in their drinks.

Kian sipped his espresso. “Sleep well?”

Kiana shot him a sideways glance. “Like a baby. With PTSD.”

He didn’t laugh. Neither did she.

But the sarcasm was enough to hold them together.

Then Iris’s phone buzzed from the side tray.

A name flashed on the screen.
MRS. PARK

Kiana’s smile vanished.

Kian looked at the phone like it had insulted his bloodline. He reached forward and hit speaker.

“What?”

“Is that how you greet your mother?” came the smooth, calculated voice on the other end. “Tsk. Have you both forgotten your manners in Italy?”

Kiana leaned back in her chair, legs crossed, unbothered. “Did you forget we left Korea to escape you?”

“I see you haven’t lost your tongue, Harin.”

The air thinned.

Kiana’s jaw clenched. “Don’t call me that.”

“I named you,” she said coolly. “That name belongs to me.”

Kian cut in, voice sharp. “And what do you want, exactly?”

“Come home,” Mrs. Park said simply. “It’s time.”

“Why?” Kiana asked, voice flat.

“Because the truth never stays buried forever,” their mother replied. “And soon… neither will he.”

A pause.

“Don’t come crawling to me when you find out what you really forgot.”

Click.
Call ended.

Silence settled between them, heavier than before.

Kiana stared at her half-drunk coffee.

“She’s bluffing,” she said finally.

Kian exhaled through his nose, eyes unreadable. “She doesn’t bluff. She plays chess.”

Kiana stood slowly, smoothing the crease in her trousers. “Then let’s play. I always liked burning kings off their thrones.”

Kian stood beside her, sliding on his black sunglasses.

“And queens,” he added with a smirk.

Meanwhile, thousands of miles away, someone opened a locked case inside a dark room. Old tapes. Faded files. And a photo of two children in school uniforms, huddled together, backs bruised.

Beneath it, one name was underlined in red:
Harin Park.

“She remembers only the fear. Not the face.”