The marble floor was cold against his skin.
A thin river of blood snaked away from his chest, staining the pure white tiles with a deep, accusing crimson.
Above him, under the fractured light of a dying chandelier, stood the faces he had once trusted with his life.
Family.
Uncles.
Cousins.
Monsters masquerading in human skin.
The storm outside raged violently. Thunder cracked across the black sky, shaking the windows of the Cheon Enterprises' penthouse like a final judgment from the heavens. The rain blurred the city lights into a smeared, weeping canvas — a perfect portrait of the ruin Cheon Tae-Hyun had become.
He tried to move — to lift his arm, to say something — but his body betrayed him now, just like the blood that had betrayed him tonight. His vision wavered between sharp agony and soft darkness.
They stood there, above him, like a jury delivering its inevitable verdict.
One of them, a heavyset man with slicked-back gray hair — Uncle Jae-Min — crouched beside him, the leather soles of his polished shoes squeaking faintly against the wet marble.
"What a Fool," Jae-Min whispered, mock sympathy dripping from his voice. "You should've kept your head down if you wanted to live longer."
A rough, humorless laugh came from behind. Another uncle — Tae-Soo — lit a cigarette, the flare of his lighter briefly illuminating the disdain etched onto his face.
"First in line?" Tae-Soo scoffed. "What a Joke."
Tae-Hyun stared at them, tasting blood and bitter regret. His heart, which had once burned with loyalty, now cracked open with a revelation too late to save him.
In the dizzying edge of death, memories flooded him.
Seventeen years ago, he was just a boy stepping into the grand, gleaming halls of Cheon Enterprises for the first time.
The weight of his family's expectations pressing heavy on his slender shoulders.
The legacy of his father, Cheon Woo-Jin, the eldest son — the chosen heir — hanging above him like a shadow.
He had worked tirelessly, blindly, believing that hard work would earn him their respect. That blood ties meant something. That loyalty mattered.
He remembered the late nights, cleaning up the messes left behind by his uncles. The endless negotiations, the dirty money scrubbed clean under his watchful eye. The sacrifices he made — friendships lost, his youth wasted, his conscience bruised and battered — all because he thought he was protecting something sacred.
He was naive.
He was wrong.
Uncle Jae-Min leaned closer, close enough for Tae-Hyun to smell the faint, nauseating scent of expensive whiskey on his breath.
"You were never one of us, Tae-Hyun," he murmured.
"We should've gotten rid of you earlier like we did with your Father."
Jae-Min's hand reached out and, with almost paternal tenderness, brushed Tae-Hyun's blood-matted hair from his forehead.
"if You would've disappeared quietly. You could've lived," he said, almost sounding regretful.
Tae-Hyun's fingers twitched weakly against the marble. Rage flared somewhere deep inside his failing body — a useless, dying ember.
In the corner of his eye, he caught a flash — a familiar gold watch glinting on Jae-Min's wrist.
The same watch I gave him.
For loyalty. For trust.
The irony tasted like ashes in his mouth.
Pain dulled into a strange, weightless numbness. The thunder outside became a distant, hollow sound.
Tae-Hyun realized then:
In a family built on greed, loyalty was just another word for weakness.
If only he had been smarter.
If only he had been colder.
If only he could have one more chance...
His vision narrowed to a single point of light.
Father… Mother… DoHyun…
Forgive me.
And then — everything collapsed into darkness.
For a moment, there was nothing.
No pain. No cold.
Only a vast, endless void.
Then — a sensation.
A pull, like a thousand invisible hands dragging him upwards, through thick currents of memory and regret.
A blinding light seared through the darkness, burning away the last threads of his broken body.
Somewhere, a voice — soft, almost pitying — whispered:
"Do it again. This time, remember."
And Tae-Hyun fell, not into death — but into something else.
Before there was Cheon Enterprises, there was only The Mafia Gang - "ONI".
A ruthless, near-mythical criminal empire that ruled Korea's underworld from the shadows.
At its Top stood Cheon Yeon-Cheol, Tae-Hyun's grandfather — a man so feared that enemies whispered his name like a curse.
The government bowed to him. Corporations paid tribute. Entire districts of the city belonged to him.
In the language of the old world, "Cheon" meant the sky, the heavens — untouchable, absolute. And so Yeon-Cheol earned his surname not by birthright, but by conquest.
But even kings grow old.
Even titans fear for their bloodline.
Seeking to cleanse his family name and shield his descendants from the life he had lived, Yeon-Cheol founded Cheon Enterprises — a legitimate front to transform black money into gold, violence into power.
Cheon Woo-Jin, Yeon-Cheol's eldest son — strong, brilliant, destined to inherit it all — became the next pillar of the family.
Until one rainy night, when his car spun off a mountain road, killing him and his wife instantly.
The official report called it an accident.
Tae-Hyun now knew it was murder.
Orphaned, barely a teenager, Tae-Hyun was left under the care of his uncles — vipers in fine suits, who smiled as they shackled him.
He obeyed.
He cleaned up their messes.
He built the underworld empire they couldn't manage themselves — expanding "ONI" under a new, invisible banner.
All for one reason:
To protect his younger brother, DoHyun, the only pure thing left in his world.
But the moment DoHyun died — poisoned, beaten, thrown away like a pawn — Tae-Hyun's soul snapped.
He stormed into the estate that night, with a knife clutched in his trembling hand, rage pounding in his ears louder than the rain.
He barely made it past the front steps before the guns rose up.
Twenty men.
120 gunshots.
Cheon Tae-Hyun fell again — not as the heir, not as the prince — but as a broken weapon discarded by the family he had bled for.
As the final darkness wrapped around him, that same blinding light swallowed his senses.
Time fractured.
The world rewound.
And when Tae-Hyun opened his eyes again —
it was not marble beneath him, but something else entirely.
A second chance had just begun.