It was raining the night Lee Yunho stole three lives.
Not stole.
Reshaped.
The hospital corridor smelled of antiseptic and desperation. The lights flickered above him as if even they disapproved of what he carried in his arms; three newborn boys wrapped in identical white blankets.
Three soft cries.
Three fragile futures.
Yunho moved quickly, cap pulled low over his eyes. No one questioned him. He had the right uniform, the right posture, the right confidence.
Confidence was more important than innocence.
He reached the underground parking lot and opened the trunk of his car. Carefully, almost gently he laid the babies inside, cushioning them with spare blankets. One of them stopped crying and stared up at him with wide, dark eyes.
Yunho froze.
For a brief second, something like guilt flickered across his face.
Then headlights swept across the parking lot.
A sleek black sedan slowed as it passed him.
The window rolled down.
Kang Taeho.
Chairman of Kang Group.
Power stitched into every line of his face.
"Lee Yunho?" Taeho asked calmly.
Yunho closed the trunk.
"Yes, Chairman."
Taeho stepped out of his car. The rain dampened his tailored coat, but he didn't seem to notice.
"My wife can't conceive," Taeho said, voice measured. "You told me you had… a solution."
Yunho opened the trunk again.
Three newborns.
Three identical possibilities.
Taeho studied them in silence.
"How much?"
"Twenty million won."
No hesitation.
Taeho reached into his coat and handed over a thick envelope. The exchange was clean. Businesslike.
No paperwork.
No names.
Taeho lifted one of the babies ....the quiet one. The one who had stopped crying first.
The child didn't fuss. He simply blinked up at the man who would become his father.
"You'll be Kang Junseo," Taeho murmured.
An heir.
A future chairman.
A life wrapped in silk and expectation.
The car door shut.
And just like that, one destiny drove away.
Later That Night
Yunho still had two babies left.
The rain had grown heavier by the time he reached a small residential street. He noticed a woman collapsed near the entrance of a clinic, soaked, trembling, clutching a tiny hospital bracelet in her hand.
She was sobbing.
"My baby… my baby…"
Han Dahee.
Her child had died at birth.
The doctor had delivered the news only minutes earlier.
Yunho stepped out slowly, holding one of the infants.
"Are you looking for this?" he asked softly.
Dahee looked up.
Time stopped.
The baby in Yunho's arms whimpered.
Dahee crawled toward him.
"They told me he didn't make it...they said—"
"I found him," Yunho lied smoothly. "There was a mistake."
Her hands shook as she took the child.
She didn't question it.
Grief doesn't investigate miracles.
She pressed the baby against her chest, crying in relief.
"My son… Yujin," she whispered. "Han Yujin."
That child would grow up in a cramped apartment filled with arguments, financial stress, and fragile love.
But he would grow up loved.
Messily.
Desperately.
The Last Baby
Yunho returned home near dawn.
His small house was silent.
He carried the final child inside and sat at the kitchen table, staring at him.
The baby was restless. Loud. Strong lungs.
Unlike the quiet one who had gone with Taeho.
Yunho poured himself a glass of water with one hand, still holding the infant with the other.
"You're the one I keep," he muttered.
Not out of affection.
Out of necessity.
"You'll be Lee Dohyun."
No inheritance.
No chairman father.
No miraculous reunion.
Just an ordinary life.
Or so it seemed.
Three Boys. Three Worlds.
Kang Junseo grew up in a mansion where chandeliers reflected off marble floors. Tutors. Private drivers. The weight of legacy pressed onto his small shoulders before he could even spell his name.
Han Yujin grew up in a noisy apartment with unpaid bills and a mother who loved him so fiercely it sometimes suffocated him. He learned early how to read moods. How to survive tension.
Lee Dohyun grew up in a modest house with a father who watched him too carefully. Who sometimes looked at him like he was calculating something.
None of them knew.
Not about the rain.
Not about the trunk of a car.
Not about the price tag attached to one of them.
Not about the lie that gave another his life.
They were born on the same night.
Under the same storm.
And fate had already decided—
One would rule.
One would endure.
And one would burn everything down.