Chapter 50: Shadows of the Past
The silence inside the penthouse suite was deceptive. Clara stared unblinkingly at the heavy oak door, anxiously waiting for Lukas and the champagne. When a knock finally echoed through the room, a faint, relieved smile flickered across her exhausted face. "Well, that was fast, Luki," she murmured, stepping toward the door and pulling it open.
The smile froze instantly. It didn't just fade—it petrified in a single second, turning into a mask of pure horror.
Standing before her was a man who looked as though he had stepped straight out of the pages of an exclusive fashion magazine. He wore a perfectly tailored suit, his dark hair immaculately slicked back with pomade, his skin flawlessly bronzed by the sun of the Côte d'Azur. Jean-Luc. He smiled at her, but it was the hollow smile of a shark that had just caught the scent of blood.
"Mon amour... did you miss me?" he murmured with that dangerously soft French accent that used to give Clara weak knees—long before the first time he broke her wrist. "You look pale, ma chérie. Has the Korean air not been agreeing with you?"
Clara's survival instincts screamed in deafening alarm. With a desperate cry, she lunged to slam the door shut, but Jean-Luc was ruthlessly faster. With a casual, almost elegant cruelty, he wedged his polished leather shoe into the gap. He forced the door open with a raw strength against which Clara stood absolutely no chance, and stepped inside. The metallic click of the lock as he secured the door behind him sounded in Clara's ears like the merciless shutting of a prison cell.
"This press conference... how arrogant of you," he said, strolling through the room as if he owned the entire luxury hotel. "Did you really think you were free? That you could hide behind cheap words in a foreign country? You are my most valuable possession, Clara. And I don't just leave my treasures lying around somewhere in Seoul. We are going home now. So everything can go back to the way it used to be."
"I am not your property!" Clara screamed. She retreated step by step until the back of her knees struck the edge of the bed hard. "Our marriage was a complete nightmare! We are divorced, you bastard! Get out of my life!"
Jean-Luc laughed softly, a cold sound like dry autumn leaves scraping against pavement. "Mais non, chérie... what nonsense are you talking about? I never signed the divorce papers. In the eyes of God and the law, you are still my wife. You belong to me until I decide I don't want you anymore."
In a sudden flash, he lunged forward. Clara tried to bolt to the side, but he pinned her wrists with hands like iron vices. He slammed her against the wall so painfully that she felt the icy wallpaper press hard against the back of her neck.
"In Europe, there are laws against forced marriages, fils de pute!" she hissed through clenched teeth, tears of rage and humiliation stinging her eyes. "I settled everything with my lawyer ages ago. I submitted every single medical document from the emergency room! Believe me, we are divorced, you piece of shit!"
Jean-Luc's features darkened instantly. A sinister, murderous glint appeared in his eyes—a look Clara knew all too well, one that struck icy terror into her heart because she knew exactly what always followed it.
"How dare you, you..." He raised his hand threateningly, poised to strike. But at the very last second, he barely maintained his grip, lowering his arm as his voice shook with suppressed fury. "Who gave you permission to do such a thing, hm? You are still my wife. No matter what anyone says, you still belong to me. And that will never change."
Suddenly, a completely different sound cut through the room from the hallway. A knock. Energetic. Desperate.
"Clara!" Min-ho's voice shouted through the thick wood of the door. "Clara, I am so incredibly sorry! I was an idiot, an arrogant fool! Please, let's talk. I'm not leaving this spot until you forgive me!"
Jean-Luc's eyes narrowed into slits. With a fluid, practiced motion, he reached into his inner jacket pocket. Clara caught the cold flash of metal. A knife. He pressed the flat of the blade firmly against her cheek. "Who is that?" he hissed, dangerously low. "If you don't want this little Korean guy to die today, send him away. Right now."
Clara knew that Jean-Luc never made empty threats. He was unpredictable, sadistic, and violent. Swallowing the thick lump in her throat, she gathered every ounce of courage she possessed and called out, her voice sounding as steady as she could humanly force it to be: "I can't right now, Min-ho! I'm... a bit busy with my past at the moment!"
Out in the hallway, Min-ho froze mid-motion. Past. In his mind, Lukas's words flashed instantly. The map of pain etched onto Clara's body. The purple bruises on her skin. The panicked flight from a monster. Min-ho understood the message immediately. That wasn't a rejection. It was a code. A desperate cry for help.
Min-ho acted with lightning speed. He didn't run away. He whipped out his phone while pressing his body firmly against the door, straining to catch even the faintest sound from within.
"Well done, mon amour," Jean-Luc crooned inside the room, loosening the painful grip around her wrists by just a fraction. "At first, I thought it was that pathetic excuse of a queen, Lukas... or his equally stupid brother, Pascale. You're still hanging out with them, aren't you? The two of them have always been far too weak to protect you from me."
"Lukas and Pascale are a thousand times more of a man than you will ever be," Clara spat back defiantly, even though her knees were trembling violently. She was desperately trying to buy time. She prayed that Min-ho hadn't just walked away. She hoped for the miracle she had once found in a stuck elevator.
Outside in the hallway, Min-ho's fingers flew across his screen, alerting hotel security and the police, but he knew that every single second counted. His eyes frantically scanned the walls—and locked onto the heavy, red fire extinguisher secured in its wall mount.
There was no more hesitation in his mind, only a single, deafening thought that drowned out everything else: Nobody touches her. Nobody.