Hae-rin sat at her desk, signing off on a stack of charts, the scratch of her pen the only sound in the quiet. She’d loosened her lab coat, rolled her sleeves to her elbows, and let her dark hair fall free from its clinical bun. A quiet night. Just how she liked it.

The elevator at the end of the hall dinged.

It wasn’t the janitorial staff — they had keycards. It wasn’t a patient — the front doors were locked. It was the sound of someone who’d installed a discreet, unauthorized courtesy code into the building’s system three years ago, claiming it was “for emergencies.”

The clinic door swung open, and a gust of salt-scented night air rushed in, carrying with it the faint perfume of expensive jasmine and the unmistakable rustle of designer silk.