Chapter 44: This Is Not Kekon

Wen and Shae travel to Leyolo City, balancing sightseeing with clan business. Wen visits Diamond Light Motion Pictures to negotiate Danny Sinjo’s release for a Cinema Shore co‑production, offering a vast payout and future favor. Executive Pas Guttano refuses, implying the studio is bound to criminal stakeholders—barukan influence Wen cannot outbid.

That evening, after a relaxing outing, a police stop halts their SUV. Sensing rising tension, Shae orders cooperation, but the stop proves a setup as three black cars disgorge masked, jade‑using assailants. Dudo and Tako respond, Shae kills one attacker, and Tako extracts Wen down a ravine under fire.

Dudo is overwhelmed and knocked unconscious; Tako is shot multiple times and collapses. The barukan surround both slopes, seize Wen, and force Shae to drop her knife and remove her jade under threat to Wen. Disarmed and hit by withdrawal, Shae is hooded, bound, and dragged into a car alongside Wen.

Back in Janloon, Hilo receives a call: proof of life from Wen, confirmation that Shae is jade‑stripped but alive, and demands—forty kilograms of cut jade and two million thalirs for Wen’s release, followed by a seven‑day deadline for No Peak to withdraw from Shotar to recover Shae. Hilo agrees to the terms while warning the kidnappers that any harm to the captives will bring lethal retribution.