Chapter 17: The Twelve-Page Addendum

The courier arrived at nine forty-seven on a Wednesday morning.

Ji-soo signed for it because she was at the front desk when the buzzer sounded and because Ellie was still upstairs, which Ji-soo knew because she had heard her sister moving through the kitchen at seven and again at eight-thirty and the particular quality of that movement—deliberate, room-by-room, like someone taking inventory of the things they still trusted—had made Ji-soo stay downstairs and not ask.

The envelope was standard legal weight, cream-colored, HanStar's address embossed in the upper left corner in charcoal grey. Ellie's name in full, formal, centered. Bae Yeon-ji. No honorific. No department routing.