The Quiet Ind of Revenge

Introduction:

When Jisoo Kim lands in Belgrade for a high-stakes cultural project, she isn't just escaping the suffocating politeness of Seoul she's running from the slow, silent death of her marriage. Her husband's betrayal wasn't loud, but it was clear. And while he pretends nothing happened, Jisoo is about to make sure something does.

In a foreign city where no one knows her name, she meets Stefan a tall, infuriatingly charismatic Serbian architect with a reputation as intoxicating as his stare. What begins as tension across a conference table quickly unravels into something hotter, riskier, and far less professional.

Jisoo knows this is temporary. She's counting down the days until her return to Korea. But the longer she stays, the harder it is to tell whether she's falling for him or for the person she becomes when she stops pretending.

This is a story of secrets, desire, revenge, and rediscovery. Of what happens when you stop waiting to be chosen and choose yourself instead.

Welcome to the chaos.

She's not sorry she came.

She's just not sure she'll leave whole.

What to Expect:

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Characters:

Jisoo Kim -

Elegant, sharp, emotionally fraying. A married Korean consultant who looks like control... until she's pushed past her limits.

Stefan -

Tall, broad, Serbian architect. Quiet, dangerous charm. The kind of man who doesn't ask he just knows.

Minjae -

Jisoo's husband. Polished, golden boy type. Charming in public. Unfaithful in private.

Yuna -

Jisoo's best friend and moral anchor. Sarcastic, loyal, always one text away from setting something on fire in her honor.

Tina, Mira, Adnan -

Office gossip crew. Young, chaotic energy. The source of every rumor you wish you hadn't heard but can't stop thinking about.

Kinks & Heat Level:

Silent dominance - Few words, hard gaze, total control.

Oral obsession - He eats her like a last meal.

Rough sex - Hands everywhere. Hair pulled. Wall pressed. Bed rocked.

Praise + positional control - "Good girl." "Don't move." She melts.

Cheating / revenge sex - One man breaks her trust. Another breaks her open.

Soft aftercare - He ruins her, then holds her.

Height + race difference - Petite Korean woman, tall white Balkan man built in tension.

Tension > dirty talk - Heat builds in what they don't say.

Size kink & stretch play - He's massive. She's tiny. She feels every inch.

Emotional & Story Themes:

Infidelity & moral grayness - He cheated first. She's just... balancing the scales.

Revenge as reclamation - Not just about sex. It's about being seen.

Sex as survival - It wasn't just pleasure. It was therapy.

Foreign fantasy - The city, the accent, the man it all feels like escape.

Emotional detachment vs intimacy - They fuck like strangers. They hold each other like lovers.

Control & surrender - She's used to being in charge. Until him.

Female friendship - Honest, hilarious, ride or die support.

This is not a love story.

It's a story about reclaiming power through pleasure.

And what happens when she stops playing the good wife.

*******************************************************************************************************

The airport smelled like overly sterilized air and other people's exhaustion.

Jisoo Kim adjusted her coat and stared out the tinted window of her airport transfer, watching the flat winter sunlight slide across Belgrade's river. It was her first time in Serbia, and despite the picturesque charm of the city's bridges and cold gray skyline, she felt... nothing.

She should've felt excited. Curious. Maybe even nervous. Instead, she felt like a phone left on low battery for days barely functioning, too drained to die.

The car rolled through the city center toward her hotel. The driver spoke no English beyond "okay" and "thank you," but smiled each time they hit a red light like they were old friends. It should've been sweet. It was exhausting.

Jisoo's phone buzzed in her lap. She didn't need to look to know who it was.

Minjae.

Her husband of three years. Her boyfriend for five before that. Her golden boy. Funny, smart, great with her parents, and recently very good at lying.

She'd received the photo from Yuna three days ago.

A grainy, low res image snapped from across a dimly lit bar in Itaewon. The kind of shot you take discreetly, phone angled low, heart pounding like you're capturing evidence for a courtroom. It showed Minjae mid laugh, caught in a moment that should have been charming if not for the woman beside him.

He was holding a drink in one hand, his other arm braced casually along the bar, leaning in close to a woman with dark red lipstick and legs that seemed to stretch forever. Her face tilted toward his with practiced ease, the intimacy between them unmistakable even through the camera's blur.

Then came the second photo.

No room for ambiguity this time.

His mouth on hers.

Not a friendly kiss. Not an oops we're so drunk moment.

Full on, deliberate, mouth on mouth contact. No space between them. No hesitation.

That was the one that hit hardest.

Still want me to check on him?

Yuna's message had come seconds later, cool and detached, like she already knew the answer and just wanted to offer Jisoo the dignity of silence. The timestamp glared up at her like a slap. The implication needed no further commentary.

Jisoo hadn't replied.

She hadn't cried either.

She'd stared at the images until her vision blurred, then calmly closed the app, folded her phone shut like she was pressing a wound closed, and turned to her laptop. Twenty minutes later, she'd rebooked her flight to Belgrade two days earlier than scheduled. She told her assistant to cancel her meetings in Seoul, reassign the interns, and pack only what she'd specified in her forwarded email.

A navy blue power suit tailored to razor sharpness.

Her blood red lipstick, untouched since their honeymoon.

No perfume. Just clean skin and intent.

The message was simple: She wasn't broken. She was coming for control.

Her phone buzzed as she stepped into the arrival hall at Nikola Tesla Airport.

Minjae: "You landed okay?"

"Text me when you get to the hotel, yeah? Miss you."

🐱 + ❤️

Of course he used the cat emoji. Cloud, their ragdoll, had become their emotional buffer over the last year something to coo over when the silence stretched too long, when they couldn't bear to address what had been quietly rotting between them.

He hadn't mentioned their last fight. Hadn't asked if she was still upset about that night he'd "worked late" but didn't come home until 3 a.m. He acted as if things were fine. Maybe because, for him, they were.

Jisoo inhaled, slow and shallow, and typed back.

Jisoo: "Landed. Exhausted. Will text after check in."

✈️

The emoji softened it, made her look tired, not distant. She knew how to write texts that read like affection, even when they masked indifference.

The hotel lobby was a gleaming parade of marble, gold trim, and velvet upholstery every detail carefully curated to cater to foreign executives and their heavy wallets. The kind of place that smelled like soft jazz and understated power.

The woman at the reception desk greeted her in flawless English, smile polite, efficient.

"Seventh floor, river view," she said as she passed over the key card.

The elevator ride was silent but fragrant citrus cleaner and faint cologne clinging to the walls. Jisoo glanced at herself in the mirror: black wool coat tailored to perfection, dark lipstick just beginning to smudge at the corners, hair pinned up with not a strand out of place. Her eyes looked flat, unreadable.

She looked like someone who was in control.

Someone who didn't just discover her husband was cheating with a woman who wore cheaper lipstick and less clothing.

Someone who didn't spend ten minutes replaying every night Minjae had come home too tired to touch her, wondering if this was the night he kissed someone else.

She stepped into her suite.

The room was cold and elegant, floor to ceiling windows casting a gray light from the Danube. She dropped her bag onto the bed with mechanical precision, peeled off her coat, and collapsed into the armchair like her body had finally given her permission to surrender.

She unlocked her phone.

New messages.

From Yuna.

Yuna: "Any updates?"

"Need to know if I have to fight a Serbian man for you."

Jisoo allowed herself a tiny smile. The first real one in days.

Yuna wasn't just her closest friend she was also her coworker back in Seoul, her personal no nonsense oracle. They'd started at the company together, clawed their way through the bullshit, and ended up in different offices but always in sync. Yuna had been the one to offer to "keep an eye" on Minjae. She'd said it lightly, but they both knew what it meant.

Jisoo typed back:

Jisoo: "Landed. Hotel's nice. He texted me like nothing's wrong."

"It's like I'm in some parallel universe where I'm still the good wife."

A minute passed before Yuna responded.

Yuna: "You are the good wife. He's just a sneaky prick."

"Want me to leak the photo to his mom anonymously?"

That made Jisoo laugh.

An actual laugh.

Sharp, surprised, involuntary. It burst out of her like steam from a cracked pipe part mirth, part disbelief, part sorrow held too tightly for too long.

She wiped under her eye and tapped back:

Jisoo: "Tempting. Maybe later."

****

Her first day was a blur of faces, names, espresso shots, and half translated schedules.

The Belgrade team for the cultural restoration project was young, sharp, and magnetic in that curated chaos way coats slung over chairs, hair tousled just so, sneakers poking out from beneath sleek wool trousers. Everyone looked like they moonlighted as someone cooler: an architect, a DJ, a lifestyle blogger.

Jisoo, in contrast, was all Seoul structure ink black pencil skirt, starched white blouse, a soft navy blazer sharp enough to slice through fog. Her lipstick was deep burgundy, her posture impeccable, and her first impression was exactly what she intended: untouchable.

She found her footing quickly. She always did. Cultural consultant, communications lead, efficiency personified. She shook hands with half the regional planning office before noon, nodded through a chaotic lunch of cevapi and strong coffee, and mentally mapped out everyone's power dynamics by the time the last slideshow ended.

The project itself was a rare gem reimagining a row of crumbling Ottoman era warehouses along the river into multi use cultural hubs. Something between history and innovation. Something worth being here for.

But nothing nothing shifted the atmosphere like his arrival.

It was late afternoon when it happened.

The team had gathered on site, all huddled in oversized scarves and caffeinated determination. The cold had teeth, and the stairs were ancient and mean, winding like a bad decision.

He entered mid discussion, rain in his hair and a clipboard tucked under his arm.

"Apologies," he said, voice rich and slow. "Stairs hate me."

The group laughed easily, instinctively. Jisoo turned and there he was.

Mr. Stefan Sinadinović.

He was tall, broad across the chest, long limbed like someone who knew exactly how to move. His black coat was left open, shirt collar slightly askew, his hair swept back like he'd run a hand through it on the way in and left it.

He looked like a man who didn't need to try.

"Ah, the architect appears," someone joked behind her.

Stefan gave a modest, closed lip grin, and then his eyes found her.

"You're the communications lead, yes? Kim?"

She nodded, cool and controlled. "Jisoo Kim."

"Stefan," he replied. "Architect, occasional stairs victim."

His handshake was confident. Not lingering, but firm. His gaze held hers a moment longer than protocol called for just long enough to notice the curve of her lipstick and the glint of something unreadable behind her eyes.

"Nice to meet you," he said, then moved on, as if their interaction hadn't just thudded into her bloodstream like caffeine on an empty stomach.

She told herself she hadn't noticed the absence of a ring.

The first whisper came over afternoon espresso in the shared office kitchen the next day.

Jisoo stood quietly at the counter, pouring herself coffee and reviewing her notes. Her earbuds were in, but the music was paused. She preferred to listen. People forgot she was fluent in silence.

"He only dates foreigners," came a voice high, amused. Tina. The intern with six inch heels and cheekbones sharp enough to cut tape.

"That's not true," another voice countered Mira, quieter, deadpan. "Just the ones who look like they could ruin his life and walk away with clean hair."

Laughter.

Jisoo kept stirring her coffee.

"I'm serious," Tina said, lowering her voice to what she probably thought was a whisper. "My cousin went out with him for like, a month. She said he's got this thing like, reads you. Doesn't ask twice. Just knows."

Adnan, the soft spoken IT guy with puppy eyes, chimed in from the fridge, deadpan. "So like, psychic dick?"

More laughter. Louder this time.

Jisoo pretended to scroll through her email, ears burning.

She didn't say a word.

Two days later, it got worse.

She was organizing folders at the main worktable while Mira and two of the junior architects went over floorplan revisions. The conversation drifted as it always did, and Jisoo caught it mid pivot.

"I heard he doesn't talk during sex," Mira said, not even looking up.

"What? Like at all?"

"Not unless you beg. Even then, it's like one word. You know 'don't move,' 'good girl,' that kind of thing."

The girls squealed. Jisoo's pen slipped against the paper.

She didn't blink.

The next time was the worst.

Friday afternoon, snacks out, office buzzing with loose weekend energy. Someone had brought rakija. Tina was showing everyone a meme. Adnan was holding court like a reluctant gossip king.

"I'm just saying," he said, sipping slowly. "Mira's friend said and I quote 'He was so big I forgot my name.'"

"Oh my God," Tina laughed. "I want that kind of trauma."

"He's not just big," Mira added, "he knows how to use it. Like, ruin you good. The kind of guy who doesn't just fuck you he formats your hard drive and uploads a new operating system."

The whole circle howled with laughter.

Jisoo stared at the same calendar tab on her screen for five minutes straight.

She hated this kind of talk.

It was juvenile. Unprofessional.

She also couldn't stop picturing his mouth when he said her name.

That night, she sat cross legged on her hotel bed, hair loose, a glass of red wine perched dangerously on the edge of the nightstand.

Minjae had texted hours ago.

Minjae: "Just ordered that chicken you love. Felt weird eating it without you."

"Love you. Don't work too late."

She didn't respond.

Instead, she stared at the message for a long time. Then at the wall. Then at the mirror.

She thought of Stefan's voice dry, charming, a touch amused. She thought of the gossip. The way it had snowballed, whispered in layers, a trail of breadcrumbs that led right to her door.

She could feel it in her own body the part of her that had flinched at his handshake. The part that leaned slightly forward when he walked into the room. The part that hadn't really missed Minjae in days.

She opened a message window.

Jisoo: "There's a rumor about the architect guy."

"...Size."

Three bouncing dots. Then:

Yuna: "Oh?"

"Do tell."

"Are we talking ego or dick?"

Jisoo snorted into her wine glass.

Jisoo: "Definitely dick."

"And technique."

Yuna: "Bitch. Don't you dare fall in love. Just fall on something worth it."

That made her laugh. For real this time.

Her first laugh in days.

She didn't hate it.

****

Outside, Belgrade glittered like something cracked open. Cobbled alleys and warm lights, sharp corners and hidden wine bars. The river glowed silver beneath the city's bones.

It was a city built on layers.

Maybe that's why she felt so at home in it already.

Next day.

As she stepped into the building that morning, she nearly collided with Stefan at the office entrance he was waiting for the elevator, coffee in one hand, scrolling through something on his phone. He looked up, surprised, then smiled.

"Oh hey," he said.

"Hey," she replied, trying to keep her tone light.

They stood side by side in the elevator as the doors slid shut. At first, it was just the usual small talk about the weather, work, how fast the week was going. But then it wandered, naturally, into life: late nights, ambitions, music, places they missed. It was casual, surface level, yet oddly comforting.

Still, as he spoke, her thoughts kept drifting. Whispers she'd heard about him rumors about charm, flirtation, even the occasional heart he'd supposedly broken echoed in the back of her mind. And while he talked, her eyes studied him, her curiosity flaring with each unspoken question. Who was he really? What did he want from people? What would he want from her?

A pang of guilt hit her like a cold wave. What was she doing entertaining these thoughts? She had a husband back in Korea. But then the anger crept in her husband, the one sneaking around behind her back. The one who'd already broken the vows she was still trying to honor. Why shouldn't she think about Stefan, even just for a moment?

It was a war inside her guilt and resentment pulling in opposite directions. But the longer Stefan spoke, the more she noticed how easy it was to talk to him. He didn't push. He didn't pretend. He listened. And in some quiet way, he made her feel seen.

When the elevator dinged and the doors opened, they both stepped out, the moment folding neatly back into the routine of the day. Everyone scattered to their desks. Work hours blurred by in the usual rhythm emails, meetings, screens.

Later, just before leaving, the team gathered in the break room for a quick coffee. They laughed, shared bits of their day, vented about deadlines. It was normal. Familiar. Then one by one, they packed up and went home.

The next morning, Belgrade was wrapped in fog.

Jisoo stepped outside the hotel lobby with a coffee in hand, her coat belted tight against the chill. The Danube murmured somewhere beyond the mist, and the air carried the faint bite of wood smoke and traffic. It smelled like a place halfway between old and new history brushing shoulders with ambition.

She liked it.

Not that she had time to admire the city much. Her calendar was a mess: three stakeholder briefings, one conference call with Seoul, and a press strategy alignment with the international partners. She was expected to speak English, smile politely, and look like a walking brand deck in heels.

But her mind kept circling the same sentence, whispered in that gossipy office kitchen like a dare.

"He doesn't ask. He just knows."

She hadn't seen Stefan that day. Or the next.

Which, irritatingly, only made it worse.

By the time she did, it was raining again thin and annoying, not dramatic enough to be beautiful. She was at a construction site near Republic Square, clipboard in hand, double checking notes with the project manager when Stefan appeared from behind a partition, hard hat crooked, pen between his teeth.

He spotted her and removed the pen with a grin. "Ms. Kim."

She nodded, calm, neutral. "Mr. Stefan."

He walked toward her, pushing his sleeves up, exposing forearms that absolutely did not need to be that good looking.

"Didn't think I'd see you on site today," he said.

"I was told you were presenting a new layout revision."