Chapter 3

Six in the evening was, by rights, the hour when every office worker in Korea ought to be heading home. Not here, though.

“What am I eating for dinner this time?”

The line at the staff cafeteria on the fifteenth floor of H Tower, the building that Hyeongang’s head office shared with Hyeongang Aeros, was long enough to pass for the lunch rush.

“Thank you for the food.”

Ji-an had ordered from the dinner menu at the kiosk, and she was carrying her tray of side dishes and seaweed soup toward a seat when it happened.

“Ah!”

Her foot caught on something, and she lurched forward. Sheer reflex barely kept her on her feet, but the seaweed soup pitched over and the broth slopped across the tray.

“Ah…”

Before she could work out what had happened, a low laugh came from beside her.

“Oh my, you’ll want to be careful, Senior Researcher Ji-an. Or should I be calling you Secretary Han now?”

It was Principal Researcher Park Eun-sang, who had worked with her in her old department, the Future Strategy Research Institute.

When Ji-an only stared, Principal Researcher Park left one leg stretched out past the edge of the table for everyone to see and laughed. “What?”

Childish as ever. Ji-an was about to pretend she hadn’t noticed and walk on, but Senior Researcher Jo Min-a, seated across from Park Eun-sang, sent a mocking voice after her.

“Doesn’t even say hello anymore. One transfer to the Managing Director’s own secretariat and she’s a whole different person.”

“To her we’re just ordinary researchers who lost our performance bonus. I guess secretary work keeps her so busy she looks right past the rest of us.”

“What’s a secretary got to be busy with? Oh, right. Making the coffee?”

They snickered, and Ji-an bit down hard on her lip.

Don’t engage. You don’t steer clear of filth because you’re afraid of it. You steer clear because it’s filth.

But her silence only made the sneering more open.

“Thanks to a certain someone, the whole team got hit with disciplinary marks, and she’s the one who gets to slip off to the secretariat. She’s just so much smarter and better than the rest of us, isn’t she?”

“Exactly. Just picture her working beside the Managing Director all day, going ‘Managing Director this, Managing Director that.’ Unbelievable.”

“So you rat someone out to the head-office Ethics Office and get scouted straight into the Managing Director’s secretariat? Maybe we should try it ourselves.”

None of it was funny, yet they snickered among themselves at whatever they thought was so amusing and kept shooting Ji-an sidelong looks.

“You dig up a case that was closed ages ago, act all righteous, act like you’re caught up in some huge conspiracy. That’s all it takes, right?”

“That’s what I’m saying. What is she, shooting a drama? And after all that, she stays stuck-up right to the end. Not one word of apology.”

“Honestly, it’s sad about the one who died, but what did those of us still alive do to deserve this? They closed it as a suicide, didn’t they? So what’s the big question?”

Ji-an’s grip tightened on the tray. She could bear insults aimed at her, but dragging up the dead was something she couldn’t let pass.

“…”

How long am I supposed to keep letting this go? It isn’t as if I have to look these people in the face every day anymore.

“Principal Researcher. Senior Researcher.”

Ji-an turned back and looked them straight in the eye.

“If you can’t accept a conclusion, asking for it to be investigated again is a legitimate right.”

For all the mockery and blame she’d taken until now, Ji-an had never once answered back.

“And what I raised was a legitimate question about my brother-in-law’s death¹.”

Her voice was level, and it startled them. Eun-sang and Min-a traded a look, then raised their voices in disbelief.

“What? So you’re saying what you did was right? When the whole team had to pay for it?”

“Is that my fault?”

Ji-an’s gaze sharpened.

“Isn’t that on the higher-ups who handed down a retaliatory punishment?”

As the exchange dragged on and began to look like a fight, she could feel the glances of the employees eating around them.

“What? Ha, this is unbelievable. Seriously…”

They must have felt the other employees’ eyes too, because they pushed it no further and only let out dumbfounded breaths.

They’d tuck their tails at this little? And all that time they openly ignored me, froze me out, ground me down?

“I make very good coffee, so do come by for a cup sometime. You’ll have to book ahead, though. The Managing Director’s schedule is extremely busy.”

Ji-an gave them a bright little smile and sat down at an empty table in the corner.

The eyes on her from every direction seemed to bore into her back, but she made a point of keeping her posture straight.

The seaweed soup on her tray was still sloshing in little waves, just like her own unsettled heart.

The truth is, for all I said, there’s still a heavy guilt sitting in one corner of my heart.

If I’d known it would cost the whole team, would I have let the question go back then?

No answer came easily.

Bzzz. Somewhere in that brief drift of thought, the phone she’d left on the table vibrated.

Choi Kang-hoon, Chief of Staff

Managing Director’s external schedule complete. No items outstanding today. He will be going home without returning to the office, so Secretary Han is likewise advised to head home now, in the interest of efficient performance of duties.

Understood. Thank you for your work today, Chief. I’ll see you tomorrow.

She’d assumed no reply would come, but the phone buzzed again.

Choi Kang-hoon, Chief of Staff

Secretary Han worked hard on the preparations as well. The Managing Director made a point of mentioning it.

She hadn’t expected that at all, and her fingers paused over the screen as a scene from the past slid through her mind.

‘I was impressed by the Middle East market-entry scenario report you wrote at the Institute, Ms. Han Ji-an.’

That was Sa-heon as he’d looked when he scouted her to be his secretary, back when she was still at head office’s Future Strategy Research Institute.

‘Was the work I assigned you not what you expected?’

‘Frankly speaking, yes.’

‘If I’d wanted an ordinary secretary, I wouldn’t have scouted a data analyst for the job.’

He was a man who was always sure of himself, never once ruffled by a schedule that left him no room to breathe.

“Thank you,” Ji-an replied briefly, and slipped the phone into her pocket.

Rain was lashing hard against the cafeteria’s broad windows, yet she wasn’t worried about getting soaked on the way home. Today she had a great big umbrella.

It’s a good thing I moved departments.

Ji-an spooned up her soup in silence. Somehow the salty broth going down her throat tasted less bitter than it had a moment ago.

Meanwhile, driving along the outer expressway, Sa-heon let out a sigh of displeasure.

The rain beat against the glass so violently that it seemed some savage beast was clawing at the window.

I can’t stand night driving, and I can’t stand wet roads. Tonight it has to be both.

Maybe I should’ve left the driving to Chief Choi after all.

Sa-heon clicked his tongue inwardly and checked the analog clock hands set into the center of the dashboard. They pointed to exactly 22:00.

The wipers were already at their highest setting, sweeping the windshield nonstop like a broken metronome, and still his view stayed blurred. At least the classical melody on the radio covered the sound of the rain drumming on the windows like bullets, so Sa-heon turned the volume up a little and pressed the accelerator.

—Five hundred meters ahead, sharp curve. Please mind your speed.

The navigation system’s cold voice cut in between the strains of the classical piece.

Bzzzt. The phone gave a long ring. It was the lawyer he’d arranged to meet at the villa, so Sa-heon hit the call button and switched to speakerphone.

“Yes, Counselor.”

—Managing Director, where are you about now? I’ve arrived.

Sa-heon’s eyes touched the navigation screen and left it again.

“I’ll be there soon. About fifteen more minutes.”

—Yes. I’ve reviewed all the material you sent. With this, the evidence is rock-solid.

“Isn’t it? He’s got some nerve, our Vice President.”

A satisfied smile spread at the corner of Sa-heon’s mouth, and the lawyer went on in a flushed voice.

—Put this before the board and the Vice President will have no choice but to step down. A slush fund this size, we could even hand it to the prosecutors…

“We can take our time thinking about that part.”

Sa-heon cut the lawyer off, unhurried.

“Everything has to be ready before next week’s board meeting.”

Lightning split the sky. For an instant the whole empty stretch of outer road was washed in pale light, then it sank back into darkness.

—Yes. I don’t foresee any problem. I’ll go over the details when I see you. The roads are very slick in this rain, so please drive carefully.

“Right. See you shortly.”

The short call had barely ended when the phone rang again, as if it had been waiting for him to hang up.

[Lee Jae-gwon]

Sa-heon checked the name on the screen, and one corner of his mouth slanted up.

—Lee Sa-heon!!

The moment the call connected, a ringing bellow came tearing through the speakerphone.

—You son of a bitch! How dare you!!

It was Lee Jae-gwon, Sa-heon’s eldest brother and Vice President of the Hyeongang Group. At that booming voice, Sa-heon let out a thin laugh.

“It’s getting late, and you’re still so full of energy, our Vice President.”

—You. You little bastard. What the hell are you scheming! And what is all this material!

“Ah, so you got the present I sent?”

—Present, my ass. Where do you get the nerve, trying to frame me with this shoddy garbage!

“Fifty billion won isn’t the sort of sum² anyone would make up to frame someone. Ah, or is that pocket change to my eldest hyung?”

Sa-heon turned the wheel easily and went on.

“I do wonder whether Father would see it the same way.”

—What? Just because you’ve got a mouth on you—!

The storm of rage driving through the speakerphone filled Sa-heon’s face with satisfaction. Then Lee Jae-gwon reined in the resentment in his voice and went on.

—All right, Sa-heon. I understand you’ve got a grudge against the two of us, Jae-seong and me. Brothers turning up out of nowhere — that can’t have been easy to accept. But we’ve been calling each other brothers for over twenty years now, haven’t we.

Ha. With tens of billions in embezzlement laid bare, the best he could manage was to invoke blood.

“If that’s all you have to say, I’ll hang up.”

Sa-heon let the long-winded appeal go in one ear and out the other and sneered, and at that Lee Jae-gwon pressed on quickly. “Hold on!”