Chapter 7
Taek continued speaking as he looked at the broad back of the man he served.
“Seo Lee-jae is Professor Seo’s biological niece. When the business of her biological father, Seo Nam-woo, collapsed, her biological mother, Han Yeon-hui, left the house. I heard she remarried afterward. After that, Seo Lee-jae was raised by her maternal grandmother, but when her father died and her grandmother also became bedridden in the hospital, her eldest uncle, Professor Seo, brought her in and took care of her.”
“…….”
“And this year, she entered the dance department but was injured. Since then, she’s been going from one blind date to another.”
Do-geon recalled the sight of Lee-jae walking with a limp.
“Once it became difficult for her to continue after the injury, Professor Seo’s side seems eager to get rid of her as quickly as possible. It seems they intend to marry her off before she turns twenty-one. They apparently think her value will drop after that.”
As he listened to the report, Do-geon’s gaze sank coldly.
“From what I heard from the servants who used to work in Professor Seo’s house, there also seems to have been *buse.”
“*buse?”
“Yes. Professor Seo’s family openly tormented Seo Lee-jae while looking down on her. They say they withheld food from her and also laid hands on her.”
The more he heard, the more infuriating it became.
The time when contact with Seo Lee-jae had been cut off was also around when she went into Professor Seo’s house.
Chairman Beom had suddenly collapsed and fallen into a coma, and because the organization and the company had both needed large-scale restructuring, it had been a time when Do-geon’s role in taking control of everything was especially great.
Naturally, he had thought she was living well. He had thought that a child with more passion than anyone would surely be spreading her dreams wide by now.
‘Right now, marriage is something I desperately need.’
Once he began to understand why that child had asked for marriage, it twisted something inside him.
If she had needed money, or wanted him to make one phone call and place her somewhere, or even if she had asked him to quietly make the people tormenting her disappear without a trace, he thought he could have granted that much.
But he had never expected Seo Lee-jae to ask him to marry her.
No matter if it really was the only way, even Do-geon could do nothing about that.
Do-geon took out another cigarette and put it between his lips again. A thirst with no clear cause surged through him.
“What else?”
“Madame is asking you to come to the main house. She wants to know when on earth she’ll be able to see your face.”
Ignoring Taek, Do-geon only exhaled a stream of pale smoke through his lips.
“Taek.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Tell the boys to keep marking her.”
“Seo Lee-jae?”
“Yeah, Baby.”
Do-geon turned his gaze again to the bench where she had been sitting.
Somehow, despite that thin leg of hers, she had managed to go on walking. Before he knew it, Lee-jae had disappeared.
* * *
“So how was the blind date? Can I have high expectations this time?”
The sound of dishes clinking rang through the hotel restaurant.
It was a rare meal shared by mother and son. More precisely, Do-geon had been having dinner, and Hira had inserted herself into the seat across from him.
Beside them, Beom Gye-ryong, younger brother of Chairman Beom, leisurely sipped wine.
“What happened? You rejected every blind date there was until now, but Professor Seo said the atmosphere was good.”
Hira was curious about Do-geon’s blind date, but he acted as though he did not even hear her and merely put a piece of steak into his mouth and chewed.
“Say something. Or would you rather see someone from another family? There are truckloads of families who want their daughters to meet you. Just say the word.”
At his continued disregard, a crease formed at the corner of Hira’s elegant eyes.
“You’re probably the only one who treats Sister-in-law with that kind of disregard.”
Gye-ryong said it with a hearty laugh.
Hira was the only daughter of a major figure in the Myeongdong private lending world, an heiress whose family moved hundreds of billions of won in a single day.
There was not a single chairman of a major corporation who had not once borrowed money from Hira’s biological father, so in terms of liquid assets alone, hers was one of the greatest fortunes in South Korea.
As an heiress, she had been cherished and exalted all her life, but then she happened to meet Chairman Beom, who led the Mujung organization, and married him for love despite her family’s opposition.
Receiving her husband’s love as well, there had never been a single shadow on Hira’s face throughout her life. Not until her only son showed not the slightest interest in marriage.
“Son, I’m telling you to say something!”
If only he resembled even one quarter of one half of Chairman Beom’s personality, the man who had been endlessly gentle to his wife alone, he would not be so indifferent.
“If marriage sounds that wonderful, Mother, you should go on another blind date yourself.”
“Can you really joke like that when your father is lying there? I’m losing my mind.”
Clutching her head, Hira called for an employee.
“Executive Director Beom is giving me a headache, so brew some black tea strong for me. I need caffeine. No, wait, there was a gift that came in. Come with me.”
Hira left the room with the hotel employee.
Watching Do-geon silently eat only his steak, Gye-ryong asked,
“Do you Executive Director Beom still bury himself only in work these days? What do you think, Taek?”
When Gye-ryong called for Taek, who was standing behind Do-geon, he bowed his head sharply.
“So is there really a woman you’re seeing? Is that why you won’t even go on blind dates?”
When Taek made the rare expression of looking troubled, Gye-ryong let out a short laugh.
Even so, the look in his eyes as he watched Do-geon silently continue eating held trust.
It was Do-geon who had taken Chairman Beom’s organization, which had been growing its power in the shadows, and raised it into one of South Korea’s leading conglomerates.
Do-geon’s strength had played a major role in bringing it to the point where it now wielded influence in political circles. The driving force behind Mujung Group’s growth was Beom Do-geon.
Even if there was not a single person in the world worth trusting, he still trusted Beom Do-geon. Not his character, but the ability he had been born with.
“At this point, I ought to be able to tell what the Executive Director is thinking just by looking at his eyes. I’m something else myself.”
Somehow, Do-geon could gauge Gye-ryong’s next move just by reading his expression, yet Gye-ryong could never understand what Do-geon was thinking.
In a few years, once Chairman Beom’s life support was removed and his death was made official, Do-geon was the heir who would take the chairman’s position.
No matter that he was his nephew, if they had not set him up as Mujung’s heir and treated him accordingly, he was also the kind of man who would already have cut Gye-ryong’s throat.
“Taek.”
“Yes, Director.”
“Is his temper so foul because he doesn’t regularly work off his urges? With something that size, I’d think it must have built up quite a bit.”
Gye-ryong lowered his gaze between Do-geon’s thighs. The heavy outline of his s*x, stretching prominently over his thigh, carried a striking presence.
“Taek, why aren’t you saying anything? Why is your boss so utterly uninterested in using something that big?”
Unable to answer, Taek instead lowered his head all the way toward the floor in rigid respect.
“What exactly is it that you do know.”
“…….”
“Gyeongjin.”
Gyeongjin, who had been standing behind Gye-ryong, hurried forward. At Gye-ryong’s glance, he lowered his head before him.
Gye-ryong struck Gyeongjin hard on the head. The blows always fell to the lowest-ranking one.
Though Gye-ryong was well past sixty, his forearms were still solid. Men who had lived by their fists were all like that.
In the middle of it all, watching Do-geon indifferently order and eat another steak, Gye-ryong laughed heartily.
Each time Gye-ryong brought his large palm down on Gyeongjin’s head, his skull shook in small jolts.
“Every time we meet, you show such great interest in my d*ck.”
After emptying another glass of wine, Do-geon set it down on the table with a sharp tap.
“You’re making me feel self-conscious.”
