TE 13

Seo-ha had momentarily forgotten.

Forgotten that in this house, consumed by her petty sense of victory, she had no allies.

“D-Don’t do that…!”

A timid cry rang out. It was an awkward, hesitant voice – one that couldn’t quite muster full volume for fear of waking their father downstairs and frightening their sister, but still somehow found the courage to speak.

When she turned, there stood Seo-chan in an uncertain stance.

The person Seo-chan was so bravely defending wasn’t Seo-ha. Despite sharing at least half his blood with her, Seo-chan ran to Park Hee-jung – someone he’d lived with for barely over a year – and wrapped his arms around her waist.

“Anyone would think I’m…”

Seo-ha let out a hollow laugh, leaving the sentence unfinished as she descended the stairs.

She had no right to be loved, having never been particularly good as an older sister. Looking at it objectively, it made sense that Seo-chan would prefer his ‘aunt’ who played with him often over a half-sister he shared only partial blood with.

Her mind understood this.

Yet seeing Seo-chan shield Park Hee-jung as if Seo-ha might harm her, without knowing the full situation, stirred something complex within her.

Anyone would think I’m the outsider in this house.

As she stepped away from the suffocating constraints, loneliness began to fill the barren wasteland of her heart.

Even the beautiful landscaping beneath the dark sky appeared as nothing more than ink spilled across a black canvas.

Instead of heading to the parking lot, Seo-ha crossed the garden and slipped out through the main gate. Ki Tae-beom wouldn’t be in the parking lot anyway.

Some time had passed since she’d gotten out of the car, and she figured he would have left early since their business was concluded.

Though she’d told Park Hee-jung she would be with Ki Tae-beom, they weren’t actually close enough for her to ask him to stay. Looking at the facts objectively, theirs was an incredibly strange relationship.

They hadn’t contacted each other or met for a long while, only to reunite today and share an intimate encounter.

And going further back, he was the man who had been involved with her father’s woman. Perhaps, probably, even now…

An abnormal family.

With no family to rely on.

A romantic relationship was out of the question, and she didn’t even have a single friend.

She had vaguely wanted to escape and managed to leave the house, but she had nowhere to go.

Seo-ha looked around at the desolate alley and surroundings that felt nothing like home.

The world beyond home seemed overwhelmingly vast. Yet within it all, there was nowhere for Seo-ha to go.

She felt like she could understand how a drowning person felt, sinking into the pitch-black sea.

***

In South Korea, when people heard the word “Empire,” most thought of Bihwa-do, an island famous for tourism.

Hotel Empire on Bihwa-do was known for its foreigner-only casino. However, it was an open secret that there was also a hidden business casino for Korean nationals of high social standing.

Unfortunately, the Empire Hotel in Seoul had no such pleasure facilities like a casino.

However, even without a casino, the building’s interior, room designs, and service were more than sufficient to satisfy the most demanding VVIPs.

Peter Park, as he was commonly known, always stayed at Empire whenever he visited Korea on business. Recently, he had been practically living there due to various complications with his work.

With hair so white it looked dyed, he was a man whose age was difficult to determine – somewhere between middle-aged and elderly. Though this Korean-American occasionally spoke with awkward pronunciation, he carried himself with an authority that made it difficult to dismiss him.

“You know, Mr. Ki,”

With refined formality, he rose from his wingchair, tapping his cane against the carpet. Though Peter Park usually walked with this long cane, everyone knew he wasn’t actually physically impaired.

“I really… care about you very much, Mr. Ki. We’ve been close for quite a long time, haven’t we?”

Organization members would sometimes joke among themselves.

They said Peter Park carried the cane because it came in handy at important moments.

Those “important moments” usually involved disciplining useless organization members.

Like right now.

“I can’t believe you’ve become so useless.”

The long cane rose almost to the ceiling before coming down with a whoosh through the air.

THWACK!

With a heavy sound, the cane mercilessly struck Tae-beom, who was bow down on the floor.

The violent sounds continued for quite some time. Though the person being beaten was so tough he didn’t even let out a groan of pain, Jun-hyung, who was watching, couldn’t bear to look and lowered his head.

While everyone involved in the infiltration deserved blame for failing to discover anything so far, Tae-beom was taking Peter Park’s anger alone on their behalf.

“Mr. Ki, right now my mood is really…”

The wooden cane that had been busy leaving bruises on someone’s body rolled weakly across the floor as he threw it aside. Peter Park crouched down and grabbed Tae-beom’s short hair roughly.

Though Tae-beom could have broken free if it came down to pure strength, he didn’t dare resist and submissively yielded to the other’s force. Even with his neck bent sharply backward, Tae-beom kept his eyes lowered, acting like an obedient dog.

“It feels like shit!”

Peter Park, who usually spoke Korean well despite his slight foreign accent, rarely expressed his feelings in English. It meant he was extremely agitated and felt exactly that disgusted.

True to his words, he must be feeling shitty.

“I want that pastor’s chef!”

He shouted again in English into Tae-beom’s left ear, as if asking whether he understood what he meant.

Peter Park had established the framework for the drug business in Korea before Pastor Moon Seok-ho appeared. In a country where even marijuana was illegal, he naturally couldn’t register as a business, but he had no reason to complain since he didn’t have to pay taxes while raking in money.

Moreover, his target wasn’t Korea with its strict anti-drug policies. Once he accumulated enough money in this small country, he planned to properly expand his drug business in a larger nation.

Those plans had gone awry.

Because of some pseudo-religious leader who appeared one day.

Pastor Moon Seok-ho was as bad as they came.

He posed as a pioneering church pastor, protected by religious freedom and thus difficult to touch. In this small country with an abundance of pseudo-religions, cults that spread their crazy doctrines weren’t given much attention unless they caused major incidents.

Moon Seok-ho exploited this fact.

Who could have imagined?

Usually, when people think of pseudo-religions, they think of false messiahs, exploitation, sex crimes, and forced high-value donations. While Pastor Moon certainly did all of these things, no one could have imagined he would operate a massive drug organization using brainwashed believers.

Initially, people predicted the operation would be caught within a few years due to its large scale, but Pastor Moon had cultivated relationships with politicians and other key figures through bribes.

Before long, Pastor Moon Seok-ho had established a firm position in the underworld.

But it wasn’t just the man’s business acumen that put him where he was today.

“I want that! That drug! The person who made it!”

The product was superior.

It had started with exact copies of existing drugs, but the new drugs produced by Pastor Moon’s organization were highly addictive. High addictiveness meant that once someone got a taste, they would become frequent, heavy-buying regulars.

Additionally, as if they were actually launching food products or goods, they differentiated between VIP-exclusive drugs and regular customer drugs, with the VIP drugs further divided into hard and soft versions.

Tae-beom thought this practice was ridiculous, but numbers don’t lie. Just look at the money Pastor Moon was making.

And Peter Park had been nursing a rivalry with Moon Seok-ho for years.

He had hired various chefs claiming he would release better drugs than Pastor Moon, and belatedly tried to build relationships with Korean politicians. But no matter what drugs they created, they couldn’t match the quality of those produced by Pastor Moon’s organization, and those who had already established relationships with Pastor Moon had no reason to be particularly friendly to Peter Park, a foreign national.

Finally, Peter Park turned his attention to poaching the chef behind ‘Janus’, a drug that allegedly had numerous high-ranking police officials addicted.

But the organization members who had been infiltrating Pastor Moon’s operation for months had embarrassingly discovered nothing.

From Peter Park’s perspective, it was enough to make his blood boil.

“This won’t do, this won’t do! Mr. Ki needs to be taught a harder lesson. This all happened because discipline has become too lax…”

“Sir!”

While all organization members held their breath watching Tae-beom, who was taking all responsibility as the most trusted member, someone interrupted.

All eyes turned to Park Jun-hyung, who had fearlessly cut off Peter Park’s words.

Though Jun-hyung wasn’t unafraid of Peter Park, he felt that if this continued, one of Tae-beom’s bones would surely break. Besides, he had a legitimate reason to interrupt Peter Park.

“The phone… keeps ringing.”

“Phone?”

“Yes. It’s been ringing continuously for a while now.”

Peter Park knew that Tae-beom had been trying to gather information through women close to Moon Seok-ho. He couldn’t waste time venting his frustrations when time was of the essence.

Peter Park gestured toward the phone with his chin, looking displeased.

Tae-beom, who had been prostrated the whole time, tried to get up.

Or rather, attempted to.

But covered in bruises, Tae-beom couldn’t easily rise from his kneeling position on the floor and belatedly let out a deep breath. Jun-hyung approached Tae-beom after thoughtfully pressing the call button.

There was a moment of silence on the phone, which had been put on speaker so Peter Park could hear. The caller seemed unsure whether someone had answered since there was no response from Tae-beom’s end.

Finally, after some rustling sounds, an unexpected voice came through.

―Uncle Tae-beom…

It was the voice of a very young boy.