Chapter 8

Chapter 8

It was eleven years ago.

She had woken up after three days. Her mother had clung to her, sobbing endlessly. Heejae herself had no idea why she was in a hospital or how she’d been beaten to such a pulp. She only learned what had happened when the detectives slipped through the cracked door.

Her father was dead.

“So you were being assaulted by your father, Kang Taehyun. Kim Sewon saw it, tried to stop him, and accidentally struck him over the head… But you don’t remember any of this. Is that right?”

Heejae had nodded silently. She remembered nothing of that day. She didn’t even remember Geumnakri. And she certainly didn’t remember Kim Sewon.

The doctor blamed the shock. But the sole witness losing her memory put Sewon in a terrible bind.

He was already a known troublemaker. Add a notorious mobster for a father, and his claim of an “accident” lost all credibility.

Driven into a corner, his mother stormed the hospital and caused a massive scene. Heejae’s mother barely managed to placate the woman and send her away. Then she handed Heejae a single sheet of paper.

They say a petition from you will help.

What does a nineteen-year-old kid know? He was only trying to help you.

She hadn’t written the petition because of her mother’s rambling pleas. She could never say it out loud, but ever since she heard her father was dead, she had been grateful to him.

It felt like he had done what she would have eventually done herself.

If not for him, she would have been the one to die that day. Her battered body, so broken she could barely hold a pen, was proof enough. So she took his side with everything she had.

She detailed every bruise on her body. She laid out the years of domestic abuse. She pleaded, desperately, that her father was a man capable of killing her at any moment.

Maybe the petition worked. Maybe the Geumseong family pulled strings. Either way, Kim Sewon’s charge was ultimately reduced to manslaughter.

But the gossip haunted him for a long time after. People twisted his intentions. They mocked his background and his family.

Heejae hadn’t stuck around to shield him from that. She left Geumnakri. She treated that single petition as the end of her obligations and never looked back. She fled with nothing but the duffel bag her mother had brought to the hospital the night before.

She had lived eleven years pretending none of it happened. And yet, on her very first day back, she had run straight into him…

When she realized the man at the village hall was Kim Sewon, she had been genuinely shocked.

Partly because of the sheer coincidence, but mostly because of his reaction.

She always figured he’d grab her by the collar if they ever crossed paths again. She fully expected him to curse her out as an ungrateful bitch.

But while he was clearly displeased to see her, he never brought up the past.

It would have been ridiculous for her to acknowledge it first, so she kept her mouth shut too. Still, it left a bitter taste in her mouth.

Now she realized Kim Sewon wasn’t the only reason for that lingering unease.

Heejae picked up the cold cup of coffee she had pushed aside.

“I don’t think you’re that sloppy, Ha Hyunsu. If you wanted to hide this from Kim Sewon, you could have.”

“…”

“So why didn’t you?”

She was already certain he had orchestrated this entire setup. She took a sip of the bland coffee, swallowed, and set the cup back down with a slight grimace.

“Did you want me to run into him? Did you think it would guarantee I’d accept your offer?”

It wasn’t a stretch. Everything was far too perfectly timed to be a coincidence.

Hyunsu’s silence only confirmed it.

“You must have thought I resented Kim Sewon for killing my father. Well, that’s a problem.”

Heejae let go of the teacup and leaned back in her chair.

“Unfortunately for you, I have no hard feelings toward him. And I certainly have no interest in revenge.”

Hyunsu lowered his teacup and stared at her.

“You’re a lawyer. You know the details of that incident don’t add up to a simple rescue.”

“How so?”

“What?”

Hyunsu had cleanly abandoned his excuses in favor of persuasion, but now he looked genuinely thrown.

Heejae knew exactly why.

Her father, Kang Taehyun, had collapsed after the first blow to the head. Kim Sewon had then struck him four more times. That was why the court had questioned his “intentions.”

Hyunsu clearly thought she had only written that petition because she was young, terrified, and amnesiac. He assumed she would see things differently now.

That as a lawyer, she couldn’t possibly look at the facts and not suspect Kim Sewon of murder.

Heejae read him like a book. A faint smile touched her lips.

“Kim Sewon was only nineteen. He had already been assaulted by Kang Taehyun. Extreme psychological distress makes rational thought impossible. Especially for a minor.”

“And that justifies striking an unconscious man four more times?”

Hyunsu stared at her, completely baffled by her defense of Sewon.

“How can you say that? He was still your father…”

He was still your father. The words gouged at an old, deeply buried wound.

“He’s still your dad. He’s fine when he’s not drinking. I won’t let you grow up without a father.”

Her mother used to say that all the time.

Simply because he was her daughter’s father, she had defended and forgiven him to a sickening degree. Even with a split lip. Even with hands around her throat. Even with a knife pointed at her face. Even after the violence turned on her daughter…

“I don’t need a dad like that. Just divorce him. If you can’t, let’s just run away.”

She had screamed, begged, pleaded, and sobbed. But her mother’s answer was always the same.

“Because he’s your father!”

Heejae swallowed the bile rising in her throat.

“…The only reason I don’t consider Kim Sewon my savior is because the man he killed was my father.”

Hyunsu was struck dumb. Her eyes had gone red, blazing with a fierce, raw intensity. The sheer force of it made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

Realizing he had pushed too far, Hyunsu smoothly pivoted back to business.

“So you’re rejecting my offer?”

“No. I’m just saying I have no intention of fighting Kim Sewon.”

Heejae pulled a manila envelope from her bag and slid it across the table.

It bore no logo—not Gangjin Group’s, not MK Law Firm’s. It was the retainer agreement Hyunsu had given her.

Hyunsu pulled out the paperwork. Heejae’s signature was scrawled at the bottom. She was taking the job.

“My role is to provide legal counsel for the union president’s dismissal and to represent the union members. Don’t forget that.”

She was drawing a hard line. She would do exactly what she was hired to do, nothing more. She didn’t want Hyunsu getting any ideas that a signed contract made them comrades in arms.

Hyunsu ran a thumb over the corner of the contract in silence. Then he looked up.

“I apologize for the run-in with Kim Sewon. I hadn’t gotten a firm answer from you yet, and I acted rashly. I’m sorry.”

Heejae blinked, surprised by the easy apology. Hyunsu waved the contract with a smile.

“But thank you for taking the case anyway.”

“…”

“I look forward to working with you, Lawyer Kang Heejae.”

Was he really this simple, or just playing dumb? He was impossible to read.

Heejae stared at his perfectly harmless smile. She gave a polite, standard reply, gathering her scattered papers.

“Are you leaking the bribery story before the general assembly?”

“I think so. It’ll help muddy the waters.”

“We don’t strictly need a reason for dismissal, but it does make things smoother. Let me know when you have a timeline.”

Heejae tapped the stack of papers against the table to straighten them, slipped them into her bag, and stood.

“I’ll be going now.”

They were old classmates before they were client and counsel, yet she hadn’t asked how he was doing even once. Hyunsu let out a soft chuckle as she gave a crisp bow and stepped away from the table. As she passed him, he reached out and caught her wrist.

“Ah, wait.”

He stood, pressing a paper bag containing a bottle of wine into her hand.

“I brought this all the way from France. Take it. If it’s too much, just consider it an apology gift.”

He let go of her wrist casually, as if the touch meant nothing. Heejae looked at his retreating hand, then up at his face. They had a contract now. She wasn’t going to read too much into a single bottle of wine.

“Thank you. I’ll enjoy it.”

–

The torrential rain had started in the night and poured straight through to dawn.

Sewon stepped out of his car, having parked flush against the old building’s entrance to avoid the hassle of an umbrella.

He climbed the narrow stairs, barely wide enough for a single person. His face was stone-cold.

Kang Heejae. Ha Hyunsu. Stumbling across the two of them had completely wrecked his focus.

It was why he hadn’t been able to concentrate on the business drinks that had dragged on until now. Was it the window contractors? The painters? The endless toasts, the desperate lobbying, the women pawing at him to keep the mood up—it all just grated on his nerves.

He had been on his way to Kang Heejae’s motel after a quick site inspection during the hottest part of the day.

He’d wanted to give her one last chance before resorting to the “unreasonable methods” she was so worried about. He was going to promise her the one thing she wanted most: her job back at the law firm.

But then he’d looked through the window of a corner cafe. He’d seen Heejae and Hyunsu sitting together, deep in conversation.

He couldn’t hear what they were saying, but Ha Hyunsu had been smiling.

And that paper he was waving around… was it a contract?

Had Kang Heejae really decided to take his hand?

“…”

The image of Ha Hyunsu grabbing her wrist flashed through Sewon’s mind. His heavy footsteps halted on the stairs.