Chapter 46.1

Chapter 46.1

“Hyun-ah.”

In his quiet, sharp gaze, a long-standing affection mixed chaotically with a primordial wariness toward the young, strong man who threatened his throne.

“I’ve always wanted you. Ever since I saw you back when you were nothing but a wet-behind-the-ears kid. I even broke trust with my most valued clients to save you. Why do you think I did that? Because I knew you were destined for something big.”

“If it weren’t for you, Chairman, I would’ve died then. I remain grateful.”

On Gukhyun’s face, which was cruelly indifferent, no emotion appeared. His calm voice was neither overly polite nor rude; there was no trace of resentment. It was simply the dry relay of a fact.

Jungman stared at him as if trying to find even the smallest scrap of feeling in those dark gray eyes. Then, in a candid tone, he said,

“Sometimes I regret taking a shine to you. From the moment I brought you in, I kept thinking I wish you were my real son.”

Seeing his own spineless son, who couldn’t keep up a step, made him furious to the point of bursting. Jungman swallowed the rest of the thought.

“You are like a father to me.”

“Yes. I’m like a father. You’re like a son to me,” he sighed. “But sadly, not my real son.”

Jungman planted his cane and rose from the chair. As he heaved the old, bent body upright with a grunt. Seokchan, standing like a guard behind him, immediately stepped forward to support him. Jungman lightly brushed his hand away and straightened his back.

“I think it began then. When you tracked down those parents who tried to kill you in the old days and, bit by bit, swallowed the company they’d raised into a monster.”

After joining the organization, Gukhyun steadily built his power and began placing men under him. His first act of independence had been to consume the very parents who’d abandoned him.

“That was a substantial company, wasn’t it? They held a solid grip on the national defense industry. Everyone who knew the field knew that firm, and it took you exactly one year to devour it.”

To meet the man who towered above the rest, Jungman straightened his spine further.

“You are a vicious, scheming bastard who hides an ancient, rotten thirst for revenge behind that blank face.”

Sixteen. Gukhyun had been sixteen when his parents decided to abandon their unwanted son.

Between a careless father and a greedy stepmother, the child of the first wife grew up completely neglected.

When the stepmother finally gave birth to her own son, the father, unable to endure his wife’s nagging, sent Gukhyun off to an orphanage, disguising it as a runaway case.

He probably hadn’t planned to kill the boy at first. Not until the child started causing trouble at the orphanage.

The parents, who had paid a hefty sum to clean up the paperwork and erase the child’s record, wanted no involvement from the police. In fact, they were terrified.

What if the boy’s identity was revealed to the public? What if it came out that they had abandoned their own child? The reputation and honor they had built over the years would be dragged through the mud. Cornered by fear, they came to Jungman carrying a golf bag stuffed with cash.

“If he can eat his own parents alive, then he’ll hesitate for nothing.”

Jungman looked at Gukhyun, now grown beyond recognition, with a flicker of regret. The sixteen-year-old he’d once met had been a starving stray dog, feral, vicious, driven only by hunger and the will to survive.

Gukhyun did whatever Jungman asked of him. He absorbed everything he was taught and grew like a machine.

From a small gambling den and loan shark racket in Noryangjin, Jungman’s company grew into a powerful holding firm with its headquarters towering over central Jongno. And throughout that rise, Gukhyun had been his loyal hound, silently taking care of every filthy, bloody, inconvenient job.

Even when he was injured or bleeding, he’d be back the next day, chasing the scent of blood again. And while Jungman used him like a convenient hunting dog, somewhere along the way, the frail, unimpressive boy had become a dangerous man, one powerful enough to threaten even the chairman’s seat.

“So tell me, what do you think I feel about that? Do you really think I don’t resent you at all?”

At those words, Gukhyun’s lips curved faintly. His dry smile looked weary, almost lonely.

“I think you’re afraid of me, Chairman.”

“It’s that I can’t trust you. As long as there’s even a seed of doubt between us, you’ll never truly be my son. But still, I want you, desperately.”

The hand gripping the cane tightened. Veins rose sharply over the wrinkled skin.