Chapter 6

“She’s unconscious, and she’s a patient who needs dialysis every time. Moving her to another hospital isn’t exactly easy…”

At Chief Jung’s words, Kang-jun let out a quiet laugh.

The curve of his lips was handsome, but there was something so cold and merciless about the expression that Chief Jung felt a chill run down his spine.

He hurriedly cut his sentence short.

As though he had never smiled at all, Kang-jun wiped the smile from his lips in an instant and muttered as if speaking to himself.

“Do I have to worry about even that?”

His voice was frighteningly low and subdued.

“I believe I may have spoken out of turn.”

“No, Chief Jung.”

“I like seeing this human side of you.”

Despite the content of his words, Kang-jun’s expression remained completely dry.

“You may leave now.”

After Chief Jung left, Kang-jun’s gaze shifted toward the client file lying on top of the display cabinet.

He pressed down on it for a moment before, as though having made a decision, picking up the file and heading toward the safe inside the study.

After unlocking the electronic security system, Kang-jun’s eyes searched through the open safe before settling on a particular spot.

More precisely, on a document envelope containing a report labeled:

Paternity Test Results.

[There is no parent-child relationship between Client A and Client B.]

After going over the contents of the report once more in his mind, Kang-jun’s face returned to its usual indifferent expression.

He placed the owner’s file on top of the document envelope and closed the safe.

Then he turned and left the study.

There was a subtle excitement lingering in his footsteps.

When Jae-hee reached the final landing of the staircase leading up to the rooftop, she had no choice but to draw in a short breath.

Someone she desperately did not want to see was waiting for her.

“Why the hell did you come back so late?”

“You little bitch.”

Three years—

No…

Had it been four years?

She had never imagined she would have to face this man again.

His hair had become whiter, his dark, weathered skin had sagged, and the wrinkles around his eyes had deepened slightly.

He looked somewhat different from before.

But the rough, phlegmy voice remained exactly the same.

“What are you standing there staring at? Open the damn door already.”

His vulgar, thoughtless manner of speaking was the same, too.

“You’re just like that mother of yours. Slow as hell.”

His contempt and disdain toward her mother were unchanged.

“What kind of house is built on top of a mountain? I nearly froze to death coming up here.”

Khrrrk.

The man dragged up phlegm from the back of his throat and casually spat it onto the rooftop floor.

This man was—

Han Pil-du.

Jae-hee’s father.

Han Pil-du’s entire life could be summed up in two words.

Gambling.

Violence.

He had never held a proper job for most of his life and had survived by leeching off Jae-hee’s mother, Jung Hye-yeon.

Except for his early childhood, Pil-du had spent nearly half his life in prison.

He spent most of the other half drifting from one gambling den to another.

Beginning with assaulting a classmate at the age of seventeen, he committed a wide range of crimes without the slightest sense of guilt, including theft, fraud, aggravated robbery, and rape.

He was not a man who ever regretted or reflected upon the path he had taken.

Hye-yeon, on the other hand, had grown up in the same orphanage as Pil-du, but after becoming independent, she had taken an entirely different path.

Even amid severe financial hardship, Hye-yeon refused to abandon her dreams.

After graduating from university, she even managed to land a job at a major corporation that everyone knew.

Pil-du’s twisted obsession, fueled by his deep-seated inferiority complex, eventually turned into something horrific.

One rainy night, Pil-du used violence to completely violate and destroy Hye-yeon.

As a result of that crime, Hye-yeon became pregnant against her will.

And the baby born from that pregnancy was Jae-hee.

A child Hye-yeon could not bring herself to erase because she could not bring herself to take an innocent life.

A child whose very existence had begun as a tragedy was raised on her mother’s pain and misfortune.

Hye-yeon genuinely loved Jae-hee.

Although life as a single mother was anything but easy, she did everything she could to keep from abandoning her child.

But the hardships faced by mother and daughter did not end there.

Pil-du, who had begged Hye-yeon to accept him because he claimed he would work hard and live properly as the family’s father and breadwinner, began gambling.

Unbearable debt and the disapproving eyes of those around them.

And on top of that came Pil-du’s merciless violence.

Whenever he lost control, Pil-du would lash out with his fists without caring whether his victim was a woman or a child.

His violence became especially severe whenever there was no money left to squeeze out of them.

When Jae-hee was young, Hye-yeon had desperately thrown herself between them to protect her.

But even that ended ten years ago, when Hye-yeon became permanently unconscious.

From then on, all of Pil-du’s violence fell upon Jae-hee.

Until only ten years ago, Jae-hee could not understand why her mother couldn’t escape from her father.

She had even resented her mother for being so weak, for meeting someone like her father and spending her entire life suffering.

Later, she came to understand.

It hadn’t been a matter of willpower.

Being from the same orphanage as her father had been the noose that had trapped her mother from the very beginning.

The more Hye-yeon struggled to escape, the more relentlessly that restraint tightened around her neck.

Jae-hee opened her trembling lips and asked,

“How did you…?”

After Pil-du had been arrested and sentenced to five years and six months in prison for fraud and extortion, the very first thing Jae-hee had done was erase every trace of herself and her mother.

She had decided there was no other way to escape the cycle of violence and exploitation passed down through generations.

She even gave up her studies and moved.

She deliberately chose homes where she wouldn’t have to register her address.

And to prevent anyone from tracking down her mother, she repeatedly transferred her to hospitals in places where they had no connections whatsoever.

She thought she had carefully and meticulously erased every trace of herself and her mother.

So how on earth had he discovered where she lived?

“You can run all you want, but you’re still in the palm of my hand.”

Jae-hee tightly gripped the handle of the hard case bag, fighting against the chill running down her spine.

Inside the bag were the two watches that Director Do Kang-jun had not selected.

They were extremely expensive items, so she couldn’t leave them in the car. She had brought them home to keep them safe until she could return them.

“What are you standing there for? If your father comes to see you, you should open the door right away.”

Jae-hee had been shaken for a moment, but she soon calmed herself and glared at Pil-du.

“Who says you’re my father?”

“What?”

“I don’t have a father like you. So go away.”

“Th-that ungrateful little bitch. Listen to the way she talks.”

Pil-du glared at Jae-hee and took a step toward her.

“Looks like you’ve been living comfortably these past few years without getting a beating, and now you’ve gotten yourself a big head. Want me to shove that attitude right back where it belongs? Huh?”

When Pil-du shouted, the body that had been conditioned by years of abuse reacted before her mind could.

Her entire body trembled violently like a leaf in the wind.

Her slender shoulders curled inward, and she instinctively shrank back.

Jae-hee was terrified.

But she didn’t want to show even the slightest sign of trembling in front of this man.

She forced every muscle in her body to tense.

She even bit her lips and swallowed her tears back down her throat.

Even if it was nothing more than reckless stubbornness.

Jae-hee slowly backed away, as though trying to create an escape route, and shouted,

“Just try touching me. I won’t let you get away with—”

Before she could finish, Pil-du came striding toward her.

He had raised his enormous hand high above his head.

His large palm stretched menacingly through the air, while his face was twisted into a vicious expression.

It was terrifying.

Jae-hee immediately turned around and stepped toward the stairs.

She had to run.

If he caught her like this—

Then…

“Ah!”

But before she could take more than a few steps, Pil-du’s rough hand stopped her.

He had grabbed her by the hair.

Her body was dragged backward and forcibly turned around.

Then a slap landed across her face.

Smack!

Jae-hee was sent sprawling into a corner of the rooftop.

For an instant, it felt as though a flash of light had exploded before her eyes and disappeared.

She couldn’t feel anything above her neck, as though her entire head had been ripped off and then reattached like a Lego brick.

As a result, she dropped the hard case she had been holding.

The bag landed some distance away, colliding with the rooftop floor coated in green waterproof paint.

The impact caused the two watches, still inside their leather cases, to fly out.

The metallic taste of blood instantly filled Jae-hee’s mouth, but she had no time to care.

Because she saw something change in Pil-du’s eyes as he stood there, shoulders heaving, unable to contain his rage.

During his younger years, Pil-du had briefly worked at a host bar, and he had become quite knowledgeable about luxury goods.

He could estimate the value of something just by looking at its case.

Following Pil-du’s greed-filled red gaze, Jae-hee turned her eyes.

At the end of his line of sight was a leather watch case.

Jae-hee’s pupils widened.

Inside that case was something she could never allow him to take.

Even if she had to be beaten to death right here, she could not let him have it.

“No!”

She desperately forced out the two syllables and crawled toward the leather case, reaching out with her hand.

“Ah!”

But Pil-du grabbed her by the hair once again.

Her vision instantly went black, as though darkness had swallowed everything before her eyes.

Jae-hee fought back with everything she had, flailing her arms desperately against Pil-du.

But it was useless.

She didn’t know how much time had passed.

Jae-hee lay helplessly sprawled across the floor, looking no better than a discarded rag.

Pil-du finally let out a low, angry shout.

“I told you. Why the hell do you keep putting up pointless resistance? You’re just as stupid as your mother.”

A mocking sneer accompanied his words.

“If I gave you life, you should at least be useful enough to pay me back for feeding you.”

Pil-du easily picked up the two leather cases.

With his thick hands, he casually brushed away any dust that might have settled around them.

“I’m taking these as payment for raising you all these years. So you know.”

With those final words, Pil-du turned and walked down the stairs.

The sound of his whistling gradually faded into the distance.

Jae-hee remained lying on the rooftop floor, staring up at the night sky.

Partly because her body, beaten nearly senseless, would no longer obey her.

And partly because the overwhelming helplessness covering her entire body had crushed her will.

She had worked so hard to get this far.

Yet here she was again.

Right back where she started.

No matter how desperately she struggled to escape, she could never get out.

It felt as though she were trapped inside a completely sealed maze with no exit.

She didn’t want to cry and wallow in self-pity.

But judging by the intensity of the sorrow washing over her, it felt as though her tears were about to burst free at any moment.

Jae-hee looked up at the moon, nearly full, and desperately tried to find another reason for her tears.

I’m crying because that moonlight is unbearably beautiful.

Because the moon is so bright that it hurts my eyes, and that’s why I can’t help crying right now.

So I’m not sad.

I won’t break down over something like this.

Tomorrow, I’ll get back up…

I’ll stand up again…

“Sniff. Sob…”

In the end, her tears burst forth.