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With a cigarette between his lips, Ja-kyung looked at his chest reflected in the mirror and lost for words. Two days had passed, yet red marks remained vivid here and there. It seemed the size of his nipples had slightly changed from how much they'd been bitten and sucked. Perhaps because he didn't receive much maternal love as a child, Kang Il-hyun showed an enormous fixation on nipples. When he touched them, a stinging pain shot through, and curses spilled out first.
"Damn it, I never thought I'd be with a man...."
Was that all? Even if he was reluctant at first, later he was gasping along with him, even moving his hips. Didn't he wrap his legs around Kang Il-hyun's body? He should feel lighter after confirming the whereabouts of the item, but recalling that incident made it impossible.
Since that day, Kang Il-hyun seemed busy, not showing his face for two days. He was rather relieved. He had sent a photo to Wang Lun asking him to get the same USB, so once that was resolved, he could at least breathe easier. Until then, he hoped there would be no more physical entanglements.
Coming out of the bedroom, the house felt humid and stifling. The air conditioners had all stopped working. A vehicle that came for the swimming pool construction had hit a utility pole nearby, cutting off the power. He went down to the first floor and walked toward the living room window. Outside, workers were moving busily.
Nowhere on the glass window could he find any trace of a bullet entry. The fired bullet was a .338 Lapua Magnum, a sniper round. It had low wind drift and high velocity, making it popular among snipers. That morning, there was no wind and not a single cloud—the weather was perfectly clear for aiming at a target. But the bullet flew toward Ja-kyung's right shoulder, not his left chest.
He didn't think it was a mistake. Perhaps the plan was to injure Jang Ian. Jang Ian was the only grandson of Jang Myung, the godfather of a Hong Kong organization with close ties to Haeun Group. And if Jang Ian were injured, the most troubled person would be Kang Il-hyun, who was currently protecting him.
Who gave the order? He recalled the faces of the main family members he'd seen at the main house one by one.
"Ian!"
While he was lost in thought, a familiar voice called from behind. Turning around, he saw Kang Seok-ju approaching while waving. He'd received a call this morning saying he couldn't go out for a while, so he came to the house directly.
"Is this the place? No bullet marks, I see?"
Seok-ju approached and grinned while looking at the glass window. He could roughly guess why he came.
"You look really happy."
"Happy? More like disappointed."
He looked behind him, confirmed no one was there, and lowered his voice.
"Managing Director Kang should have been the one hit."
Ja-kyung laughed. Seeing him say such things so casually, he must feel comfortable around him. He was much more energetic than when he'd seen him at the main house. Well, surviving among hyena-like siblings couldn't be easy.
Ja-kyung asked a staff member for tea, then moved upstairs with Seok-ju. Along the way, he subtly asked about Choi Gi-tae's wellbeing.
"Gi-tae? That bastard is probably going crazy right now."
"Why?"
Kang Seok-ju leaned back on the second-floor sofa and arrogantly crossed his legs.
"His father sells drugs. You know drugs? The ones we had last time."
"Yeah."
"Well, someone apparently took the workers. Or whatever, the kids working there."
"The workers? Who took them?"
"Don't know. They were minors, and someone apparently dropped them off at the police station and fled. Then the police contacted them to come pick up the kids."
Listening, Ja-kyung's face hardened. His clenched jaw tightened, and his eyes were ready to spark with anger.
"Minors... you said? They weren't taken to a shelter?"
"How naive. They're kids with nowhere to go anyway. His father has lots of connections upstairs, so they brought them right back. That's why you need power. With money and strength, even the police can't do anything."
Kang Seok-ju smiled arrogantly and proudly as if he were at the top of power himself. Ja-kyung felt hollow and lost for words. The eyes of the children who had looked at him vividly surfaced in his mind.
"Then what happened to them? Are they... working again?"
"How can they trust and use kids who ran away once? They're disposed of."
"Disposed of?"
"You don't need to know."
Kang Seok-ju didn't elaborate and laughed it off. But Ja-kyung knew. There was a story he heard as a child. Useless children had their organs harvested or were used as sexual tools for adults. If not that, they were dismembered and fed to dogs—or so the man who came looking for his mother had said.
At first, Ja-kyung thought it was a joke, but when he discovered the hand of a peer he worked with tumbling inside a dog kennel, he realized it was real. For quite a long time, he suffered from nightmares, fearing he might become dog food himself.
Ja-kyung's eyes grew cold as he rummaged through old memories. Should he have sent them somewhere other than the police in the first place? Or should he have pretended not to know from the start? Why did he push already miserable children into a death trap?
Fuck. He stood up from his seat.
"What? Where are you going?"
"Sorry. I have a severe headache, so I think I need to rest today."
Kang Seok-ju stood up, annoyed.
"What the hell. Then what am I supposed to do?"
"I can't go out for a while anyway. You know that. I'm really sorry."
He smiled at him and quickly slipped into the bedroom. Left alone, Seok-ju pouted and cursed to himself. As if he was some important guest. Calling someone over only to lie down saying he's sick—it was annoying. He kicked the table leg with his foot, then closed the door and left.
In the bedroom, Ja-kyung paced back and forth while smoking an electronic cigarette. Then, overcome with anger, he roughly rubbed his face. He opened the safe, took out a piece of paper, and unfolded it. It showed the locations where CCTV cameras were installed in the house. After confirming and memorizing the exact positions with his eyes, he stored the paper in the safe under the bed.
Then he gathered various items from the safe—a small flashlight, an iron rod, and other things—and hid them inside his clothes. Ja-kyung went downstairs and looked for the head housekeeper. She was in the kitchen preparing dinner with the staff.
"Ian. Is something wrong?"
"It's too noisy outside. When will the pool construction be done?"
"We're doing the final cleanup right now. The electricity should come back soon too."
"I guess there's no emergency power here...."
"No. This is the first time something like this has happened since the house was built... I was flustered too."
"I see... Actually, I'm feeling a bit under the weather, so I don't think I can manage dinner. I'm going to take some medicine and sleep."
"Oh dear. Should I make some soup?"
"No need. Rest is best when I'm sick. If Managing Director Kang looks for me, please let him know."
He added that once he fell asleep, he wouldn't know even if someone carried him away. That was a message not to look for him even if Kang Il-hyun came. She seemed to understand, smiling as she answered.
"If you need anything, contact downstairs anytime."
"Yes, thank you."
After saying goodbye, he went upstairs. Entering the bedroom, he lowered all the blinds and locked the door. He piled pillows under the blanket to make it look like someone was lying there, then headed to the bathroom. When he closed the door, the windowless bathroom became as dark as night.
He turned on his flashlight, climbed onto the bathtub railing, and removed the ventilation fan. Shining the light inside, the passage was narrow indeed. The thought crossed his mind that if he got stuck in there before making it outside, it would be quite a sight. He threw the flashlight inside and used his arm strength to pull himself up.
Crawling forward, he dragged his lower body up. The thick dust made his nose itch, and he felt like sneezing. Holding his breath as much as possible, he clamped the flashlight between his teeth and moved forward little by little. Trapped in a narrow ventilation hole on a hot day, squirming like a larva, sweat poured down like rain.
Fortunately, the passage curving to the right was much wider. Breathing a sigh of relief, he crumpled his body and moved forward. Sweat ran into his eyes, stinging them. After crawling for a while, light poured in from ahead. The large ventilation fan had stopped. He used his strength to tear off the fan and stuck his face out.
He let out the breath he'd been holding and filled his lungs with fresh air. Below the ventilation fan, he could see cameras on both sides—unrelated to the power outage, they were still operating. Damn it. He should have known. He took out a hand-length iron rod from his waist and pressed a button.
The rod gradually extended. He reached out and used the end of the rod to nudge the CCTV camera, changing its direction. He handled the opposite side the same way. Then he pushed his body out as much as possible, hung from the railing, jumped down, and rolled.
Staying close to the building's outer wall and keeping his body low, he surveyed for a place to go outside. This area had fewer cameras, but around the corner, his figure would be captured no matter what. Moreover, that area was completely covered with rose vines.
Ja-kyung looked at the wall in front of him and took a long, deep breath. It was high, but he thought he could climb it. He ran and jumped, grabbed the top of the wall with his hands, and used his feet to push against the wall and climb up. Perhaps his body remembered, even though he hadn't exercised in days.
He could feel his movements were slower than before. He climbed up and jumped down to the opposite side. With a soft sound, he looked around, but it was quiet. Only people busy working on the utility pole far in the distance were visible. Ja-kyung stayed close to the wall, moved a few steps, then rolled under the van the pool construction workers had come in.
Shortly after, the gate opened and people came out one by one. He could hear the staff's voices too. Chatter about the construction period, the electricity—such talk. Car doors opened and closed, the engine started. The vehicle moved, and Ja-kyung, who had crawled underneath, vanished along with it.