Outskirts of Zurich.
Beneath a winery.
Rodrigo was leaning back on a sofa,
and Pablo sat across from him.
A brief silence flowed between them.
“Mauritius?”
Rodrigo asked in a low voice.
Pablo nodded without hesitation.
“I’m certain. Adrian is there.”
“Your basis?”
Pablo set a tablet down on the table.
The restored communication log was displayed on the screen.
“After the Mauritius negotiations, it was made to look as if he left for Europe, but in truth, he never moved. Luxembourg is noise. Nothing more than bait to draw attention.”
Rodrigo looked down at the screen without a word.
“It’s a method Adrian would be more than capable of using. The twenty years I spent with him tells me that much with certainty.”
Pablo added those words, but Rodrigo’s expression did not change at all.
He simply stared at the restored communication log.
“Any possibility the message was corrupted?”
“None. I only barely managed to find the data Adrian had routed around.”
Rodrigo took a light pull from his cigar.
Then, as if he had already decided, he said,
“We’re not going to Mauritius.”
“What? What did you say?”
Pablo was utterly taken by surprise.
“I said we’re not going to Mauritius.”
Rodrigo spoke again, firmly.
“I’d like to know the reason.”
“You’re asking because you don’t know? Have you no interest in the organization?”
When Pablo asked for the reason, Rodrigo answered with a rebuke.
“It’s precisely because I have great interest in the organization that I don’t understand. If we find Adrian, we can resolve everything. I don’t know why you’re against it.”
Pablo did not back down either.
Rodrigo looked at Pablo as though he were being childish.
“Pablo. Do you know how many things we’re working on right now?”
“...”
“We need to gather the South American forces, take care of our people internally, and keep Alex’s side tied to us. And you want to go all the way to Mauritius to find Adrian, who may or may not even be there? Waste manpower, time, and resources on that? I don’t want to do that. We should focus on what we can do right now. Going all the way to Mauritius is far too inefficient.”
“It is not inefficient!”
Pablo shouted.
“What?”
“It’s not inefficient. On the contrary, it’s the core of everything.”
Rodrigo was surprised by how utterly confident Pablo looked.
“If we secure Adrian, the board flips. If he’s alive, Mateo is finished, and even if he’s dead, we can use his death. This is not an option. It’s something we obviously must do.”
“...”
Rodrigo thought for a moment.
If Adrian returned now, they could overturn the situation in one stroke.
But it was not certain.
Pablo said he was certain, but Rodrigo could not trust it.
Even if it were certain, there was no telling how long it would take.
An Adrian who arrived after everything was already over would only become a burden.
After pondering, Rodrigo asked,
“How long would it take to find Adrian and bring him back?”
“... Hmm.”
Pablo could not answer readily.
Mauritius was not a large country, but if someone had deliberately gone into hiding there, finding him would not be easy.
And if the countless surrounding islands were included as well, the story changed entirely.
He could not confidently guarantee any deadline.
“Five days from now. If you can put Adrian in front of me within the next five days, then go. If not, don’t.”
“Five days... Five days is too short. If you subtract the time needed to get there and back, we only have three days to search.”
Pablo’s eyes trembled faintly.
“Then how much time were you thinking? A month? Two months? Or until you find Adrian? I just told you, didn’t I? The organization is in an emergency. If we focus here right now, we can take Parallax, but if we mishandle this, we may end up sitting empty-handed. Do you understand?”
“Even so... Five days won’t do. I need at least a month.”
“A month? In a month, the situation will be over. By then, Adrian coming back won’t matter.”
“I’ll bring him back before that.”
“No. Just don’t go. A month? No, even five days is a waste. Just go to South America and help gather our forces. Gather them well and bring them here. So we can set everything off at once.”
“No. We need Adrian.”
Pablo spoke forcefully,
but Rodrigo’s expression did not change.
After confirming that, Pablo carefully operated the tablet.
“I was going to tell you this separately later... but there’s a problem inside the organization.”
Pablo held out the tablet.
On it was a single line from the restored communication packets, one Pablo had deliberately kept hidden.
[Internal contact on hold. Block until verification.]
After seeing it, Rodrigo’s expression turned grave.
“... What is this?”
“It’s a restored communication packet. It’s the reason Adrian didn’t contact Parallax, why he only moved externally, and why he hid his traces so thoroughly.”
“You’re saying information is leaking?”
“That’s right. Adrian could not trust the inside.”
“So there’s a traitor.”
“That’s right. That’s why we need to find Adrian. We have to confirm who the traitor is.”
Rodrigo was silent for a long while.
“Then why are you only telling me this now?”
“I intended to tell you after bringing Adrian back.”
Rodrigo, looking as though his mind had grown complicated, took another deep pull from his cigar.
Rodrigo came to a conclusion.
“For now, keep the matter of the traitor secret. And I’m rejecting the Mauritius matter as well. Right now is the time to join forces. We must not scatter. Help me. Go to South America and gather our comrades. That takes priority.”
At Rodrigo’s earnest request, Pablo nodded.
“... Understood.”
The moment Pablo stepped out the door,
his expression changed completely.
Without stopping his stride,
his mind began to turn rapidly.
‘Why is he going so far to block it?’
If it were simply a matter of efficiency,
there would be no need to oppose it this strongly.
He was blocking even the very approach.
And on top of that,
the matter of the traitor.
He should have asked who was suspicious,
or whether there had been anything strange,
but instead, he said to keep it secret.
As though he already knew.
Could it be?
The puzzle began to come together in his mind.
Rodrigo, who had been Parallax’s number two.
If Adrian died, the person who would benefit the most was Rodrigo.
What if he had tried to eliminate Adrian under the pretext of Mauritius?
What if Adrian, in danger, had secretly handed the signet ring to Mateo,
and Rodrigo, unable to endure things not going as planned, had acted because of it?
What if that was why he was thinking of a coup?
Once he considered Rodrigo to be the traitor,
all the pieces seemed to fall into place.
From Rodrigo’s position, Adrian must not appear at this moment.
No wonder it had seemed strange that he was blocking it at all costs.
Then the place to go now was not South America, but Mauritius.
He had to go and find Adrian.
Pablo gave an order to his subordinate.
“We’re going to Mauritius.”
“What?”
“Don’t make me say it twice. We’re going to Mauritius.”
“... Yes.”
Pablo departed for Mauritius.
Now, it was no longer a journey to find Adrian,
but a road to confirm the traitor.
.
.
.
After Pablo left, Rodrigo did not move for a long while.
His mind was complicated.
When Pablo brought up the matter of the traitor,
Carlos instantly came to Rodrigo’s mind.
The day he had gone to meet Alex’s representative.
Carlos had definitely been at the scene.
But the representative had already left Zurich.
The hotel was intact, and the traces had been cleaned up far too neatly.
Carlos, who had commanded the scene, had known nothing about it.
It was too clean to call a coincidence.
It had been a precise failure.
At the time, he had let it pass.
The very word “betrayal” had not occurred to him,
and at that moment, it had not been a situation where he could assign blame.
But.
The moment the keyword of traitor appeared,
Carlos’s face came to mind again.
Could it be Carlos?
Suspicion brushed past him.
But as he spoke with Pablo, his thoughts changed.
The way Pablo brought up the matter of the traitor bothered him.
He could have said it from the beginning, but he had deliberately hidden it.
Only when the Mauritius matter was blocked did he bring it out.
It had been gentle, but unmistakable blackmail.
He was trying to go to Mauritius using the existence of a traitor as justification.
Pablo had said the message was not corrupted.
That he had restored it himself.
He alone found something no one else could?
He discovered something Adrian had routed through a satellite in order to hide it?
It made no sense.
Once he began to suspect, there was no end.
Rodrigo set down his cigar
and organized his thoughts.
The first hypothesis.
Pablo was truly pursuing Adrian’s whereabouts.
An obsession with finding the man he had spent twenty years with.
If so, the communication log was real,
and Mauritius was a real clue.
The second hypothesis.
Pablo was connected to Alex Group or Mateo’s side.
Whether it was Alex or Mateo did not matter.
Pablo had planted false information
and brought up the word “traitor” to throw Parallax into confusion.
The third hypothesis.
Pablo knew nothing.
He simply believed material someone else had planted was genuine and was acting on it.
He was merely being deceived.
He organized his thoughts, but they were still complicated.
Even so, he reached a conclusion.
Whichever of the three it was, Pablo could not be trusted.
He was either emotional, vile, or stupid.
So Pablo would be excluded for now.
In any case, he was insufficient as a partner to accompany Rodrigo in this game on which Parallax’s fate rested.
The decision had been made.
What he needed now was a response.
Whether to stop Pablo,
or to use him.
The answer was set.
There was no need to stop him.
He could use him.
Whether Pablo was genuine, fake, or deceived,
he was going to move anyway.
Then Rodrigo could simply make use of that movement itself.
He would just let Pablo move.
Whether he went to South America,
or to Mauritius,
he would simply let him be.
And all he had to do was watch.
Whether Pablo was sincere, stupid, or a traitor.
He would know immediately.
He would know who he had gotten into bed with.
If necessary, he could deal with him right there.
They were in a situation where even one man was precious,
but dragging a traitor along was even more foolish.
Incompetence and betrayal were fundamentally different.
Incompetence could be brought along,
but betrayal could not.
There was no emotion involved.
It was merely a choice made to maintain the board.
When his thoughts reached that point,
Carlos came to mind again.
‘Why does Carlos keep bothering me?’
It was strange.
It felt unpleasant to simply let it pass.
There was no definite proof,
but once a sense of incongruity had arisen, it did not easily subside.
‘I’ll verify Carlos as well. I’ll verify him and clear it before moving on.’
It was better to clear things up than proceed while feeling uneasy.
Now, no one was an exception.
If a traitor was mixed in, this game would end before it even began.
‘I’ll cut away everything that wavers.’
There was no hesitation.
He took out his phone to give instructions.
Then he stopped.
‘There’s no one?’
Eduardo had gone to South America,
Pablo would not listen,
and Carlos was suspicious.
Was there anyone left who could handle this sort of work?
To whom should he entrust such an important and sensitive matter?
He searched through the contacts on his phone again and again, but there was no suitable person.
There was no one who could give him “certainty.”
Once he began to suspect, everyone looked like a traitor.
In the past, it would have been something he entrusted without question, but now he became cautious.
A sentence came to mind.
[Internal contact on hold. Block until verification.]
Now, he could no longer simply ignore it.
What if the person Rodrigo gave orders to was the traitor?
It would be the same as handing every piece of information over to the traitor.
It could even return as a blade pointed at Rodrigo.
Like this, there was no chance of victory.
He could not verify, filter, and sort them out one by one.
There was no time.
Before that, Mateo would seize control of Parallax.
Then there was only one method.
Move the board itself forward.
He abandoned the greed of trying to swallow Alex Group and Parallax in one bite.
He would take Parallax first.
As for Alex Group, depending on the situation then, he could negotiate or threaten them.
In that case, the first thing he had to do was eliminate Mateo.
He just had to eliminate Mateo and bring back the signet ring.
After that, he could sort things out.
He would decide then who was an ally and who was an enemy.
Dealing with Mateo right now—
Devouring Parallax comes first.
Everything can be forcibly settled.
This complicated situation, and the air of suspicion between them.
There is no time.
Rodrigo’s resolve hardened.
The fake information Alex and Chen Zhihao had planted.
Fake information they had planted half as a joke,
thinking that if it caused even the slightest confusion, that would be enough.
One tiny fragment of it caught on Pablo’s tenacity.
Entangled with Pablo’s stubbornness, it became truth.
Pablo moved,
and Rodrigo began to suspect.
Judgments made in different directions deepened the cracks.
The ripples were spreading far wider and deeper than expected.
*****
“Three days? That’s possible.”
I was standing by the window,
and Mateo was checking documents at the desk.
“Adrian’s funeral? We’ll need five days.”
“Five whole days?”
I couldn’t quite understand.
Death comes without warning.
And yet a funeral to mourn that death would take five days.
“There’s more to prepare than you’d think. He was still the chairman of Parallax. It can’t be held in a public place, and many of the people coming are sensitive, so we have to worry about their routes. We also need to make and send separate invitations. We have to keep up appearances. Five days is the minimum.”
I nodded.
If that was how he was going to handle it,
what could I, who wasn’t doing the work, say?
“Fine. Then let’s hold Adrian’s funeral in five days. You take care of that.”
“But why are you in such a hurry? Isn’t it better to let people believe Adrian is alive?”
“That’s what I thought, but some lunatic has been looking for Adrian too hard. So I figured it’d be better to just eliminate the ‘variable’ called Adrian. If anything about Adrian comes out, it definitely won’t work in our favor.”
“Understood. But…”
“But? What?”
“What do we do about the body? Can we bring it back?”
“No. Obviously we can’t. Do you know how long it’s been since he died?”
He was asking the obvious.
“Then we’ll have to hold the funeral without a body…”
“Why is that a problem?”
Mateo’s words trailed off, and my voice sharpened slightly.
“There are already a lot of people who are suspicious about Adrian’s death. Will it be possible without a body?”
“Are you asking me that?”
“Huh?”
“If you can’t even handle a problem like that, I’m starting to think it’d be better to put Rodrigo in that seat.”
Mateo’s expression hardened.
“What?”
“What do you think I saw in you when I put you there? Ability? Influence? Do you think you have anything like that?”
“……”
“You were just close to me. I needed a chairman for Parallax, and you happened to be near me. On top of that, you said you’d obey me. That’s why I told you to do it. There was no other reason. But if you can’t even handle something this easy and expect me to take care of every last detail, then maybe handing that seat over to Rodrigo wouldn’t be such a bad idea.”
For an instant, the air froze completely.
Mateo’s eyes wavered.
“Figure it out yourself. Handle everything yourself. I’ll watch and see how you do it. But remember one thing. That seat isn’t yours. I lent it to you. So you’d better think carefully.”
I slammed the door shut and left.
Honestly, I hadn’t meant to say it like that.
I had just been on edge because of my mood,
and even though he had become chairman, it seemed like he still hadn’t come to his senses, so I spoke a little harshly.
Watching how he handled the funeral would show me what was in his heart.
In any case, the funeral was to announce that Adrian was dead.
And to make it official that Mateo was inheriting that position.
But he was asking for the body on top of that, which was just frustrating.
‘He’ll handle it properly on his own.’
.
.
.
Mateo sat alone in the room Alex had left.
His hands were trembling with rage.
Whether from anger, humiliation,
or both.
His gaze naturally turned toward the signet ring.
The signet ring gleamed especially brightly in the light.
Touching the signet ring, Mateo made a vow to himself.
I’ll never let it be taken from me.
Never.