Chapter 12

Their chosen marital residence was not in Pyeongchang-dong, the traditional enclave of old money that served as Chairman Jang Changsik’s heavily guarded private fortress. Instead, it stood in Hannam-dong, a sleek and ultramodern district overlooking the city.

The multistory luxury villa, positioned above the sweeping curves of the Han River, belonged entirely to Jang Taegeon. That particular logistical detail had been settled at the very beginning of their negotiations.

“Where should we establish our primary residence?” Taegeon had asked casually several weeks earlier, before their marriage.

“Ah… well, I maintain a secure penthouse in Nonhyeon.”

“Good. Then Executive Director Lee Jaeha can move his belongings into my estate.”

Jaeha had silently wondered why the man had bothered asking for his opinion when the decision had clearly already been made. Yet, too captivated by the implications of the moment to object, he had merely nodded in compliance.

In truth, Jaeha could not have cared less about the geographical coordinates of their property. The intoxicating prospect of crossing the threshold into the private sanctuary where Taegeon slept and breathed carried a profound thrill of its own.

Moreover, his reason had been so thoroughly hijacked by the shockingly intimate implications of the phrase newlywed home that his mind had been incapable of processing any alternative arrangement.

Since that brief honeymoon phase of planning, however, Jaeha had catastrophically earned Taegeon’s absolute disgust through his covert financial dealings with the Chairman.

The first button of the marriage Jaeha had so pathetically begged for had already been fastened completely wrong, and he could feel his spirit shriveling beneath the weight of permanent anxiety.

The vast portfolio of personal assets Jaeha had surrendered under the guise of a dowry had already been absorbed seamlessly into the operational veins of Janghan Construction. Every last sum had passed directly through the old man’s bloodstained hands.

Stripped of his leverage, Lee Jaeha simply packed his tailored suits, his collection of luxury watches, and the few personal belongings he possessed, then moved quietly into Taegeon’s Hannam-dong fortress.

It was approximately two days after the ceremony. The chaos of finalizing the corporate transfers at Yooshin had kept Jaeha far too occupied to arrange the physical move any sooner. While Manager Lim handled the logistical nightmare of transporting Jaeha’s encrypted files and personal wardrobe to the new estate, Jaeha remained anchored to his executive desk.

Jaeha mechanically chewed through a dry club sandwich while issuing his final directives at Yooshin. It was not until twilight the following day that he finally logged out of the corporate mainframe and drove toward his new reality. He had naturally assumed he was entering a lived-in, breathing space, the private den in which Jang Taegeon had spent years of his life.

Contrary to those strangely warm expectations, however, the sprawling multilevel villa showed no trace of daily human existence. It looked as though a specialized crew had gutted the interior and installed an entirely new collection of minimalist furniture before Jaeha’s arrival.

The architecture was sterile, impeccably sanitized, and devoid of even a single speck of dust. It resembled a high-end furniture showroom far more than it did a home.

Manager Lim had undoubtedly coordinated with Janghan’s executive office to procure the specific European furnishings deemed necessary for Jaeha’s comfort.

Yet, standing alone in the cold expanse of the living room, Jaeha felt a quiet pang of regret that he had not curated the domestic space with his own hands.

Without a word of negotiation or any formal directive, the truth struck him with devastating clarity. The newlyweds were expected to occupy entirely separate bedroom wings. Since Taegeon had not even bothered to return to the estate on the evening Jaeha officially crossed its threshold, the Yooshin heir was left to navigate the unfamiliar, sprawling layout with only the residential housekeeper to guide him.

“Greetings, Executive Director. I am Myeongsun.” A remarkably deep voice rolled through the hallway. “Please feel free to speak comfortably around me.”

“Hello, Myeongsun-ssi.” Jaeha turned to assess the staff member.

The man looked nothing like someone hired to polish marble floors. The figure introducing himself as the estate’s domestic help appeared to match Jang Taegeon’s impressive height, perhaps even surpassing him by a fraction of an inch. Yet while Taegeon’s broad frame possessed the sleek, powerful proportions of superior genetics, Myeongsun’s physique had a raw and unrefined quality. He radiated the predatory menace of a cartel enforcer, a man torn straight from the blood-soaked shadows of a gritty noir film.

A jagged and unmistakable scar cut deeply across his right cheek, the violent remnant of a knife fight stretching from his prominent cheekbone to the edge of his jaw.

He was, by every measure, a menacing creature. Yet as he stood before the newly inducted spouse of his superior, Myeongsun deliberately hunched his broad shoulders inward, desperately attempting to compress his massive frame into something less intimidating.

The visual contradiction was so absurd that it immediately neutralized any genuine threat. A battle-hardened gangster was trying to shrink himself into the posture of a deferential servant.

Jaeha found himself tilting his head upward while his analytical mind calculated the narrow distance between the soaring architectural ceiling and the crown of the man’s head. Realizing that such overt scrutiny constituted a breach of aristocratic manners, he quickly looked away.

By no conceivable standard could this man be classified as an ordinary housekeeper. The long white scar running across the back of Myeongsun’s knuckles, combined with the mutilation on his face, loudly advertised a violent underworld résumé. He embodied the exact stereotype of a typical gangster, an impression Jaeha had remarkably never once received from Taegeon himself.

Despite his terrifying exterior, however, Myeongsun addressed Jaeha with absolute and unwavering reverence.

“Hyung-nim explicitly ordered me to make sure you settled in comfortably, Executive Director.” Myeongsun scratched the back of his neck with awkward, thick fingers.

“Ah…”

Jaeha murmured as the surreal reality of his new, mafia-adjacent life finally sank into his bones.

Hearing the title hyung-nim roll so naturally from the giant’s lips drove the truth home with jarring force. This man was undeniably one of Jang Taegeon’s syndicate subordinates. Rumor held that corporate gangs avoided formal titles among their ranks, reserving familial terms of respect for those within the boss’s closest circle. Witnessing that notorious underworld dynamic firsthand in his own living room left Jaeha quietly fascinated.

It felt profoundly surreal to watch a man the size of a mountain defer to Jang Taegeon with such absolute, almost canine loyalty.

Myeongsun practically exuded the rugged violence of a back alley, a kind of grit entirely alien to Jaeha’s sterile, blue-blooded world. Yet despite the subordinate’s overwhelming physical advantage, Jaeha instinctively knew that if the two Alphas stood shoulder to shoulder, Taegeon’s suffocating presence would eclipse Myeongsun’s without effort.

“Shall I move your luggage to the master suite, Executive Director?” Myeongsun asked, interrupting Jaeha’s silent contemplation.

“…Which suite does Director Jang occupy?”

“Hyung-nim usually sleeps on the second floor.”

“Then…” Jaeha averted his gaze. “I’ll take any available room on the first floor.”

A flicker of hesitation crossed Myeongsun’s scarred features before he responded with a silent and respectful bow. Hoisting the heavy suitcases onto his shoulders with terrifying ease, the giant escorted Jaeha to a spacious guest suite on the first floor, stopping before the attached walk-in closet.

“I’ll unpack your garments, sir.”

“No, that won’t be necessary. You can return to your other duties, Myeongsun.” Jaeha shook his head with an urgency that bordered on panic.

The walk-in closet was perfectly luxurious by any ordinary standard, but the idea of watching a man built like a piece of heavy artillery attempt to navigate the narrow dressing room presented a logistical nightmare Jaeha had no desire to witness.

Despite his brutally intimidating appearance, Myeongsun possessed an unexpectedly gentle disposition. The stark contradiction only made the sheer enormity of his physique more unsettling.

His size seemed to defy ordinary biology. Although he carried the subdued and muted aura of a Beta rather than the aggressive, oppressive pressure of an Alpha, he still dwarfed most men.

Jaeha vastly preferred hanging his own tailored suits with meticulous care to watching someone with hands the size of iron skillets fumble clumsily with Italian silk.

It was not a matter of some secret passion for domestic work.

Throughout his years of living alone, Jaeha had stubbornly handled his own laundry and cleaning. He had existed in constant fear that any hired help might secretly be a spy planted by his stepmother, Kim Ranhee.

His bespoke suits were entrusted exclusively to Yooshin’s executive dry cleaners, but he found a quiet, repetitive comfort in washing his own casual clothes and methodically hanging the damp fabric across the sunlit veranda.

Enduring the surreal awkwardness of a syndicate enforcer folding his cashmere was simply a bridge too far.

Halfway through arranging his neatly folded shirts, Jaeha heard a hesitant knock against the doorframe. Myeongsun lingered at the threshold, gripping his smartphone tightly and wearing the deeply uncomfortable expression of a man forced to deliver unfortunate news.

“Executive Director, hyung-nim won’t be returning to the estate tonight.” The giant’s rumbling voice carried an unmistakably apologetic note. “I’ve been called away as well. Will you be all right here by yourself?”

“Of course.”

Jaeha stared at him, briefly baffled by the paternal concern. He was a grown corporate executive, not an abandoned child.

Myeongsun’s eyes filled with such profound and heavy pity that the humiliation of Jaeha’s circumstances suddenly crystallized.

The question remained unspoken, yet painfully clear.

Would the abandoned groom survive his first night alone in the marital home?

For all his intimidating presence, the syndicate enforcer possessed a surprisingly tender capacity for empathy. He disappeared into the night only after Jaeha managed to produce a strained and fragile smile of reassurance.

Despite Myeongsun’s gentle warning, Jaeha spent the entirety of that first night waiting.

He sat perfectly still within the cavernous and unfamiliar expanse of the living room, keeping silent vigil as the ink-black sky beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows slowly bled into the pale, cold blue of dawn.

Just as promised, Jang Taegeon never arrived.

After dozing fitfully against the cold leather of the sofa, Jaeha eventually stirred to find himself alone in a house that felt hollow and echoing. That solitary, desolate dawn marked the grim pattern of the next thirty days.

For an entire month, Jaeha lived in complete isolation within the vast estate, a ghost haunting a billionaire’s mausoleum. Myeongsun occasionally stopped by to replenish the pantry. Each time, Jaeha swallowed his desperate questions and ruthlessly severed his own hopes, choosing never to ask about his absent husband.

***