Chapter 28

“Right. Even your stalking is done while sitting ever so quietly inside a car.” Choi Yook let out a dry huff.

Deprived of any further retort, Mu-yeong clamped his mouth shut. Instead, he concentrated on slowly dissolving the Okchundang inside his cheek. Choi Yook’s gaze rested briefly on the swell of Mu-yeong’s cheek before drifting away.

Deep in the night, Mu-yeong’s van pulled up in front of an office building in Gangnam where Choi Yook’s office was located. As Choi Yook opened the door to step out, Mu-yeong called after him.

“Wait a moment,” Mu-yeong called out softly.

Rummaging hurriedly through his backpack, Mu-yeong produced a black plastic bag, carefully transferred the bunch of Shine Muscat grapes resting on the dashboard inside, and held it out toward Choi Yook.

“I thought carrying them in your bare hands might be inconvenient.” Mu-yeong offered the bag with both hands.

“I don’t have the slightest intention of taking them,” Choi Yook replied flatly.

“They’d make a great late-night snack, though. And I’m sure Seo-yoon would appreciate it if you brought back a treat.”

Instead of reaching for the bag, Choi Yook stared intently at Mu-yeong.

“I don’t recall mentioning that I was going to work with Seo-yoon.” Choi Yook narrowed his eyes.

Smiling nonchalantly, Mu-yeong murmured with an easy grin, “Getting off here means you’re heading to work, so Seo-yoon is bound to be with you. After all, he has to drive you home once you’re done. Am I wrong?”

“You’re right,” Choi Yook replied flatly.

Choi Yook abruptly thrust his hand into the bag. Between his claw-like fingers, three plump grapes came away.

Mu-yeong’s bewilderment struck in the very next instant. Grasping his chin with one hand to force his mouth open, Choi Yook shoved all three grapes into his mouth at once.

“I’d like to pack some for you too, Seo Mu-yeong-ssi, but I don’t happen to carry spare plastic bags around.” Choi Yook smirked faintly.

“…”

“Get home safe,” Choi Yook murmured.

Lightly patting Mu-yeong’s bulging cheek, Choi Yook snatched the plastic bag from his hands. Thud. The van door slammed shut. It took several stunned seconds before the frozen Carnival finally pulled away. Dangling the bag loosely from his fingers, Choi Yook headed down into the underground parking garage.

Having been notified in advance, Han Seo-yoon was already waiting behind the wheel of a black sedan. Opening the rear door, the assistant bowed respectfully.

“Welcome back, Section Chief,” Han Seo-yoon greeted him smoothly. “What is that in your hand?”

Settling into the back seat, Choi Yook held up the bag. “Shine Muscat grapes. Heard old folks choke and drop dead easily on grapes. Thinking about serving them to my father with every meal.”

Unable to find an appropriate reply, Han Seo-yoon broke into a cold sweat and stepped on the gas. The sedan carrying the two men sped toward a secluded area on the outskirts of town.

Past a desolate car wash and an abandoned gas station, tattered vinyl greenhouses emerged intermittently along the road. A wind carrying the scent of dry dirt rattled the tangled, overgrown scrub.

The two stepped out before a prefabricated farming shack. Inside, lined with thick plastic sheeting meant for curing kimchi, a man in a business suit hung upside down from ropes. His mouth and wrists were tightly bound with blue industrial tape. The four men who had been kicking him immediately bent their backs into deep bows upon seeing Choi Yook enter.

“You’ve arrived, sir.”

The man who stepped to the front greeted Choi Yook on behalf of the crew. Choi Yook gave a curt nod.

“What has Director Kim been saying?” Choi Yook asked casually.

“He insists there’s nothing more beyond two apartments in Gangnam and a commercial property in Bundang.” Park Min-woo kept his head bowed.

“Rip off the tape,” Choi Yook commanded.

The blue tape was ripped away with a violent tear. Dangling upside down, Director Kim coughed violently, spitting out blood and broken teeth. Thick veins bulged across his flushed forehead. Watching Choi Yook approach, the terrified director scrambled to plead his case in a panicked rush.

“S-Section Chief Choi! Spare me, please! How many times have we booked salon rooms and drunk together all night, huh? I was the one who introduced you to the pleasure of taking men from behind, and—and what else, when you were little, I gave you pocket money, told you stories about your mother, didn’t I? Huh?”

A sordid, desperate plea tumbled on. Choi Yook took a seat on a chair placed before the hanging man and retrieved a cigarette from his breast pocket. A man standing beside him bent forward to flick a lighter.

A vivid red flame flared brightly before Choi Yook’s eyes. Taking a deep drag, Choi Yook exhaled a plume of smoke and looked up at Director Kim.

“We could have reminisced about old times so warmly, so why did you have to go and embezzle someone else’s money?” Choi Yook asked with chilling composure. “I’m genuinely disappointed to lose a drinking buddy. Not to mention it pisses me off to be sitting out in the boonies when I could be drinking or getting laid.”

Director Jae-cheol’s body flopped and thrashed violently. Befitting someone who had wielded sashimi knives in his youth, his frantic thrashing was as lively as a freshly landed tuna. Thick sweat mingled with blood, spattering in every direction.

“I—I really don’t have anything else stashed away!” Director Kim shrieked.

The director spilled empty excuses, his voice trembling with sheer desperation.

“What I took wasn’t even that much to begin with! Everyone pockets that sort of pocket money, don’t they? That’s how everyone always took their bonuses!”

“Does it really matter if everyone did it?” Choi Yook asked with complete apathy.

Choi Yook regarded the thrashing man with bored indifference, pausing before his next words.

“What matters is that once we tear you apart, Director Kim, the rest will know to keep their heads down. My father is furious. He said he raised minnows into carp only to have them try to gnaw off his arm.”

Shaking his head frantically from where he hung, Director Kim pleaded, “No, wait, Section Chief Choi! Put in a good word with the Chairman, will you? No matter what, you’re his eldest son! Sure, he dotes on Sijin, but that’s just the fun of watching the baby of the family do tricks. The one the Chairman truly intends to groom as his real successor is you! Even I spoil my youngest, but I never value him as much as my firstborn!”

An oily, ingratiating tone seeped into the director’s voice as he attempted to coax Choi Yook. Without the slightest change in expression, Choi Yook flicked his cigarette ash.

“Didn’t you once say a woman needs to melt in your mouth like grade 1++ Hanwoo beef for her children to reap the benefits?” Choi Yook asked, his voice dripping with venom. “The mother I could have leaned on dropped dead over ten years ago, so with what shameless face am I supposed to go groveling to my father?”

The expressions of the men surrounding Director Kim froze into stony masks. Sensing the lethal shift in the air, the director panicked.

“S-Section Chief Choi… I had too much to drink, I misspoke—” Director Kim stammered desperately.

Choi Yook cut him off with razor-sharp ice, “Don’t try to ride the coattails of someone who grew up like an utter orphan.” He put the cigarette between his lips, drew a breath, pulled it out, and exhaled a long sigh of smoke.

“Fancying yourself a man of culture, you hoarded paintings and ceramics while everyone else was buying crypto. Cough up the address.”

“S-Section Chief Choi…” Director Kim whimpered.

“What good does holding onto those do? Are you planning to wire the money to Paris so your youngest can smoke weed?” Choi Yook tilted his head.

Choi Yook tapped the ash from his cigarette and regarded Director Kim with blatant annoyance.

“Let’s wrap this up quickly and go home. I really don’t feel like taking a business trip all the way to France.”

“What?” Director Kim croaked in confusion.

Director Kim furrowed his brow in utter bewilderment. As though the glowing cigarette were a scalpel, Choi Yook mimed slicing horizontally and vertically across the director’s abdomen.

“Even if both are pickled in alcohol, your youngest son’s liver ought to be far fresher than yours. We wouldn’t even need an appraisal.” Choi Yook smirked coldly.

“You crazy son of a bitch!” Director Kim screamed.

Director Jae-cheol’s face contorted into a mask of pure fury as his veins pulsed violently.

“You inhuman monster! If you lay a single finger on my Jin-young, fuck! Even after hearing how your own mother was sold off to pay her deadbeat father’s debt, you still have the stomach to lay a hand on someone else’s kid? You motherless, cursed bastard…!”

Choi Yook absorbed the torrential stream of curses as he closed the distance. Raising one foot to shin height as if stepping up into a car, he placed his shoe squarely onto Director Jae-cheol’s chin as though it were a footstool, slowly shifting his full weight down. His tongue severely bitten, Director Kim let out a mangled shriek.

“Hrggh… ngh…”

Director Jae-cheol’s face turned from a mottled crimson to a suffocated purplish-blue. A thick trail of blood leaked from his lips, dividing his face in half along a crooked line. The crimson stains pooled on the murky plastic sheeting, gradually widening.

Ghk, k-ghk.

A choking, breathless rattle scraped from the man’s throat. The root of his tongue, forced backward, would be blocking his airway, while his neck muscles, seized in shock, constricted his throat. As cranial pressure spiked, his vision would blur, stripping away all rational thought.

It wasn’t for nothing that his father had strung Choi Yook up upside down as a child, draining him like a slaughtered pig. Listening to the ragged, spasming gasps, Choi Yook continued drawing on his cigarette. Only when the ember burned down to a stub did he look down.

“Director Kim,” Choi Yook uttered quietly, exhaling a final plume of smoke. With features utterly devoid of emotion, he spoke with flat indifference, “How could a motherless wretch like me bear to go on living in such sorrow? I’ll take the loss and call it a day, so let’s end this here.”

“…Ngh… h-huh?” Director Kim whimpered in bewilderment.

“I don’t care whether those paintings are fine art or cultural treasures,” Choi Yook added chillingly. “You and your son can lie peacefully side by side in the same family grave, stripped clean of every valuable inside you.”

Director Jae-cheol’s clouded eyes stretched wide in horror. Showing not the slightest lingering hesitation, Choi Yook lifted his foot from the man’s chin and tossed the cigarette butt down. The plastic sheeting beneath ignited instantly with a hiss, emitting a foul, pungent stench.

Choi Yook ground the ember into the floor with the heel of his shoe. Turning toward the exit without looking back, he summoned the man in charge of the crew.

“Min-woo,” Choi Yook called out.

“Yes, sir.” Park Min-woo stepped forward promptly.

“Follow standard procedure.”

His tone was so dry and detached that it would not have sounded out of place in a court of law. Receiving the order, Park Min-woo signaled the other men with a nod and closed in on Director Kim. Gripped by sheer terror, Director Kim began to thrash wildly, his choked wails echoing through the shack.

“Ghh, Section Chief Choi! H-Hold on, I’ll tell you everything! Aaargh, where it is… in Cheongju! It’s in Cheongju…!” Director Kim cried out in total surrender.

As the door slammed shut, the frantic wailing was swallowed into silence. Han Seo-yoon fell into step beside Choi Yook as they walked away from the farm shack, cautiously watching his superior’s expression.

“Shall we handle Director Kim as you instructed, sir?” Han Seo-yoon asked.

“Raid the address he just spat out, verify everything, and harvest his organs in order,” Choi Yook replied flatly. “Doesn’t matter if they don’t sell. All that matters is leaving behind nothing but a bag of skin. Leave the son out of it.”

Ripping organs out of a junkie would likely cost more in plane tickets than they were worth anyway. Choi Yook gave a careless jerk of his chin toward the waiting car.