Chapter 01
The bride’s waiting room was overflowing with May peonies that resembled sunlight.
What tore apart the silence of that sanctuary of pure white was the video on the phone Harry had shoved in.
[More… give me more…!]
The woman in the video had her dress half-undone, clinging to a man who was roughly thrusting his body against hers, letting out ragged moans.
It was the sordid sex they’d had on the sofa in this very bride’s waiting room just 30 minutes ago.
The star of the video was the bride before her, Jung Hee-sun, and her partner was the groom Seo Tae-min’s older half-brother, Seo Young-joon.
[I’m going to come… ah!]
Harry tapped the screen off, and the explicit cries cut off abruptly.
Once again, an elegant classical melody flowed through the bride’s waiting room.
Hee-sun’s radiant face contorted in an instant.
“How dare… you…?”
Her red-painted lips trembled, and then a strangled voice burst out, laced with spite.
“You should have just helped me get dressed and left, but you filmed this?”
Harry’s gaze swept over Hee-sun’s body.
More precisely, over the premium Mikado silk dress that enveloped Hee-sun’s body.
“This dress took three months just to pattern. To cover up your narrow hips and hunched shoulders.”
Ban Harry, head designer of the high-end wedding brand ‘The Heritage.’
To her, this dress was a creation carved from her very bones, and at the same time, a blade she had prepared for revenge.
“But you’ve gone and wrinkled it. Rolling around in the dirt like that.”
“D-dirty? Have you lost your mind?”
“Wouldn’t the one who’s lost their mind be the one who slept with their future brother-in-law?”
At Harry’s dry retort, Hee-sun shot up from her seat.
She raised her hand as if to strike Harry across the face at any moment, but Harry didn’t even blink.
Instead, she twisted her lips into a smirk.
“Not content with adultery, now you’re resorting to assault?”
“How much are you getting from Heritage? I’ll give you ten times? No, a hundred times what they pay you. Name your price!”
“I don’t need money.”
Harry took a step closer to Hee-sun.
Her face was cold, all traces of amusement gone.
“What I want is for you to disappear.”
“…What?”
“I’ll give you exactly one minute. Take off that dress and get out right now. Otherwise, everyone will hear your moans when the bride makes her entrance.”
At the chilling threat, Hee-sun staggered.
The venomous look in Harry’s eyes said it wasn’t an empty bluff.
If that video really got played in the wedding hall…
She would never be able to return to America.
“Y-you… just you wait.”
Hee-sun glared at Harry as if she could kill her, then tore off the dress.
She frantically pulled on the clothes Harry threw at her and fled the bride’s waiting room as if escaping.
Bangā!
Only then did Harry let out the long breath she’d been holding.
The taut nerves unraveled all at once, and her fingertips trembled minutely.
On the floor lay the pristine white dress, abandoned by its owner.
‘I did it.’
A 200 billion won business deal, a strategic marriage that the BS Group had poured all its efforts into.
She had torn that perfect marriage apart with her own hands.
“Seo Chang-soo.”
It was time to return the betrayal she’d received from the man she’d trusted like a father.
This ruined wedding would be the hell Seo Chang-soo would face, the completion of a perfect revenge.
Harry checked her wristwatch.
It was almost time for the ceremony to begin.
Running short on time to escape, Harry pulled her hat down low and hurried toward the exit.
Just as she was about to reach for the handle.
Click.
From the other side, the handle turned.
“Huh…?”
Before Harry could step back, the heavy door swung open.
Creakā
A large shadow entered.
Instantly, the surrounding air turned icy cold.
The massive silhouette, standing with its back to the light, loomed over her as if to swallow her whole, and with every breath she took, it felt like frigid air pierced deep into her lungs.
It was as if the oxygen had thinned out, her breath catching in her throat.
As if spellbound, Harry slowly raised her head.
An overwhelming physique clad in jet-black tuxedo.
Above it, a face as if meticulously carved by a god was revealed.
People called him a sculpture.
A beauty that existed solely for aesthetic appreciation, without a single drop of human warmth.
But the epithets attached beneath that beautiful shell were nothing but cruel.
Disqualified as human, psychopath, the monster of BS Group.
The monster walked in slowly and elegantly.
Like a beast coming to survey its territory, even his footsteps were silent.
With each step he took toward her, a cold tension tightened around Harry’s throat.
“Tae-min oppa…?”
In that moment, she saw Tae-min in his school uniform standing before her.
The boy who stood silently beside her as she cried alone.
Tae-min oppa, who would gaze at her with his deep, dark eyes only once for every ten greetings…
He wasn’t there.
‘They say… he killed someone.’
Ten years ago, he had vanished alongside that chilling rumor, and now he stood before her.
In the form of a perfect monster.
Harry stared straight at Tae-min as he approached, as if to devour her.
She didn’t run, didn’t flinch.
It didn’t matter.
Whether the man before her was a murderer or a monster.
On this stage she had prepared today, Seo Tae-min too had to be a victim, just like Seo Chang-soo.
Only then could she complete this revenge.
“I came to congratulate you on your wedding, but the bride isn’t here. Looks like she ran away because she didn’t want to go through with it?”
Harry forced a nonchalant smile, curling the corners of her lips.
But Tae-min didn’t so much as twitch an eyebrow.
As if he had already known Harry would be here.
His indifferent gaze drifted to the dress strewn on the floor, then returned to Harry.
“How does it feel, ruining my wedding? You looked pretty thrilled.”
His low, deep voice scraped against her eardrums.
Harry swallowed her startled breath.
Watching her lazily, Tae-min pulled out his phone from his pocket.
[What I want is for you to disappear… I’ll give you exactly one minute. Take off that dress and get out right now…]
On the screen Tae-min held out, the scene of Harry threatening Hee-sun just moments ago was playing.
Harry quickly turned her head and scanned the surroundings.
In the corner of the bride’s waiting room, a lens hidden between decorative vases glittered.
Harry’s face turned pale.
“You… saw everything?”
From Seo Young-joon and Jung Hee-sun’s sordid affair, to the scene of Harry driving Hee-sun out to ruin the wedding.
This man had been watching, not missing a single moment.
Tae-min closed the distance until he was right in front of her.
“You’re still not avoiding my gaze.”
His eyes traced her leisurely, from the eyes revealed beneath her hat, to her trembling lips, down her slender neck, all the way to her toes.
It was explicit and chilling, like the gaze of a predator eyeing its prey.
As tension crept up her spine, Harry clenched her fists and asked.
“Why… why did you just watch?”
“Because it was entertaining.”
At the unexpectedly light answer, Harry’s face crumpled.
She looked up at him with venomous eyes and said.
“Calling off this wedding today means losing 200 billion won. Is that entertaining too?”
The only lifeline to resolve the BS Group’s short-term debt was the investment attraction hinged on this marriage.
If this plan fell through, it would be trouble for Seo Chang-soo, but for Tae-min, who was aiming for the group’s succession, this marriage was also a business deal that could never fail.
“Get out of my way. The wedding is already ruined, and my revenge is complete.”
“Who says it’s ruined?”
Tae-min let out a soft scoff, twisting the corner of his mouth.
The smile was so composed and dangerous that Harry held her breath for a moment.
“Are you going to hold a wedding without a bride? That would be entertaining, I suppose.”
“If there’s no bride, you make one.”
“…What do you mean?”
Tae-min pointed with his chin at the wedding dress sprawled on the floor.
“Put it on.”
[file content end]
