SAGW 13

Chapter : 13

The office was a battlefield, but I liked the chaos.

“Assistant Manager, the client is calling to ask if the person authorized to approve things has changed.”

“I think we need to resubmit this month’s promotion proposal!”

The avalanche of work that had fallen on us after Team Leader Park Cheol-su was dragged away by the Audit Team. Yet even amid the frantic rush, my fingers felt light.

Tap-tap, tap.

A proposal being written under my own name. A time when I could have my abilities recognized entirely as my own, without worrying about someone stealing credit for my accomplishments.

‘Yeah. This is how things are supposed to be.’

It was an opportunity Kang Seo-jun had created for me. On the stage he had prepared, I wanted to prove that I wasn’t simply a debtor saddled with 300 million won in debt, but a partner with quite a few useful abilities of my own. That was the only way I could repay the “favor outside the contract” he had shown me.

I glanced at the Post-it note in the corner of my monitor.

[4:00 PM: Final Report on New Brand Launch — Executive Director’s Office]

I was looking forward to it. To the moment when I could stand confidently before him with my perfectly polished proposal.

Bzzzt—.

The vibration of my phone on the desk broke my concentration. I frowned slightly and checked the screen.

[Gangnam Police Station — Intelligent Crime Investigation Team]

My breath caught.

It was the very number I had called dozens of times in the past, begging them to answer and asking how the investigation was going.

‘…What is it?’

A chill ran down my spine. The place that had always repeated nothing but “Please wait” had no reason to contact me first. When an investigative agency contacted you first, it usually meant one of two things. The case had been closed, or something had happened.

A bad feeling and the faintest glimmer of hope squeezed my heart at the same time. Carefully, I pressed the call button.

“…Hello?”

—Is this Ms. Lee Da-eun’s cell phone?

The moment I heard the dry, rigid voice of the detective, the noisy office around me seemed to sink underwater and fade into the distance.

“Yes, it is.”

—This is Detective Park from the Gangnam Station Intelligence Team. Regarding the jeonse fraud case you reported last time, we have secured the suspect.

“…What?”

The suspect. Secured.

Did that mean they had caught the bastard who had run off with my 300 million won?

“You—you caught him? President Jang… that person?”

My voice trembled uncontrollably.

—Ah, he’s not the main perpetrator. He’s the landlord who lent out his name. You could call him a front man. We arrested him in Seocho-dong just now, and we’re transporting him to the station.

A front man.

The moment I heard those words, the nightmare from that day—the one I desperately wanted to forget—came rushing back.

A rainy night. People crying and screaming after being thrown out onto the streets. And the empty balance in my bank account.

My fingertips turned white. The sense of accomplishment and excitement I had felt from my work just moments ago disappeared in an instant.

I was no longer “Assistant Manager Lee,” the capable employee.

I was simply Lee Da-eun, a pathetic victim who had lost everything she owned and ended up buried beneath a mountain of debt.

—We need the victims to participate in an identification and confrontation. You’ll need to come in sometime today.

The detective’s words were an order. My circumstances didn’t matter.

“N-now? I’m at work…”

—If you don’t come in today, it will be difficult to reflect your statement when the case is forwarded to the prosecution. You do intend to receive compensation for your losses, don’t you?

Compensation.

My eyes widened at the word.

300 million won.

My hard-earned money, every last bit of it, accumulated through my twenties. Money that represented my entire life.

Could I get it back?

A frantic calculator began flashing warnings inside my head.

Four o’clock. My report to the Executive Director.

Two hours round trip to the police station.

Investigation time unknown.

‘It’s physically impossible.’

But…

‘What if I miss this opportunity?’

I might lose my hard-earned money forever. What if, by some chance, he changed his mind overnight? I’d be thrown out with not a single penny to my name, forced to wander from one tiny rented room to another.

‘I have to go.’

There was no choice.

“…I’ll go. I’m leaving right now.”

Click.

The moment I hung up, my hands began trembling.

I opened the messenger and quickly pulled up my conversation with Executive Director Kang Seo-jun.

[Executive Director, I’m sorry. Something urgent has come up, so I…]

My fingers stopped in midair.

‘No.’

Today was an important day for him, too. It was the first day of cutting out Team Leader Park, like rotten flesh, and reorganizing the team.

But I, his partner and wife, was going to throw a wrench into his first steps because of some personal debt?

“I don’t like seeing my employee treated that way.”

What he had said to me yesterday pierced my heart like a blade.

He had trusted me and prepared this opportunity for me. I couldn’t be the one to overturn the entire thing.

My debt was my mess. I didn’t want it splashing onto him, too.

I held down the delete button.

The message I had been writing disappeared one character at a time.

‘…I’ll handle it myself.’

I put my phone away and called Ji-eun.

Ji-eun jumped in surprise and sprang from her chair.

I didn’t even need to look in a mirror to know what I looked like. My face had to be paler than a corpse by now.

“I… something urgent came up, so I think I need to leave early. I’m sorry.”

“What? But Team Leader Park isn’t here either. If you leave too…”

“I’ve prepared all the materials for the four o’clock report on my desk. As for the Executive Director… I’ll contact him separately.”

It was a lie.

There was no way I could contact him.

I hurriedly gathered my bag and looked through the glass wall toward the firmly closed door of the executive office.

‘I’m sorry. Once I take care of this debt… I’ll properly apologize to you then.’

I bit my lip tightly and, without even looking toward the Executive Director’s office again, ran toward the emergency exit.

The moment I got into the taxi, the scenery of Seoul rushed past the window.

But time had stopped for me.

‘If they caught him, can they make him pay me back? What if he says he already spent it all?’

Anxiety tightened around my throat.

Without realizing it, I reached into my bag and rummaged around. I felt as though my hands would start shaking unless I had something to hold.

My fingertips touched the heavy, smooth tube of something.

I pulled it out.

It was the hand cream Kang Seo-jun had given me yesterday.

Without thinking, I opened the cap.

There was no scent.

Clean and fragrance-free.

Yet strangely, my mind calmed down.

It felt as though he were beside me, saying,

“Keep it together.”

I rubbed the cream over the back of my hand.

The rough joints of my fingers felt a little softer.

‘Get a grip, Lee Da-eun.’

I was a debtor with 300 million won hanging over my head, but I was also the wife of the Executive Director of Daeyoung Group’s Strategic Planning Division.

Don’t shrink back.

Go there, stand tall, demand answers, and tell them to give me my money back.

“Ma’am, we’ve arrived at Gangnam Police Station.”

The taxi stopped.

A massive gray building stood before me, imposing and intimidating.

I hadn’t done anything wrong, yet I felt intimidated for some reason.

I took a deep breath and opened the car door.

Step. Step.

I walked inside the building with heavy footsteps.

It was chaotic from the entrance.

People were shouting. Handcuffed suspects were being dragged around. The sharp smell of metal mixed with the smell of sweat.

“Victim of the jeonse fraud? Come this way.”

The detective gestured impatiently.

He pointed toward an iron desk in the corner of the interrogation room.

And across from it…

I saw a man sitting with his hands cuffed and his head hanging low.

He was dressed in shabby hiking clothes, his hair greasy as though he hadn’t washed it in days.

He wasn’t anything like the villain I had imagined—the man who had taken my money and was probably living in luxury somewhere.

“Is this the person?”

The detective asked.

With trembling hands, I pulled out the contract.

[Landlord: Kim Gwang-su]

I looked back and forth between the photo on his resident registration card and the man sitting in front of me.

It was him.

The face the real estate agent had shown me on the day we signed the contract, saying, “The landlord is busy.”

My heart began pounding like crazy.

It was him.

The man responsible for devouring my entire twenties and pushing me to the edge of a cliff.

I forced strength into my trembling legs and approached him.

The man didn’t even raise his head. He simply stared at the floor.

Sticking out of the pocket of his worn-out hiking vest was a crumpled stack of papers marked with red computer marker.

Horse-racing betting slips.

It was hollowing.

My hard-earned 300 million won.

The money I had desperately saved while everyone else bought luxury goods, grabbing buy-one-get-one deals instead, while my friends traveled overseas and I worked overtime at the office.

All of it had disappeared into scraps of paper from a gambling table like that.

Of course, Executive Director Kang Seo-jun had filled that hole for me.

But that was still his money, not mine.

‘This isn’t about the money.’

That 300 million won was my pride.

It was proof of my hard work.

I had to get it back.

Only then could I stand before Kang Seo-jun not as a “debtor who had been rescued,” but as an equal partner.

I clenched my fists until my nails dug into my palms.

“…Excuse me.”

My voice trembled.

The man’s shoulders flinched.