The tips of Eunjo’s fingers trembled as she pressed the six-digit password.

‘321705’

Then, along with a cheerful mechanical chime, the safe’s latch released.

“I thought maybe, but…”

Eunjo bit her lip.

The six digits she had just entered were a combination of Nain’s birthday—her husband’s mistress—and the date her husband and Nain had first slept together.

“Are you saying that really is the password? Are you sure?”

“Yes. As far as I’ve confirmed, that’s correct.”

After asking Secretary Jo over and over, confirming it herself made it feel like the blood was draining from her head.

How tenderly must he have cherished it, to remember the date of their first time and even use it as the safe’s password.

She clenched her teeth, swallowing the scream that was about to burst out, and a metallic taste of blood filled her mouth. But she shook her head.

“This isn’t the time to get worked up over that.”

Scolding herself, Eunjo turned the safe’s handle with trembling hands.

Now wasn’t the time to rage over her husband’s affair or Nain’s betrayal. It was time to find evidence.

Right now, while her husband was having an improper relationship with Nain in her own bedroom, this was her chance.

While they had no idea she—who should have taken sleeping pills and fallen into a deep sleep—was ransacking the study safe, she had to finish this.

It was far more valuable than killing the husband rolling around on the bed and the woman he was having an affair with.

As she rummaged inside, Eunjo’s hand stopped.

“Is this it?”

This was it.

The gold-covered document Secretary Jo had mentioned.

And the leather case with the SD card.

“In Kang Jinwoo’s secret safe, there will be the Chairman’s real will. And the car black box recording of the accident scene, and the CCTV footage as well.”

“Wouldn’t he have disposed of it already?”

“No. With Kang Jinwoo’s personality, he would have been anxious about those items ever leaving his hands. You know it, don’t you? His strange kind of paranoia. He’ll definitely have them.”

Secretary Jo was right.

“Ha… Kang Jinwoo.”

Eunjo’s lips trembled as she let out a sigh that sounded like a lament.

In the end, it was Kang Jinwoo who had done that to her father.

“With just this, I can reveal the truth of my father’s unjust death.”

And I can divorce him.

To get this into her hands, she had lived the past few months bowed low.

Pretending she had forgotten her father, pretending she had no interest in the company’s affairs. But now, even that pretense was over.

“You’re finished too, Kang Jinwoo.”

Kim Nain, you too.

Swallowing down the betrayal that rose again, Eunjo reached out.

The moment she picked up the leather case, a click sounded, and the lights came on in the pitch-dark study.

Startled by the sudden presence, Eunjo turned around.

“Oh my, a little thief has broken in?”

It was Nain.

Under the light, Nain’s naked body was exposed as it was, and she smiled, curving her catlike, sharply slitted eyes.

“Sneaking around—wondering what you were up to.”

Nain’s distinctive, coquettish nasal tone scraped at her ears.

“What are you doing here, ma, da, m?”

Nain’s gaze settled on the case in Eunjo’s hand as she approached.

Eunjo instinctively hid her hand behind her back.

At that moment, beyond the opened door, Eunjo’s husband, Kang Jinwoo, appeared.

Hair soaked with sweat, a shiny face, a deeply furrowed brow.

Still, perhaps he had some conscience—he had thrown a nightgown over his naked body.

Upon spotting her, Jinwoo let out a shallow sigh.

“Eunjo.”

With his heavy eyes widened, Jinwoo slowly walked closer.

“You should’ve just slept quietly. Eating expensive meals and this is what you do?”

Looking at Jinwoo as he advanced, Eunjo tasted despair along with helplessness.

Secretary Jo was waiting outside.

If she could just hand these documents to Secretary Jo, she could condemn these shameless, brazen people.

And yet she’d been caught this meaninglessly.

“Don’t come any closer.”

Eunjo shook her head and backed away.

But she could tell it was useless.

Jinwoo’s face, creeping toward her with a vile smile, looked like a demon crawling up from a black abyss.

Nain standing behind him was the same.

Vile and cruel—two cunning pit vipers.

Eunjo’s lips trembled as she felt the balcony glass door against her back and sank into despair.

That there was nowhere left to run was miserable.

No—tears burst out at her own incompetence, at doing nothing but running.

“You two… you’ll be punished by heaven.”

That was all she could manage to say.

“My father trusted you so much, Kang Jinwoo. He loved you so much.”

Eunjo’s father, Lee Wongyu.

Korea’s first white hacker, a pioneer in the IT world who implemented a perfect defense system.

And the founder of CX Soft.

How much he cherished and loved his only daughter’s husband—everyone in Korea knew.

He was a devoted father-in-law, as if nothing was too precious to pour into his son-in-law.

“And you did that to my father…”

“I did my part for your father, too.”

To Eunjo, who couldn’t continue through the sobs welling up, Jinwoo hurled words like a dagger.

“When your father had cancer, how good was I to him? I went all over the country, soothing that picky old man’s temper.”

It wasn’t wrong.

“If he wanted fresh air, I ran over, and if he wanted to eat something, I went and bought it and served it. You won’t find a son-in-law like that.”

On the surface, that was how it looked. What mattered was what lay underneath.

“I was good? Good at what?”

Back then, even she had been moved by Jinwoo’s affectionate behavior, and for a moment, she had thought she might try to love him.

But it was all a lie.

“You were stealing my father’s seal behind the scenes and pulling things off.”

There had even been a time he’d been caught by the housekeeper while sneaking into her parents’ home during her father’s absence to steal the seal. If it had been anyone else, the police would have been called.

Because he was a son-in-law, Eunjo’s father had closed his eyes and made it as if it never happened.

But even after that, Jinwoo didn’t stop his evil deeds.

Worse, now he was trying to erase them all.

“Pulling things off?”

At Eunjo’s words, Jinwoo snorted.

His vile eyes flashed with a cold smile.

She had seen all sorts of sides of him, but she had never seen Kang Jinwoo like this.

“Do you have proof?”

Proof?

When she was right here in front of him.

Biting her lower lip hard, Eunjo stared at Jinwoo as he came closer with his mouth twisted.

“Yeah. I have proof.”

Instinctively, she knew this was the end.

Jinwoo, asking if she had proof, had no intention of leaving any evidence behind anymore.

The most decisive evidence of Kang Jinwoo’s misdeeds was her. It meant there was nowhere left to retreat.

Eunjo straightened her back.

“Do you know why, for the past few months, I held my breath and stayed silent even though I knew perfectly well you and Kim Nain were in my house, sucking and licking and doing all kinds of filthy things?”

So she struck back the only way she could.

“Because I was gathering proof that you made my father die, forged his will, and even made slush funds with company money.”

Jinwoo had forced Eunjo—who had depression and panic disorder, and even PTSD from witnessing her father’s accident—to swallow psychiatric pills by the heap.

He wanted her to live drugged and dazed.

But she didn’t live like that. She only pretended to.

“Even if I don’t make it out of here alive, Secretary Jo will go to the Prosecutors’ Office.”

Jo Hyunsu, her father’s loyal secretary, had helped her all this time. Now he’d finished every preparation and was waiting for her.

They’d already agreed that if she didn’t come out in time, he would leave for the prosecutors first.

Even without the decisive evidence in her hand, there was already enough circumstantial evidence to file a complaint.

And if something happened to her here?

Kang Jinwoo would be adding murder to his list of charges.

The smart watch on her wrist was recording everything. With the press of a button, the audio would be sent to Secretary Jo’s web storage.

So talk more, Kang Jinwoo.

“This means you’re finished now, you murderous bastard.”

At Eunjo’s words, Jinwoo laughed loudly.

“Eunjo. Eunjo.”

The laughter in that vile voice made her skin crawl.

“Poor Lee Eunjo.”

Then Nain giggled and moved up beside Jinwoo.

Jinwoo wrapped an arm around Nain’s body and spoke in an exceedingly kind voice.

“Listen carefully. I’ll tell you just three things.”

Jinwoo took something from Nain and approached.

“First, you’re not getting out of here alive.”

Right up close, Jinwoo spoke, breathing out a disgusting body scent.

“Second, Secretary Jo won’t be going to the Prosecutors’ Office. That evidence you say you gathered will be scattered and disappear from the world.”

At Jinwoo’s words, Eunjo’s eyes widened.

“What… did you do to Secretary Jo?”

Then, chuckling, Jinwoo didn’t answer. Instead, he grabbed her arm hard.

“Let go of this.”

Eunjo struggled to shake him off, but it was useless.

Jinwoo’s vile voice continued.

“And third, we’ll make good use of your inheritance.”

Then a syringe needle pierced the back of her neck.

“No…”

Her desperate scream couldn’t become sound.

The injected drug, spreading through her veins, was paralyzing her body.

The case she had been holding was snatched away, and then the balcony door behind her opened.

Along with the September dawn air, the noise of passing cars scratched at her ears.

“Goodbye, Lee Eunjo. In a little while, you’ll be the unfortunate heiress who couldn’t bear her depression and jumped to her death from the balcony of a forty-sixth-floor apartment.”

Jinwoo lifted her body and threw her over the railing.

It all happened in an instant.