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Chapter 09
Yoo-eul felt as if all the blood in her body had turned cold at the man’s chilling warning.
The murderous look in his eyes and the way he whispered at her were terrifying.
He really did seem like the son of some gangster-like corporate boss—she even felt her life was in danger.
While Yoo-eul froze, only her lips trembling, the man reached for the keyphone and called his secretary.
Soon, someone who appeared to be his secretary rushed inside.
“Get her out.”
“Yes, director.”
The secretary approached Yoo-eul and gestured.
“Let’s step outside for now.”
But when Yoo-eul didn’t move at all, he reached toward her arm.
Finally snapping back to her senses, Yoo-eul jerked her upper body away and glared at the man.
“Say that again! What?! Money-making tool?! Are you even human?!”
“Secretary Choi.”
Instead of responding to her, he called the secretary again—his voice even colder.
In the end, the secretary grabbed her arm and started dragging her out by force.
No matter how much she resisted, she couldn’t overpower someone taller and much bigger than her.
Helplessly thrown out of the office, Yoo-eul kept shouting his name down the hallway.
Soon, the elevator doors opened and security rushed out.
The secretary handed Yoo-eul over.
Two men even bigger than the secretary grabbed her on both sides, and as they dragged her away, her feet practically lifted off the ground.
“YAAAAGH! You deserve divine punishment from the Grandmother Goddess of Birth, you bastard!”
Clack—
The elevator doors closed with her inside, and despair flashed through Yoo-eul’s eyes.
The woman’s curses faded until he could no longer hear them.
Ji-hyeok’s eyebrows, which had naturally tensed upward, slowly settled back down.
He was about to reach for the documents he hadn’t finished reviewing at dawn when he paused.
That infuriating woman’s voice echoed in his ears.
“Wait.”
He leaned back in his chair and stared at the empty air, thinking.
That woman… Did she know from the start that he and Seo Won-jun were family and try to blackmail him?
“‘Real sibling,’ my ass.”
Han Soo-young’s legally bound aunt’s family—or some distant relative—just like she had warned him before dying.
They probably thought that if they demanded the child under the pretext of being “family,” we’d just hand them money to make them go away.
Ridiculous. Ji-hyeok knew people like that all too well.
At first, they insist they’re not after money, giving some noble-sounding reason. Then eventually… they demand a large sum.
From childhood, Ji-hyeok grew up listening to his father and uncle talk about people like that back when they worked in the old service business. Their stories were like lullabies to him.
“Hah…”
He was already exhausted, and now something like this had to piss him off.
He unbuttoned his cuffs, rolled up his sleeves, and picked up his tablet pen.
Then stopped again.
The image of the woman near tears, begging to see the baby, lingered in his mind.
“What is this…”
He shook his head vigorously, trying to erase the lingering image.
But the more he tried, the clearer her face became—red nose, watery eyes, pleading like a kitten that lost its mother.
He finally dropped the pen with a soft clack.
This is why even scammers need to be good-looking.
So this is what it means to captivate people.
I can’t even focus on work.
He swallowed his irritation and called Secretary Choi.
Soon, a knock sounded and Secretary Choi entered.
“Secretary Choi.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Do you remember when I told you at my brother’s funeral to look into that woman?”
“Yes, sir. I reported that she wasn’t listed as Madam Sooyoung’s family on record, but she seemed like a cousin.”
“According to her, Han Soo-young was adopted into her aunt’s household in the past. She claims she’s the real younger sister.”
One of Secretary Choi’s eyes twitched.
“…Excuse me?”
He rubbed his jaw, thinking.
“Well… The family structure sounds pretty tangled, but it’s possible.”
“Look into it again. Properly.”
“Yes, Executive Director.”
“Within two hours.”
“I’ll fly, sir.”
Secretary Choi bowed and practically sprinted out of the office.
Left alone, Ji-hyeok leaned fully back in his chair and closed his eyes.
In the taxi back to the bakery, Yoo-eul kept wiping away tears.
The driver asked what was wrong at first, but she was crying so miserably that he ended up just handing her tissues.
People cry when they’re overwhelmed.
And this situation was so frustrating and painful that the tears wouldn’t stop.
More than the humiliation of being kicked out… it was her sister’s precious baby.
She thought she might die from the fear of what the future held for her one and only nephew.
And that rough-mouthed, foul-tempered man… was supposed to be the baby’s uncle?
“Stop bothering me and get lost. He’s my money-maker.”
“Hicc… What kind of bastard says something like that…”
“Young lady, did you break up with your boyfriend?” the taxi driver asked gently.
Too overwhelmed, Yoo-eul broke down even harder.
“Driver… sob… listen… My sister recently… hic… passed away… kku-euk…”
“Oh goodness… Lord have mercy…”
“And… my nephew… He’s not even a year old yet…”
“A baby not even one? Good heavens.”
“And that so-called uncle said the baby is his money-maker and told me to get lost! Waaaah!”
“What?!”
The driver burst into curses too harsh to repeat.
And that’s when Yoo-eul fully realized it.
Even a third party was furious. It wasn’t unreasonable for her to be heartbroken and worried sick about her nephew.
The driver encouraged her to fight legally and win.
At that, Yoo-eul cried even harder.
Because she knew better than anyone: legally, she couldn’t be the baby’s guardian. The more she pushed legally, the more disadvantaged she would be.
Because she wasn’t her sister’s legal sibling.
And worst of all, the opponent was Sehan Group—one of the top five conglomerates controlling the Korean economy.
It was like throwing a quail egg at a boulder.
Unaware of that, the driver reassured her. “If the judge understands your sincerity, he’ll listen to you, young lady.”
“Uwaaah…”
Yoo-eul sobbed harder.
Later, when she got out of the taxi, her tear- and snot-streaked face was a mess. She wiped it with her bare hand and entered the bakery.
Ji-eun and Tae-hoon, who had been eating the leftover bread, jumped up in shock.
“Hey! Han Yoo-eul!”
“What the—what happened to you?!”
Seeing her worried friends—still with crumbs on their lips—made Yoo-eul’s tears threaten to fall again.
She bit her tongue, swallowed them back, asked for some water, and sat down.
After chugging the cold water Tae-hoon brought, her tangled emotions slowly settled.
Thankfully, her friends didn’t pressure her.
After taking a few deep breaths, Yoo-eul told them everything that had happened at Sehan Group HQ.
From trying to meet the chairman, to running into the chairman’s second son—her nephew’s uncle—and the appalling things he said.
“That—That guy’s a psychopath!”
“I’m speechless. Seriously… wow…”
Both friends were just as furious as Yoo-eul.
“Yah, Han Yoo-eul, don’t back down! How can someone like him raise a kid?!”
“Yeah, Yoo-eul! If you want, I can even go live on stream and ask for help! Let’s blow this up! If it becomes public enough, that jerk might lose custody just from public outrage!”
Yoo-eul bit her lip hard.
With Ji-eun’s 500,000 subscribers, maybe—just maybe—they’d have a chance.
“Then… we’d need solid proof he’s trash, right?”
“Yeah. Do you have any recordings? Messages?”
Yoo-eul gritted her teeth.
“I’ll get them.”
She clenched her fist with determination.
No matter what, she would protect her nephew from a man who saw a child as nothing more than a money machine.
Dusk had already fallen.
Busy with work all day, Ji-hyeok had completely forgotten that he’d sent Secretary Choi out on an errand. He let out a low sigh and reached for the keyphone.
At that moment, a knock sounded at the door.
