The One Who Stabbed Me
Kang In-hyuk visited the workshop after work at Go Mi-ah’s summons.
“Why do you look so exhausted? Did you pull an all-nighter again?”
The dark circles under her eyes were so pronounced they were visible even while she sat in front of the computer. Things should have gotten easier after Norman McGrath took over the Korean branch of AMK Partners, yet here she was.
“It’s because I finally finished optimizing the TCL Code for TN SOFT, you idiot!”
“Ah!”
“Ah? You seriously dumped this insanely annoying and complicated job on me and then completely forgot about it?!”
“I thought we could just use the version I made earlier.”
“It was unfinished code, you know? Aaaargh!”
Go Mi-ah scratched furiously at her long red hair, clearly irritated.
In-hyuk noticed white flakes falling around her and took a cautious step back.
“…More importantly, you said there were signs of people looking into AMK Partners on the web. Did you trace it back to Under Investing?”
“You already knew? Well, if you know that much about stocks, it’d be weirder if you didn’t.”
It was a high-end stock information site that operated on expensive membership fees and flat-rate subscriptions—several steps above mere gossip rags.
While it didn’t cross into outright insider trading, corporate insiders sold near-verified information at premium prices. In-hyuk had used the site frequently in his previous life.
Of course, years later the operator would be arrested during a prosecution investigation into insider trading and the site would be shut down.
“Did you find out who initiated the inquiry?”
All transactions on Under Investing were anonymous. Unmasking someone’s identity required Go Mi-ah’s skills.
“I just finished. The location was Tae Shin Asset Management. The last four digits of the internal extension I traced through the IP were… 4885?”
“That’s Executive Director Yang Chan-woo. So, did you manage to pull any useful information?”
“As you know, the only deal where AMK Partners really stood out was Raison Energy. Everything else was mostly day trading, so unless someone was specifically investigating us, there wouldn’t be anything noticeable.”
“Then at least they’ll have learned roughly how much profit we’ve made recently.”
“Probably.”
In-hyuk fell into thought.
AMK Partners was a tool created to locate and destroy the forces backing Baek Si-hwan. Even now, he continued to grow his capital using the experience and future knowledge he possessed.
But he still couldn’t gauge the opponent’s true scale.
At the very least, the fact that they had planted people in multiple companies’ security teams and could even interfere with police investigations proved they were no small fry.
‘I moved as discreetly as possible to avoid drawing attention… so why would Executive Director Yang Chan-woo of all people be looking into us?’
At present, Yang Chan-woo was working hard to expand his influence inside Tae Shin Asset Management by putting Executive Director Oh Kang-gu—the leader of the executive faction—front and center.
They were trying to move quietly in their own way, but In-hyuk knew exactly how the company would end up.
‘Originally, after Tae Ju-ha’s death, Executive Director Oh Kang-gu would take the representative position. Then Tae Seok-ho would use him to secure shares in both Tae Shin Asset Management and Taeshin Mulsan through paper companies.’
The proposal Tae Seok-ho had thrown at him last time—asking to join hands—was part of that very plan to swallow the entire Taeshin Group.
Having finished his thoughts, In-hyuk looked at Go Mi-ah.
“I think I have a rough idea of what’s going on.”
“Do you have any guesses?”
“It’s a sign that war is about to break out inside Taeshin Group. And it’s exactly the timing I’ve been waiting for.”
“Waiting for? And by war, you mean a successor war?”
“It should have happened a long time ago.”
Chairman Tae Geon-seung’s long reign had already pushed the dissatisfaction of the Tae Seok-hyun and Tae Seok-ho brothers to its limit.
“Don’t tell me… the shares we’ve been collecting were for that? Are you planning to jump into the Taeshin Group succession dispute too?”
“I’m still thinking about that. After the top seat becomes vacant, whether I’ll take it myself… or put someone else in it.”
“Is that even possible? We’ve gathered a decent amount, but… it’s still only a little over 3.5%.”
At the current share price of Taeshin Mulsan, that stake was worth roughly 680 billion won. Although In-hyuk had collected them whenever the stock price dipped in his memories, it was still a considerable amount of capital.
“I’ll take care of that, so don’t worry about it. More importantly… it’s about time.”
When In-hyuk glanced at his watch, Go Mi-ah tilted her head.
“Huh? Time for what? Who’s coming here?”
Riiiiing—
Right on cue, the doorbell rang.
In-hyuk walked to the front door, checked the intercom, and opened it.
“Yo~ Boss!”
Hong Yu-geon and Van Hester of Charybdis were standing there.
“Come in.”
They glanced past In-hyuk toward Go Mi-ah, who was sitting in a computer chair.
“…Who’s that?”
“She’s the programmer who works with me. Her name is Go Mi-ah. She’s twenty-four. These two are Hong Yu-geon and Van Hester. They’re former mercenaries and handle the external information gathering I request.”
The two men who had been listening to the introductions looked shocked. Hong Yu-geon shouted in a hurry.
“This kid is twenty-four?! Not a middle schooler?”
It was because her face looked far too young.
At that moment, Go Mi-ah scrunched up her face and yelled back.
“What?! Kid? Is this old man crazy?!”
“Old man? Who are you calling old man?!”
Hong Yu-geon flared up and tried to walk toward her, but In-hyuk blocked his path.
“Whoa, whoa. She may look young, but she’s an adult. These guys have been through a lot, so they look older than they are. Anyway! I called you all here today to get acquainted. We’ll probably be working together a lot from now on.”
“What kind of information gathering do these old men do, exactly?”
“Tailing, wiretapping, that sort of thing.”
“Ah, like private investigators?”
Hong Yu-geon’s brow twitched. Meanwhile, because the conversation kept flowing in Korean, Van Hester simply stood quietly with a calm expression.
In the midst of it, In-hyuk let out a small sigh.
“Everyone here is making money or getting paid thanks to me. So let’s not pick fights for no reason.”
“Tsk!”
“Che…”
Once the two had quieted down, In-hyuk continued.
“There will be a lot of information we need to share going forward. We also need to pay more attention to security. So from now on, just hand over everything you investigate to Mi-ah here.”
“Well, that’s not hard.”
“Mi-ah, set up the program on their communication devices.”
“Ok—! Hand over your phones, old men.”
As they were handing over their phones, Hong Yu-geon suddenly looked like he remembered something.
“There’s also some data I haven’t passed on yet.”
“What data?”
“Photos from when I was tailing Baek Si-hwan. I forgot to mention it because of the Daemyeong incident. It’s only a few days’ worth, but if you want to check, go ahead.”
They had followed Baek Si-hwan on In-hyuk’s orders ever since the Andong incident.
“Was there anything unusual?”
“I wouldn’t know that much. Oh, he did go to a hospital.”
“A hospital? Mi-ah, pull up those photos.”
The sound of typing filled the room as the computer screen changed. Just as Hong Yu-geon had said, there were images of Baek Si-hwan entering a hospital.
“…Shin Hyeon Hospital? Did you check the internal movements too?”
“Of course. Scroll further and there should be video. It was hard to take photos inside a hospital.”
As he said, a video appeared, and Go Mi-ah immediately played it.
It showed Baek Si-hwan entering a consultation room.
“Can you find the medical records from around that time?”
“Wait a second.”
Along with her answer, Go Mi-ah’s fingers flew across the keyboard. The screen flickered rapidly as she breached Shin Hyeon Hospital’s security and retrieved what In-hyuk had asked for.
“I don’t know what it means, but… this is it, right?”
It was a medical chart.
In-hyuk stepped closer to the monitor and read the contents.
“Suture of a laceration approximately 3cm in length…”
“This is treatment for a stab wound.”
Hong Yu-geon and Van Hester could understand the meaning.
And In-hyuk’s gaze never left the screen.
‘So this bastard… was that guy.’
The location and size of the wound perfectly matched the injury In-hyuk had inflicted on the uninvited guest back when he dealt with Pyo Jun-woo’s gang on the outskirts of Gyeonggi Province.
Considering the connection between the organization Pyo Jun-woo belonged to and Baek Si-hwan, the probability that it was the same person was very high.
At the same time, a smile formed on In-hyuk’s lips.
“Thanks to you, I learned something important.”
“Glad it helped, Boss.”
Then Go Mi-ah discovered something else and spoke up.
“He also went to a place called the Parseez Hotel?”
“Ah, the security there is tight from the lobby, so we couldn’t follow him inside.”
At Hong Yu-geon’s explanation, Go Mi-ah flowed into the hotel’s server like water and quickly found footage matching the exact date and time.
“Can you tell what he did inside?”
In response to In-hyuk’s question after checking the monitor again, Go Mi-ah frowned.
“The security system here is weird. The moment he got in the elevator and pressed a floor, the CCTV turned off. Same with the server.”
In-hyuk already knew what that was about.
“Security Floor. It’s a separate suite floor that’s practically inaccessible to anyone without permission.”
“A hotel has something like that?”
“It’s a service available only to the highest tier of VIPs. Even who uses it is kept strictly confidential. If you dig through the server, you probably won’t find any records at all.”
It was a known fact that the Parseez Hotel’s Security Floor had received massive rental fees through paper company accounts for over a decade, which would later lead to investigations for tax evasion and breach of fiduciary duty.
“Seriously… these people are pointlessly thorough. So what now? We’re curious what this Baek Si-hwan guy did there.”
“I’m more curious about who he met than what he did. Still, thanks to you two, I can decide on the next step.”
Both Hong Yu-geon and Go Mi-ah tilted their heads at that.
“Check the rest of the data too.”
“Hold on. I’ll finish installing the program on their phones first.”
In-hyuk turned his head for a moment and noticed Van Hester picking up one of the chocolate-colored(?) cookies from a plate on the dining table and bringing it to his mouth.
“Ah, don’t—!”
But before he could finish speaking, Van Hester had already bitten into it.
Crunch—
What would happen next was easy to predict.
Yet Van Hester continued chewing without issue and even let out a satisfied comment.
“Um∼ Sabe bien.”
It was Spanish, his native language.
At the same time, In-hyuk could only tilt his head in confusion.
“…Really?”
“What? I skipped dinner to come here and I’m starving! Why are you eating alone?”
Hong Yu-geon grinned as he popped a cookie into his mouth. Not long after, his face crumpled horribly and he tried to spit it out.
In-hyuk, having predicted this, quickly covered Hong Yu-geon’s mouth.
“Mmph—! Mmph! Mmph? Mmph?!”
In-hyuk wrapped both arms around him so he couldn’t move, preventing him from spitting out the cookie. Even so, Hong Yu-geon struggled with all his might to break free, but In-hyuk’s arms didn’t budge an inch.
In the end, Hong Yu-geon had no choice but to swallow the cookie without even properly chewing it.
Gulp—
After confirming that his Adam’s apple had moved, In-hyuk whispered quietly to him.
“Never say it tastes bad. If you understand, nod your head.”
When Hong Yu-geon slowly nodded, In-hyuk finally released him.
Go Mi-ah had been so focused on the computer that she hadn’t noticed any of what just happened.
“Ugh! What the hell is this?”
“Shh! Mi-ah made these herself. If you say what you’re thinking right now, she might chase you for the rest of your life.”
“Seriously! What did she even put in these?”
“That’s why I tried to stop you… By the way, why is Van completely fine?”
In the meantime, Van Hester—apparently enjoying the taste—had already picked up and eaten a third cookie.