Jeju (3)
Lee Seok-hun thrashed in the water after plunging into the sea.
But no one moved hastily.
Na Kang-hae’s cold stare, the pistol tucked at his waist, and the blood on his clothes had frozen the air around them solid.
“Working together... What the hell are you talking about...?”
Miki Ho finally forced the words out.
“The closer Lee Seok-hun got to Marado, the more he kept scanning the area,” Kang-hae said.
Miki Ho had noticed it too. He had simply assumed the man was looking for whales with his eyes.
Kang-hae went on, “He wouldn’t stop fidgeting with his fingers. He’d look away the moment you met his eyes. That’s the kind of thing that comes from anxiety.”
“But that alone isn’t...”
“The engine.”
“...?”
“If seaweed gets tangled in the propeller, it overloads the engine and you get a shudder right before it stalls. But that didn’t happen.”
The moment Victor Lam heard that, he headed for the helm.
Then he dragged the captain back with him.
Kang-hae leveled the gun at the captain’s temple.
“Was there really seaweed caught in the propeller?”
“...”
The captain was pale with fear, but he didn’t answer.
BANG—
Kang-hae fired into the air.
Then he aimed the gun back at the captain’s temple.
“You don’t have to talk. We can go into the water right now and check the propeller. I won’t ask twice. Was there really seaweed caught in the propeller?”
“N-no...”
At last, the captain opened his mouth.
“Then?”
“I was told to cut the engines if the Haedongho showed up near Marado...”
He was talking about the fishing boat.
“By Executive Director Lee Seok-hun?”
“Yes...”
Everyone looked stunned.
Especially Miki Ho; the emotions on his face were plain to see, a twisted mix of fury and betrayal.
Everyone else, Kang-hae included, looked to Miki Ho as if to ask what he was going to do.
“We’d better have a proper conversation first.”
Victor Lam lowered a ladder into the sea, and Lee Seok-hun, who had been flailing helplessly in the water, climbed up onto the yacht.
Soaked through, he trembled all over.
Not from the cold, but from fear.
Ever since the gunshots had sounded from the fishing boat, he had known something was wrong. Now the icy looks aimed at him made it clear that everything had been exposed.
“You’re going to explain to me what the hell happened.” Miki Ho’s voice was cold enough to cut.
“Y-your sister made a better offer...”
Terrified, Lee Seok-hun confessed everything.
Oasis Group had agreed to invest a 70 percent stake in the casino being built in Macau, and Miki Ho had secured the remaining 30 percent along with the land selection and operating rights.
In return, Oasis Group was to receive 50 percent of the net profit.
Miki Ho would take 20 percent of the net profit in the form of royalties and management fees.
The rest was to be invested in a local development fund created as a condition of acquiring the casino license.
But then Stacy Ho offered 60 percent of the net profit.
Of course, there was a condition.
She wanted him to kill his half-brother and his friends.
When Lee Seok-hun finished, Miki Ho was trembling with rage.
He thought Stacy Ho had finally crossed the line.
He could accept that she was aiming at the people around him.
But trying to kill him was something else entirely.
The Black Mamba really has crossed the line.
The Black Mamba was Stacy Ho’s nickname, and Miki Ho swore that he would have his revenge.
But revenge could wait.
Right now, he needed to decide what to do with Lee Seok-hun standing in front of him.
“Kang-hae.”
Miki Ho called for him.
“Yes.”
“If you were me, what would you do?”
“I’d kill him.”
At Kang-hae’s words, Lee Seok-hun’s face went white with terror.
Miki Ho thought the answer was right.
But the man in question was the second son of the Oasis Group chairman, and Miki Ho began calculating in his head.
After a moment, he spoke.
“I’ll let you live.”
“Th-thank you.”
Lee Seok-hun bowed his head over and over, still shaking.
“But there’s a condition.”
“W-what is it...?”
“The contract will proceed as planned. But the profit split changes. Oasis Group will take 40 percent of the net profit, and we’ll take 30.”
“Th-that... the chairman won’t approve that...”
“Then he can watch his darling son become shark food off the coast of Jeju.”
“...”
Miki Ho had Victor Lam call Lee Su-cheol, the chairman of Oasis Group, and set up a meeting.
* * *
That evening.
The Oasis Suite at Jeju.
Miki Ho looked across the table at the man sitting opposite him.
Lee Su-cheol, chairman of Oasis Group.
The moment he’d received Miki Ho’s call, he had boarded a plane and flown straight to Jeju.
When he was young, Lee Su-cheol had started out in loan-sharking at Namdaemun.
Using the money he made from that business, he entered the real estate market and grew his fortune.
Then he built hotels and foreigner-only casinos on the land he had bought, creating a hotel empire with real estate and building assets worth more than five trillion won.
He was over eighty now, yet his back remained straight.
He had the kind of face that suggested he would bite out your throat at the slightest sign of weakness.
But Miki Ho wasn’t especially afraid.
His own father had been the emperor of Macau, after all.
And he had inherited that blood.
Besides, the initiative had already shifted to him.
“It seems my son made a rather serious mistake. I apologize.”
Lee Su-cheol spoke first.
“Executive Director Lee Seok-hun must have been spoiled as the late-born son. He’s certainly a coward. It’s hard to believe he pulled something like this alone without approval from above.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I’ll judge the sincerity of your apology by your compensation, not your words.”
Miki Ho slid the contract lying on the table toward him.
But Lee Su-cheol didn’t look at it.
He already knew the profit split had changed.
“You do seem a little too greedy.”
“Well. If you think of it as the price of your late-born son’s life, maybe it’s not so unreasonable.”
At that very moment, Lee Seok-hun was aboard a yacht in the waters off Jeju with Miki Ho’s men.
And Lee Su-cheol knew it.
“What if I sign this contract now and tear it up later?”
“...?”
“You do know that a contract made under coercion is invalid.”
“Then the world will hear that the chairman’s son not only betrayed his business partner, but tried to have him killed. Wouldn’t that cause some serious trouble for Oasis Group’s overseas expansion?”
“...”
Oasis Group was planning to expand not only into the Philippines and Hong Kong, but also into Vietnam, Malaysia, and Indonesia.
But given the nature of the casino business, local partnerships were essential.
And if word got out that they had not only betrayed a business partner but tried to kill him, securing those partnerships would become far more difficult.
Even if they did manage to sign agreements, they would clearly be negotiating from a position of weakness.
It was a dead end.
“Let’s make it three years.”
“Three years...”
“For three years, you’ll get 30 percent. After that, we’ll readjust the split.”
“Three years is too short.”
The tug-of-war between Miki Ho and Lee Su-cheol continued after that, and in the end they reached an agreement: for the next five years, Miki Ho would take 30 percent of the profits.
And at that same time...
On the flight back to Seoul, Kang-hae and Seong Ha-yeong sat side by side.
They had booked separate tickets, but Miki Ho had bought them business class seats, and so they were returning together.
Seong Ha-yeong felt conflicted. This was already the second time she had gone through something like this, and beneath that discomfort was something even greater: fear.
“Kang-hae.”
“Yes?”
“This is already the second time.”
“It is.”
“Aren’t you scared?”
“No.”
Kang-hae answered without hesitation, and Seong Ha-yeong could tell he meant it.
She was envious.
“Will something like this happen again?”
“No. It won’t happen again.”
“...?”
“I’ll make sure of it. So you don’t have to worry anymore.”
“...?”
Seong Ha-yeong looked at him as if she wanted to ask how he could know that, but Kang-hae said nothing.
Then, after boarding the plane, she brought up something she had wanted to ask him since before takeoff.
“By the way...”
“...?”
“Did you know?”
“Know what?”
“That Miki’s sister was sending people.”
“Yes. I got a call from the twin sisters after they crossed over to Japan.”
“Then...”
“...?”
“Coming to Jeju...”
Seong Ha-yeong trailed off.
Kang-hae didn’t say anything either, but he understood what she was thinking.
An awkward silence settled between them.
“Kang-hae.”
“Yes?”
“Let’s talk sometime soon.”
“About what?”
Kang-hae asked, but Seong Ha-yeong gave no answer.
He turned his head and looked at her profile by the window, at the way the tips of her ears were slowly turning red.
* * *
One week later.
Hong Kong International Finance Centre Convention Centre.
There, an event called the Asia Leaders Investment Forum was underway.
True to its purpose of sharing investment opportunities among Asian business leaders and promoting partnerships, men and women dressed in tuxedos and gowns greeted one another and exchanged business cards.
Stacy Ho had come from Macau to Hong Kong two days earlier to attend the event, and the moment she arrived she began trading cards with people left and right.
Then, as she stepped aside for a moment to catch her breath and wet her throat with champagne, she spotted a young man walking toward her.
He looked vaguely familiar.
Or perhaps, she thought, he was simply handsome enough to be memorable.
The man stopped in front of her with a confident stride, and Stacy Ho greeted him with a smile.
“A pleasure to meet you. I’m Stacy Ho.”
“I heard they call you the Black Mamba.”
The smile on Stacy Ho’s face vanished the instant she heard that.
She knew that nickname, of course.
But this was the first time anyone had said it to her face.
She looked at the man closely, and only then realized he was the Korean man she had once tried to have killed along with her younger brother.
“You came all the way here. You’re either brave or stupid.”
Her tone was completely different from the one she had used when greeting him a moment ago, as cold as the nickname Black Mamba itself.
“Well. It didn’t really take that much courage.” Kang-hae spoke lightly, as if it were nothing.
“Did Miki send you?”
“No. Your younger brother only got me a ticket into the venue.”
“Then what, you came here to take revenge?”
“There are priorities in this world.”
“...?”
“I’m going to kill you too, but there are people I need to kill before you.”
“Hah.”
Stacy Ho let out a dry laugh before she could stop herself.
It was the first time in her life anyone had threatened her so directly.
“So you’re here to warn me first.”
“That’s right. Listen carefully. If I get too focused on the people I need to kill before you, I might forget about killing you altogether. That would be a stroke of luck for you.”
“So what you’re saying is, if I don’t want to die, I should stay out of your sight from now on?”
“I was worried that being called the Black Mamba might also mean your head was that of a snake, but that’s a relief.”
Stacy Ho laughed again, and Kang-hae laughed with her.
“You sound like this is the first time you’ve heard a threat like that.”
“Yeah. It is. That’s why it’s so damn entertaining.”
“Still...”
“...?”
“The first time dying is also the last. It won’t be funny at all.”
As he said that, Kang-hae’s expression changed, and for the first time Stacy Ho faced a chill she had never felt before.
“I don’t care what happens between you and Miki. So maybe you should stop worrying about me and focus on your fight with him.”
“...”
“And from where I’m standing, Miki doesn’t look like the sort who’ll go down easy.”
“...”
“I hope we don’t run into each other again. I mean that.”
With those words, Kang-hae placed a hand on Stacy Ho’s shoulder.
The instant his hand touched her, goosebumps broke out over her skin.
Kang-hae stared at her wordlessly for a moment longer, then lowered his hand and turned away toward the exit.
And Stacy Ho, watching his retreating back, was seized by a feeling she couldn’t quite name.
Rage.
Anxiety.
Confusion.
Humiliation.
Curiosity.
Hostility.
And fear.
Other emotions too, too many to name, kept welling up inside her, and she decided that, just as that man had said, she ought to focus on her battle with her brother.