Catch the Kidnapper (1)
That's the problem. Han Seung-woo is an incredibly tempting talent, but there's no easy way to bring him over. I've already given Seong-gyun information that could become my weakness, so I can't assume his loyalty lies with me. In fact, for the same reason as the PR team, Han Seung-woo has no reason to like me. He was one of the people responsible for cleaning up after the messes Kwon Ho-gyun used to make. No matter how many times I bow my head at his house or show up wearing a straw hat asking him to join my side, it won't work. The chances of him seeing me as the next successor and joining my faction are, at least for now, almost nonexistent.
From the outside, my credentials are limited to being the representative attorney of Law Firm Seungbaek and the second-largest shareholder of QS Delivery. The fact that QS Telecom is in my camp is still a secret between me and Shin Ho-jung, and the single share of Jangbaek Corporation I took from Jang Mi-ye is a hidden card I can't play yet. Even if I mobilized the Audit Team like I did with Shin Ho-jung, it wouldn't be enough. There are exactly two places within the QS Group where the Audit Team's eyes don't reach: the Chairman's office where Kwon Byung-do resides, and the Chairman's Secretariat where Han Seung-woo works—the very place that's giving me such a headache right now.
What if I wait until my influence expands a little more before trying to recruit him? That wasn't a good idea either. Han Seung-woo has already handed my rivals a weapon they can use to bring me down. This time, I managed to expose Kwon Seong-gyun's internal cash accumulation just in time and got through it with quick thinking, but there's no guarantee that kind of luck will repeat. Before Han Seung-woo takes another hostile step against me, I need to make him my ally—quickly and decisively.
One fortunate thing is that I know Han Seung-woo quite well. Back when I lived as Kang Min-chan and had to clean up after the troublemaker Kwon Ho-gyun, he was my direct superior—the one I was always bound to deal with on business matters. If I summarize what I know about him:
He is the only high school graduate in the entire QS Group to rise to the position of Chief of the Chairman's Secretariat—an extraordinary success story. Kwon Byung-do trusts him enough to entrust him with all the dirty work that needs to stay hidden. To handle that work, he operates across the boundaries of legality and deep into outright illegal territory. He is so skilled at concealing his emotions and thoughts that no one except Kwon Byung-do claims to truly know what's going on inside his head. He always smiles, but the moment that smile disappears, the rumors say the surroundings turn into a sea of blood.
Then, like lightning flashing before my eyes, the solution struck me. The answer lay in how well I knew Han Seung-woo. I know him better than anyone—better, in some ways, than he knows himself. Because I worked with him in the future, five years from now. That means I can prevent the one tragedy he considered the greatest misfortune of his life.
The incident happened while I was still working at a rural prosecutor's office, before I joined the QS Group Secretariat, so I only heard about it later. Han Seung-woo's only daughter, nine-year-old Han A-young, had been kidnapped. As with most kidnappings, the motive was money. The perpetrators wanted to squeeze cash out of the wealthy QS Group but were too afraid to target the chairman's family directly, so they chose the secretary chief's daughter instead—someone who could still access company funds.
When Kwon Byung-do heard the news, he valued Han Seung-woo's contributions enough to withdraw cash from the safe and pay the ransom. Han Seung-woo delivered the money, but after receiving it, the kidnappers killed Han A-young and disappeared. The man who had never once taken a day off or used vacation in decades of service took exactly one week off work. It was the only time he ever showed his emotions. Whenever he drank at secretariat gatherings, he would bring it up—how adorable his daughter was, how well she played the piano even though she was under ten, how despicable the kidnappers were. Once, unable to contain my curiosity, I asked, "Did they catch the kidnappers? How many years did they get?"
For a case like that, it should have been all over the eight o'clock news, with the sentence known nationwide. As a former prosecutor turned lawyer, I found it strange that I hadn't heard the verdict. If the investigation had failed and the culprit was still at large, or if the trial was delayed, I had even considered offering legal help. But when Han Seung-woo heard my question, he smiled at me. I still don't know how to describe that smile—it was completely different from the one he wore at the office. It was a smile meant to instill fear, not goodwill. Then he answered, "Court? Do you think I would let a bastard like that stand trial and eat prison food on my tax money? I made sure he never got caught and never saw a courtroom. Ever."
Fortunately, I had just joined and kept my hair short; if it had been long, it would have stood on end like a lion's mane. Thankfully, I had enough insight to understand what he meant and enough self-control not to ask for more details. When he said he made sure the kidnapper would never be caught or stand trial, it meant he had killed the man during that week off—perfectly, without leaving any trace that could interfere with his work. It was only natural for a suspect on the run after committing a serious crime to disappear, but a perfect crime in twenty-first-century South Korea, a developed country, wasn't something you could just pull off. That was when I became certain the rumor that the surroundings turn into a sea of blood when he stops smiling wasn't just smoke without fire.
This was also the only incident where Han Seung-woo openly defied Kwon Byung-do. At the time, Kwon Byung-do had tried to use the PR team to leak the story to the press, hoping to gain public sympathy by portraying a top executive's family as victims of such a horrific crime. When Han Seung-woo heard about it, he went straight to the chairman and told him not to commercially exploit his daughter's death. Just remembering this story strengthens my resolve: I must never make an enemy of Mr. Bloodbath.
Right now, he's only passing documents to Seong-gyun, but if he truly turns against me, there's no guarantee I won't suffer the same horrific staged suicide as before my regression.
So from now on, I have to do whatever it takes to catch the kidnapper before he kills Han Seung-woo's daughter, Han A-young. The first thing I need to do is remember when this kidnapping happens. Let's see—the year is definitely this year. I recall the weather forecast that came after the report of Han A-young's disappearance. It mentioned it would get quite cold, and there was talk of the CSAT cold wave. So when is this year's CSAT? Ugh... After graduating from university, I'd become completely numb to the CSAT date. A quick search shows this Thursday is this year's exam day. Now that I have a rough timeframe, I need to focus intensely. The report of Han A-young's disappearance would have aired one or two days before the CSAT. That means the actual incident likely happened about a day before the report. And today is Monday. Damn. The kidnapping of Han A-young will happen today or tomorrow. The perpetrator is already circling her, waiting for the right moment to strike. That means I need to move—right now.
I kicked back my chair at the law firm and checked the time. It was only 10:12 a.m. Nine-year-old Han A-young would still be at elementary school. Fortunately, the chances of a child being kidnapped while at school are low. At the very least, I have until she finishes school to prepare. So what do I do first? Realizing how urgent the situation was, a list of tasks formed in my mind.
1. Locate Han A-young.
2. Secure combat strength so I won't be outmatched if I run into the kidnapper.
3. Move to her location with my fighters and apprehend the kidnapper.
4. Should I tell Han Seung-woo? No. He wouldn't believe me, and it might even sound like a threat against his precious daughter. More importantly, I have to be the one who solves this case. Only then can I win his heart.
Once the goal of catching Han A-young's kidnapper and the specific objectives to achieve it were set, my next steps moved like clockwork.
"Oh, Yeo Eun-ju? Could you come to my office for a moment?"
"Yes, Attorney. Did you need me?"
When the hacker Yeo Eun-ju entered my office after my call, I immediately asked what I needed.
"Are you busy with what you're working on?"
"No. Attorney Oh Il-mu asked me to sort through the application documents for the new hires, so I'm doing it in my spare time. It's not urgent."
Well, with the number of cases coming into Law Firm Seungbaek increasing daily and my time at the firm reduced because of Audit Team work, we probably did need more staff. But right now, what I needed wasn't Audit Team work or Seungbaek work.
"Then, Eun-ju, you can track phone locations too, right?"
"Yes, I can."
"Could you quickly locate the phone of Han A-young, daughter of Han Seung-woo, Chief of the Chairman's Secretariat at QS Group?"
At my request, Yeo Eun-ju asked with a slightly troubled expression, "You don't know her number, do you? What about the carrier?"
The carrier? It was hard to imagine Han Seung-woo registering his daughter with another company.
"I don't know the number, but the carrier should be QS Telecom. I have Han Seung-woo's number—would that help?"
"Yes, it would. Please give it to me. If it's QS Telecom, I can find it quickly with the intranet system access you lent me last time. But you seem really urgent right now— is it more important to do this hack fast, or to not get caught?"
Ugh. That was as difficult a question as "Do you like Mom or Dad?" Since I never had parents, it was as hard as choosing between "Will you eat only jajangmyeon for the rest of your life, or only jjambbong?" Of course, doing it fast without getting caught would be ideal, but since I can't have both, if I absolutely have to pick one... ngh.