Clean House
“I bribed officials to hide the records of the orphanage I was adopted from and sent employees to tail me. And then, just like they killed my mother, they planned to kill me too, to erase any future trouble.”
“!”
James laid it all bare, including the fact that Choi Jeong-san had drawn up the murder plot through Park, the chief of staff, and had genuinely intended to carry it out.
“...You were going to run your own child over with a truck? What kind of human even thinks like that?”
“And once he learned I had money, he meant to kill me and take it all for himself. After my adoptive parents died in the United States, I had no relatives left.”
“That bastard was worse than a dog...”
...Hey, you do realize he’s the son of that bastard’s father, right?
James knew that Chairman Choi Tae-yeong had not been much different from Choi Jeong-san in his younger days.
“But I survived because of the woman I was seeing.”
“...A woman? Our grandson had a woman he was going to marry?”
James gave the chairman news that would be welcomed with both hands.
“I’m seeing the daughter of Chairman Kim Seong-oh of ST Group in earnest.”
“!!”
“Chairman Kim likes me very much. He looks for me all the time, and not long ago he even gave me a golf membership as a gift.”
“Ho ho ho! Ho ho ho! Chairman Kim has a good eye for people.”
It was a day on which Chairman Choi’s emotions kept swinging between rage and delight.
“In any case!”
James still wore a face full of resentment.
“I’m sure President Choi knows everything I just told you. You can ask him yourself, Grandfather.”
“......”
“I don’t want President Choi to ever become my father. I don’t think I could stand to look him in the face.”
“...I’m not shameless enough to wish for that, either.”
And yet he still answers whenever he’s called Grandfather?
James knew that in his youth, Chairman Choi Tae-yeong’s personality had not been all that different from Choi Jeong-san’s either.
“Please keep my information hidden as much as possible. Dispose of your shares as quickly as you can and make it look as if you’re cutting ties with TY Group. Only then can TY Telecom escape this crisis and recover.”
“Until then, you must not reveal my information to anyone outside. I’ve already made that especially clear to the board.”
“All right. I’ll do as you say.”
“And I’m afraid we’ll have to push the TY Group family out of the company, too. Please understand, Grandfather.”
It was a poisoned wound that could only be healed by expelling the TY Group ruling family from the company.
“Then... even the second son?”
“Yes. TY Chemical as well.”
“!!”
“I’ll bring President Choi Jeong-pil and his sons back once enough time has passed and public opinion has cooled.”
“Since TY Telecom already holds most of TY Chemical’s shares, it’ll end up exactly as you say anyway.”
“For now, a voluntary resignation seems to be the right answer. I’m sorry to cut him loose myself.”
“All right. I’ll call him in and tell him.”
“Ah... and there’s one more thing I should mention at the end.”
It wasn’t especially important, but it concerned TY Chemical in part.
“President Choi Jeong-pil’s youngest daughter is named Ho-jung, isn’t she?”
“Yes. Ho-jung is my youngest granddaughter. ...But she doesn’t work at TY Chemical.”
James casually revealed his own connection to Ho-jung as well.
“I met Ho-jung in LA once. I didn’t know we were family back then.”
“Oh?”
“Ho-jung probably still doesn’t know, either? I couldn’t say anything before telling you, Grandfather.”
“Heh. Ho ho ho. I suppose the ties of blood drew you two together.”
“President Choi Jeong-pil must have cared for Ho-jung a great deal. Her face has never appeared in the press, so I knew her for a long time without realizing it.”
It was a way to earn the trust of a man who valued bloodlines above all else.
“I’ll make sure President Choi Jeong-pil returns to his post.”
“Good. Yes. Good.”
Once you finish with the shares, the rest is my turn.
“It would be nice if the whole family could meet together.”
“Today doesn’t seem like the day for it, Grandfather. The press is still a problem. It’ll be a few months yet...”
“...Yes. It would be better to see one another when there’s time later.”
“I’ll have a car ready. I’d like to escort you to the lobby, but there are too many outside eyes, so I’ll see you off here instead. I’ve also made sure the current board members can greet you on the way out.”
“Very well. There’s no point in being seen by the reporters.”
When Chairman Choi went down to the lobby, the directors who had voted to make Colt Evans the representative director were all waiting there.
“Chairman...”
The chairman, wearing a warm expression unlike the one he’d had earlier, patted the shoulder of the vice president standing at the front.
“Vice President Son...”
Vice President Son Jeong-ho had already sensed from the chairman’s words and gaze at the end of the board meeting that something had gone wrong, but now the chairman’s words made that suspicion melt away like snow.
“...You’ve worked hard.”
“T-thank you, Chairman.”
“All of you, our grandson Jimin...”
As expected, he really was the chairman’s biological grandson!
“No, I hope you’ll work with James to lead TY Group.”
“Of course, Chairman. Don’t worry.”
“Yes... yes.”
Though Chairman Choi had been dealt a crushing defeat at the shareholders’ meeting, he was leaving TY Telecom with a satisfied look on his face. Then he turned back, glancing once over the building. It was a look sent toward the grandson who was seeing him off in his heart from inside.
Where on earth did such a monster come from? Ho ho ho.
“Chairman. The board meeting...”
“Let’s go home. I’ve had everything stripped from me today. Ho ho ho.”
“......”
The driver found it strange that the chairman kept saying he’d been stripped of everything, yet still seemed to be in such a good mood.
Has he gone senile...?
“What are you waiting for? Drive already!”
“Y-yes, Chairman.”
“I’m not chairman anymore. Just an old man with a lot of grandchildren. Ho ho ho.”
“...Yes, Chairman.”
Still, it wasn’t as if the driver could call him Grandfather.
* * *
“......”
James stood with a frozen expression, watching Chairman Choi’s car pull away.
“Your son killed my mother and tried to kill me too, and you still laugh and tell me to call you Grandfather?”
And not a single word of apology had followed for any of it.
“A man killed another human being. Fine, I survived, but my mom didn’t. Our mother, Jeong Min-ju!”
Even if the attempt on his own life had failed, the murder of his mother Jeong Min-ju had truly happened.
“You think this is something that ends with mere resentment?”
He had stayed polite to the very end, hoping that maybe, just maybe, he would hear an apology, but Chairman Choi Tae-yeong had treated Jeong Min-ju’s death as if it meant nothing and brushed it aside. Even now, in that car as it left the place, there was not the slightest trace of guilt.
“Your son did this to my mother and me. Your son!”
James believed that when children could not pay for their sins, their parents had to answer for them.
“Choi Tae-yeong, you’ll go first and wait for Choi Jeong-san.”
With a face colder than before, James turned away and headed for the president’s office of TY Telecom, which was now his company.
“Colt!”
“Ahem. You should call me Representative Colt.”
“The play’s over, Col-col. Time to go back to how we really are.”
“Ah. Already?”
“The chairman’s gone. The board resolution went through today, and his shares are being sorted out too.”
“Ohhh. Magic really does come in handy.”
Colt believed that everything that had happened at the board meeting had been handled by magic.
“It wasn’t magic. It was my grandfather.”
But it hadn’t been magic.
“...Jin-jin, are you still shaken up from the acting?”
“The man from earlier really is my grandfather.”
It was time to tell Colt the truth too.
“...Really?”
“Yeah. Really.”
“Shit...”
“Today, Choi Jeong-pil, who was on the same inside-director shortlist as you at the shareholders’ meeting...”
“Huh! Then he was your father?”
“No, my uncle.”
Chairman Choi had only two sons, which meant there was no mystery about who James’s father was.
“Uh... then President Choi Jeong-san, the one sitting in that seat earlier...”
“Right. The man who biologically left me his genes.”
“Damn.”
“And I have even more shocking news.”
“Is there news about James’s mother too?”
“Don’t jump ahead. My mother died a long time ago.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
“Forget that. This is news that concerns both you and me.”
Next came news about Ho-jung.
“Me too? What did I do?”
“Ho-jung is involved too.”
“Huh? Ho-jung too?”
“You met President Choi Jeong-pil earlier, right?”
“Yeah. That guy stared at me like he wanted to kill me. Heh. So I glared right back. Maybe my intense gaze even made him wet himself. I also showed him the power of my grip when we shook hands. He’s probably running to the hospital by now... Ah, was that too much for your uncle?”
James let out a long sigh.
“Hah. Why would you do something useless like that?”
“How was I supposed to know?”
“That man is Ho-jung’s father.”
“......”
Colt tilted his head, wondering if he’d heard wrong.
“What? What did you say?”
“So Ho-jung probably heard your name too. You’re the one competing with her father for the president’s seat.”
If she had looked at the official disclosures herself, she would have found James’s name too, but since she hadn’t asked about him, it was obvious she’d heard it through someone else.
“......”
Still dazed, Colt was sorting through the situation in his head when he suddenly sprang to his feet.
“Damn it!! So I shoved Ho-jung’s father aside and took this seat?”
“Yes. And just now, I agreed with the chairman to have him removed from TY Chemical. Well, not removed exactly, voluntary resignation.”
It wasn’t enough that he’d displaced the man from the candidacy; now he was being pushed out of the position he held as well.
“Hey! How am I supposed to face Ho-jung after this!!”
“I said it was an agreement. The chairman and I both agreed on it!”
“...Won’t Ho-jung hate me?”
“She’ll understand.”
“How can she possibly understand...”
“Because I, the one who took over TY Group, am Ho-jung’s cousin.”
“...Ah. So that’s how the blood relation works? We’re basically family anyway?”
James didn’t think of them as family, but he saw no need to argue the point.
“Still, explain it well to Ho-jung when you see her later. And make sure the rumor doesn’t spread outside.”
“Col-col.”
“And get used to the representative director seat quickly. Since Choi Jeong-san hasn’t actually done anything, there’s no need for a handover. If you don’t know something, talk to Chief Park in the strategy office.”
“Cool!”
But then Colt’s phone began to vibrate.
Vrrr.
“Huh! It’s Ho-jung!”
“Looks like she saw the article.”
Colt’s face, freshly appointed as an inside director at today’s shareholders’ meeting, was already in the news.
* * *
Ho-jung had been waiting for the shareholders’ meeting results after hearing that her father might become the president of TY Telecom.
They said the odds were definitely high.
The shares held by her grandfather’s and eldest uncle’s families were set to be joined by the National Pension Service, and on top of that, she had heard her mother had secured additional shares by borrowing the strength of her maternal family.
Our shares are 28.5 percent, the National Pension Service has 7.2, and Mom secured another 4 percent.
All together, that meant a reassuring 39.7 percent.
If only Dad can become TY Group’s successor...
Her father, who had run TY Chemical, had in truth been destined to be driven out once her grandfather died. Everyone in the family knew that her greedy eldest uncle would not leave his younger brother alone.
Then I won’t have to keep worrying anymore.
But the result of the shareholders’ meeting was devastating.
“How...”
After the first article appeared, a flood of others followed in rapid succession.
And in the article that included the first photograph, she could see a face she knew all too well.
“Colt? You said it wasn’t you!!”
It was a photo of Colt being interviewed after the shareholders’ meeting ended.
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