How Dare They

"Last time I built that game company website they wanted, you know. And then their director asked me to try doing the affiliates too… Manager! I can keep working on those, right?"

Ji Jeong-eun was practically glowing.

Apparently the Hyoyeon Group work just kept rolling in.

"Of course. Go ahead."

"Then I'll keep handling it."

"Yes. Please do."

He said it loud on purpose, so Team 2 — Team Leader Yoon Jong-seok and Deputy Manager Lee Ki-seok — would hear every word.

The Business Planning Team was a sales department in all but name, and results were the only measure of ability. Most of the inquiries were coming from affiliates of subsidiaries of subsidiaries of JW Corporation, and those accounts belonged to Jung Jinwoo. Yoon Jong-seok and Lee Ki-seok still hadn't produced any real results of their own.

Ji Jeong-eun had raised her voice deliberately, making sure everyone understood she had earned her team leader's seat on merit.

"Manager, where are you going for summer vacation?"

"Well, I don't have any plans yet…"

"Want to come with me? I was thinking of sweeping through everything from Spain all the way to Poland…"

"I'm too busy. I don't think I can. Have a great trip, though."

"Why? Am I not qualified because I'm not a chaebol?"

"Huh?"

Jung Jinwoo looked at her. Ji Jeong-eun was pushing out her lower lip, looking thoroughly put out.

How much of this is a joke, and how much of it is real?

"What's with you? His Lordship, the eight-armed Casanova of high society…"

She was needling him about the photographs taken at that gathering of chaebols.

He'd told her it wasn't him more times than he could count.

Well. The man in the photos was him, technically. But he was no eight-armed Casanova.

"That's enough. I don't even have the energy to keep arguing."

"Haa… You're so cold. Do I not even register as a woman to you?"

"Our company forbids office romances."

"The way you say that, it almost sounds like you'd date me if office romances were allowed."

What on earth is going on?

Why does every woman keep throwing herself at me?

Jung Jinwoo turned his head and looked at her.

"Team Leader Ji Jeong-eun."

"Yes? What is it?"

"Team Leader Ji, you are an impressive person. You work hard, you're brilliant, and on top of all that, you're beautiful."

How many people have I given this speech to by now?

And it wasn't only Ji Jeong-eun whose eyes lit up at Jung Jinwoo's words.

Deputy Manager Lee Ki-seok was watching him, one eyebrow climbing toward his hairline.

Jung Jinwoo had noticed. Lee Ki-seok had feelings for Ji Jeong-eun.

For all he knew, the reason Ki-seok had rejoined Giseong IT in the first place was Ji Jeong-eun.

"Don't waste your time on something pointless. Go find yourself a good man. Someone like… Deputy Manager Lee Ki-seok, for instance. Smart, decisive, gets things done."

"Oh, please!"

Ji Jeong-eun's face twisted.

In that same instant, Lee Ki-seok whipped his head back toward his laptop screen.

Something definitely happened between those two.

A confession, maybe. And a rejection.

"Oh, right, Manager! How much did your paycheck come to?"

"My paycheck?"

"Yesterday was payday. How much hit your account?"

"I haven't checked yet…"

"Unbelievable. A salaryman who doesn't even know his own paycheck came in."

Ji Jeong-eun dipped her head and dropped her voice to a whisper.

"I got over twenty million won this time! So you must have gotten over forty million, right?"

She'd whispered it, but Yoon Jong-seok and Lee Ki-seok had heard her all the same.

Both of them jerked their heads up in shock.

Forty million won a month… that was an ordinary office worker's entire annual salary.

"I'll check later."

"You have to tell me."

Why is she so curious about someone else's paycheck? Planning to pick a fight if it turns out to be more than she expected?

He had twelve contracts with JW, totaling about two billion won.

Apply the three-percent incentive, and that came to around sixty million. He'd tossed about three of those contracts to Ji Jeong-eun.

By her math, his take would indeed be over forty million.

Forty million won was a fortune to a salaryman.

But when you were sitting on nearly a thousand trillion won in liquid assets, did forty million even register?

If anything, the million won or hundred thousand he spent in daily life still felt like real money. The numbers he dealt with had simply grown so vast that a hundred million, even two hundred million, no longer felt like anything at all.

Then his phone rang.

"I need to step up to the twenty-fourth floor for a bit."

"Again… You always vanish right at lunchtime. The employee cafeteria here is so good…"

"I'll eat later. Enjoy your meal."

He'd eaten at the employee cafeteria a few times.

Korean, Chinese, Japanese, and French chefs rotated through, putting out dishes in turn. It had one major drawback.

After eating there a handful of times, Jung Jinwoo couldn't bring himself to eat out anymore.

The ingredients were the finest available, the chefs Michelin-caliber — his palate had been upgraded whether he liked it or not. They called it an employee cafeteria, but it was five-star hotel cuisine in everything but name.

"I thought the Chairman ought to know."

"Hahaha…"

A hollow laugh slipped out at Vice Chairman Ko Yoon-seok's words.

He'd been about to ask, Is this actually true? — and stopped himself.

The Pyeongsan Kim clan.

He knew they were obsessed with reclaiming their family and the company's management rights. But a grandfather who would frame his own grandson for a crime and send him to prison? Where did such a person even exist?

"Please don't worry too much. I debated whether to tell you at all… but I believed the Chairman should at least know how the situation is unfolding."

"I'd only ever heard of people like that as rumors… This is absurd."

"That's the nature of laws and institutions made by men. There are always gaps, and those who hold similar power have a habit of flocking together to reinforce what they already possess. Once their bond is solid enough… they start to believe they can do anything."

"I had no idea the people in power were this rotten."

Just moments ago, Vice Chairman Ko Yoon-seok had briefed him on exactly what kind of man former Prosecutor General Jo Dong-jo was.

The story of a legal broker who quietly stockpiled criminal allegations against chaebols and the powerful, then pulled them out when needed to lock his targets in a cell.

"What about a response?"

"Well. I could handle it my way… but how would the Chairman prefer we respond?"

When Vice Chairman Ko Yoon-seok spoke like this, it usually meant he already had a manual prepared from A to Z.

"I can't tell you to kill him. We'll just have to ruin him completely."

"Then we'll need to make a preemptive move."

"Preemptive?"

"It means we eliminate the source of the problem before the problem exists. If we wait and clean up after the fact, the Chairman will inevitably be exposed."

"Is that even possible? The man is a legal broker who's spent years building an ironclad network among people in power."

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

At that, Vice Chairman Ko Yoon-seok gave a quiet snort of a laugh.

"How do you think your father conducted business on a global stage? Jerome Musso isn't the only one of his kind. All over the world, there are people who would gladly help the moment the Chairman reaches out his hand."

"Ah…"

"Frankly, killing him would be the cleanest solution. No loose ends. But the Chairman doesn't care for that sort of thing… so we'll have to use another method."

There were moments like this — moments when Ko Yoon-seok, a man Jung Jinwoo had come to find comforting, suddenly felt like a stranger.

The way he treated making a few people vanish without a trace as if it were nothing at all.

At times, it was also a glimpse of how his father, Jung In-seok, had done business.

"So what method did you have in mind, specifically?"

"The power of the United States."

"I'm sorry? America's power? Are you saying you'd move the President of the United States?"

"We could. But that would be firing a cannon to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠kill a sparrow. And besides — America has people who wield power far more immense, and far more discreet, than any president. This would be a good opportunity for the Chairman to learn their names. Todd Baylon is one of them."

Todd Baylon.

The name meant nothing to him. A man he'd never even heard of held power like that?

"He's a United States Senator. A Washington heavyweight who spent over thirty years in the House of Representatives."

Jung Jinwoo couldn't wrap his head around it. What kind of power could a single American senator possibly hold?

"Looks like the bastard's already started crawling into motion… We'll need to move faster. I've got work to do."

Ko Yoon-seok rose from his seat, a smile on his lips, his eyes gleaming.

Jung Jinwoo stood at once and followed him.

Jo Dong-jo hung up with Chief Prosecutor Kim Hyeongtae of the Financial Enterprise Investigation Division and immediately started digging through his contacts for Chief Prosecutor Oh Seongman at the Ministry of Gender Equality.

Juniors so far below him they were barely a memory. If he'd wanted to take it easy, calling a deputy chief would have been more convenient — but those men had gotten too big for their britches and had a habit of covering themselves, which meant he had to go straight to the working-level chief prosecutors.

Unlike a regular company, a deputy chief in the prosecution service outranked a division chief. The deputy chiefs had their eyes on becoming district chiefs, so they were cautious. The division chiefs, still hungry and sharp, were easier to handle.

Having to call them all himself was a nuisance, but that was the job.

He seemed to be moving somewhere private. Jo Dong-jo waited.

He'd reminded him of the fifty million won in cash sent by courier as "consolation money" after the last job. Then he went on.

Directing meant designing the operation himself and running it from start to finish, including oversight. Cleanup meant simply locking up whoever got delivered on a rape charge and putting him away.

He hung up, then hesitated over whether to call Gangnam Police Station as well.

They'd start laying the groundwork on their own. He could slip them a hundred million later and call it done.

Besides, if Kimberly was running as the player, it wouldn't take much effort. Approaching him like it was a coincidence, drinking, going to a motel — that was nothing.

He was still wondering whether to call Kimberly when his phone rang.

Jo Dong-jo had been about to hang up on the unsaved number, then checked the prefix.

9119. A number that meant emergency.

The line went dead in a rush.

The instant the call cut off, a knock sounded at the office door.

"Who is it?"

He didn't even have time to get an answer. The door swung wide open.

The man in front held the documents open. The ones behind him poured into the office in a rush.