Nok Hyun found a video on the tablet PC that Taein was looking at and played it.

Taein, who was watching the screen blankly, widened her eyes in surprise.

The woman in the video was frail and aged, but it was her aunt.

“Aunt…?”
“Right.”
“Where is that place?”
“It’s the mental hospital where you were forcibly admitted a while ago.”
She felt her heart tightening. They said her aunt had immigrated to America. So why was her aunt in a mental hospital?

“Is Taein… is Taein doing well?”
“Yes, she’s fine.”

The voice conversing with the aunt was Ikjeong. It seems he personally visited her.

“Taein will also be targeted for death. Those brutal people will surely do that.”

The aunt, who was the youngest, grew up receiving a lot of love from her grandparents. The grandparents told the aunt that she didn’t need a political marriage, but to marry someone she loved, and if she didn’t like that, she could live with them in peace. They cherished her very much.

And the childless aunt always had a soft spot for Tae In.

Then one day, the aunt emigrated suddenly. She said she didn’t need wealth and wanted to live the rest of her life in a foreign country.

Something was off.

Her disappearance without any demands was similar to mom’s.

“Do you have something to say about Mr. Seo Jung Gyu?”
“That guy is a fake! The one pretending to be my brother right now is not my brother!”
“What do you mean by…”
“My brother practically raised me. Don’t you think I would recognize my own brother? Our grandmother said it before she passed away. My brother was a twin.”

The aunt on the screen was trembling as if she were being chased by someone.

Soon, the medical staff came to take the aunt away as the visiting hours were ending. The aunt shouted as she was led away.

“Find Butler Park. He would know!”

The video ended.

Tae In couldn’t comprehend what she had just seen.

My father had a twin?

She had never heard such a thing from anyone, not even from her father himself.

Thinking about it, her father hadn’t been coldhearted from the beginning.

He might have been busy with work and not around often, but he always held her affectionately.

And he had a good relationship with her mother. There were too many strange things.

But first.

“We can’t leave Auntie there.”
“…Tae In, don’t get scared and listen.”
When Nok Hyun said that, Tae In felt something.

A bad premonition seemed to run down her spine.

“When we went back to see her, she was already gone.”
“What… what about the funeral?”
Nok Hyun shook his head.

Her aunt, who had always received a lot of love from her grandparents and had always doted on Tae In, not only had been locked in a mental hospital for a long time but also seemed to have been murdered.

Could it be that mom was killed in the same way?

“Maybe our mother didn’t leave home…”
Nok Hyun scrunched his forehead.

Nok Hyun, who seemed to have difficulty saying something, let out a sigh and opened his mouth reluctantly.

“Since she left home, there’s been no record of her leaving the country. Her resident registration is deleted.”

“Miss Lee Eun Sun, there’s no record of her leaving the country?”
At Je Ha’s question, Secretary Kim nodded and handed over related documents.

Je Ha, with dark circles under his eyes extending down to his cheekbones, scanned the documents without hiding his fatigue.

For days, Je Ha had been suffering from heavy workload. He hadn’t been able to leave work, let alone wash properly. In the meantime, he was continuously learning about Lee Eun Sun, Seo Jung Gyu, and Jo Young Gap.

Could she be dead?

If Tae In’s biological mother was dead, the ones who would benefit the most would probably be the siblings Jo Young Mi and Jo Young Gap.

No, there’s more. The sisters Seo Se Ji and Seo Se Young, who wanted to somehow fit into high society.

Did Jo Young Mi and Jo Young Gap conspire to kill Tae In’s biological mother and then take her place?

“Mr. Lawyer, you’re like a detective handling a murder case right now. You also need to consider the possibility that she might have laundered her identity and sneaked out or is hiding somewhere in the country.”
I admit it. I was a little excited.

The results I had anticipated came to light ever since I found out that she abandoned her own daughter, Tae In, and seemingly ran away.

Perhaps it wasn’t that she had left of her own volition.

Abandoning such a lovely child? No, let’s leave aside the speculation.

Je Ha calmed his excited heart and twirled a pen with his fingers.

“But even so, isn’t it a bit odd to think that Eun Sun, who divorced without seeking division of assets or alimony, had laundered her identity and hidden within the country like she was fleeing in the middle of the night?”
“Indeed. Unless she felt a threat to her life, and to mention, leaving her own daughter behind…”
Je Ha, who was tilting his head, suddenly started to jot down on the paper as if he had recalled something.

The events that happened 8 years ago when Eun Sun left.

From Je Ha’s memory, Tae In was forcibly sent to study abroad around that time.

The kitchen worker, Young Mi, and the CEO, Jung Kyu, got remarried around that time.

“Is there anything you found out about Young Mi and Young Gab?”
“There’s nothing in particular about Young Gab. He didn’t even get married, and aside from CEO Jung Kyu, he didn’t have friends either. He just continued his job as a chauffeur, which had been passed down from his father, until he was promoted. There are some odd parts about Young Mi though.”
“What is it?”
“A few months before her remarriage, her exhusband died. In a fire accident.”
The pen, which was spinning between Je Ha’s fingers, dropped and rolled on the floor.

“He died a few months before her remarriage?”
Something was odd. It was also strange that it was a fire accident, just like Tae In’s case.

A weird feeling came over him as if all the circumstances were contrived to fit a single purpose.

As if someone was moving the pieces on a chessboard.

Je Ha underlined the name Young Gab.

Perhaps it wasn’t Jung Kyu or Young Mi, but Young Gab who was the mastermind.

Je Ha vaguely thought.

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