Young Hoon left work early and headed straight to the underground parking lot. Just as he was about to start the car, Ju Ri opened the passenger door and got in.

“Young Hoon, are you getting revenge on me for turning off my phone? How childish.”

Young Hoon was in a hurry because he needed to fix his dead phone.

“I didn’t turn it off. My phone broke.”

Young Hoon showed his phone to Ju Ri.

“It really is. You just bought it recently, how did you break it?”

“I didn’t do it. Director Cha, is he really crazy?”

“Director Cha? Cha Yu Kwon?”

“Yeah. He keeps interfering whenever I try to talk to Song Da Eun. He did this to my phone too.”

“Ch-Cha Yu Kwon?”

Ju Ri asked with a surprised look.

“Yes. Why are you so surprised?”

“Cha Yu Kwon interfered?”

“That’s what I said.”

“Is it because he’s looking after Song Da Eun as her secretary?”

“It didn’t feel like that. I’m going to get it repaired, so get out if you’re not coming with me.”

Ju Ri, who would normally have snapped back about his tone, got out without protest.

Young Hoon immediately drove off.

Arriving at the nearest private repair shop, Young Hoon abruptly handed his phone to an employee who was eating dinner. The employee frowned as soon as he saw the phone.

“This will be difficult to fix.”

Young Hoon had felt it wasn’t in good condition since he dropped it while taking Ju Ri’s photo at the beach in Jeju, but it seems to have been completely ruined by this water damage.

“What about data recovery?”

“It’s difficult. It’ll be the same at other shops too.”

Young Hoon had no choice but to take back his dead phone.

This is all because of Cha Yu Kwon. Young Hoon was seething inside.

Should he report it to the police? Or post about it online?

But there was no evidence or witnesses. He was also worried about potentially facing consequences for messing with a chaebol’s third generation, recalling there was a separate team for managing owner risk.

“I should have saved it on a web hard drive.”

As Young Hoon grumbled, he suddenly remembered that he had backed up the audio files on his computer.

Young Hoon went straight home. Yes, if he just had those audio files…

The computer happened to be on.

“Did I leave it on when I left?”

Young Hoon tilted his head and moved the mouse to search for the files.

But something was strange. All the files were locked. Moreover, there were unknown red messages on the desktop.

“What’s going on here…? Aish, I’ve been hit by ransomware!”

Young Hoon, pulling at his hair, turned on an unused laptop to look for a professional service.

After calling several companies, they all said the only option was to pay the hackers. They added that if a few days passed, he would have to pay double.

He decided to get a remote diagnosis first. He didn’t want to give millions of won to those hacker bastards.

If he just had those audio files, he could properly extort Cha Yu Kwon.

That’s right. He was going to extort money anyway, so what’s a few hundred thousand?

But what if the audio files weren’t there?

He had moved several audio files at once that day, so the file names were all similar.

“It’s probably among those… Aaargh! This is so frustrating!”

Young Hoon, who had been racking his brains, suddenly let out a shriek.

He was frustrated about why this was happening to him.

This is all because of Cha Yu Kwon. He usually wasn’t even visible, but why did he appear every time he tried to talk to Da Eun?

And that expression like he wanted to tear him apart.

In fact, he could have confronted him right there, but Young Hoon couldn’t do it.

Apart from being a third-generation chaebol, Cha Yu Kwon was an intimidating figure just by his existence. Just making eye contact made his spine chill and made him want to pee. Embarrassingly so.

Fear turned into inferiority, and inferiority quickly turned into hatred.

“Could they have been involved with each other from before?”

As suspicion started to creep in, everything seemed strange. He had dismissed Da Eun’s words about her senior from university becoming her superior, but now that he thought about it, none of it made sense.

Applying to a different team but ending up in the secretarial team, and of all people, becoming Cha Yu Kwon’s secretary.

“Could that bastard have been targeting our Da Eun from the start?”

Just then, the repair company called.

―They’re demanding 5 million won?

5 million won. That was almost the maximum amount.

These daylight robbers. Normally, he would never have been swayed, but Young Hoon was already beyond reason.

“What do I need to do?”

―Cash transactions aren’t possible, it has to be sent in cryptocurrency. Do you want to proceed?

“Yes, please proceed right away.”

Young Hoon answered without a hint of hesitation. To fight against an opponent, he needed to have leverage. Leverage that could crack Cha Yu Kwon’s arrogant face.

After parting with Yu Kwon, Da Eun arrived home. Her heated emotions from earlier had calmed somewhat upon returning home.

But that didn’t mean she was ready to forgive Da Hyun.

As she carefully opened the front door and entered, Da Hyun, uncharacteristically, came out of his room watching Da Eun’s reaction.

“You’re back? It’s late. I cleaned the whole house, sis.”

The reason Da Hyun, who had never cleaned his own room, was groveling and acting subservient was obvious. It meant that not a single won remained of the 100 million he had stolen.

Well, having come back looking like a beggar and saying he couldn’t even eat, there was no way any money would be left.

“By the way, sis, what’s this about a 500 million won ring?”

Geum Suk must have mentioned it.

The emotions that she thought had calmed down once again reached their limit. Both Da Hyun, whose eyes sparkled with vain hope that money might appear, and Geum Suk, who had already mentioned it, were equally disgusting.

“Why are you curious about that?”

“You didn’t get it from that bastard Go Young Hoon, did you? He’s not that rich. Right…?”

Seeing Da Hyun’s expectant expression made her even more disappointed, though she didn’t think she could be any more disappointed.

“It’s an errand for my boss, so don’t get any ideas. Just think about how you’re going to pay me back.”

“…Okay.”

“I’m going to cover the money you ran off with using my retirement fund and the money for my newlywed home, so don’t give me any nonsense about how it was money you would have received as a wedding gift anyway. Whether you do delivery work, courier work, or manual labor, pay me back monthly.”

“…”

“Answer me.”

“I got it. I was going to start working from tomorrow anyway.”

Da Hyun’s shoulders, which had been puffed up thinking he would be praised for cleaning, slumped down. As the sound of his door closing was heard, Da Eun let out a long sigh. Truly, not even a glimmer of hope arose.

Da Eun stood in the small living room, looking down at Geum Suk asleep on the sofa.

“Mom, go sleep in your room.”

Geum Suk, sound asleep, gave no response.

Da Eun turned off the TV, unfolded a folded blanket to cover Geum Suk, and then crouched down to look at her face.

When did she get so many wrinkles? They used to say that in her youth, men would line up in front of the house just to see Geum Suk’s face. Da Eun’s father was among them.

Da Eun was glad she took after Geum Suk’s face. If she had taken after her father, it would have been painful every time she looked in the mirror.

“Mom, Da Hyun keeps causing trouble because he has someone to fall back on.”

The wind blowing from the veranda full of luggage touched Da Eun’s cheek.

The warmth of the wind made her realize that the tiresome summer had deepened.

That terrible summer when Geum Suk had her accident, the resolve she had firmly made kept crumbling, more fragile than a sandcastle.

“Mom, I want to stop now. I’m too tired.”

Da Eun’s voice echoed softly in the dark and quiet living room before fading away.

How nice it would be if she could forget about guilt and live somewhere where no one knows her.

It was an unusually painful night.

The next day, early morning. Yu Kwon was on his way to work. Leaning back in the rear seat, he pressed his fingertips to his throbbing forehead.

He was already tired at the thought of meetings stretching from morning to afternoon.

Even lunch, the only time he could rest, was scheduled with directors. Though tired, thinking about Da Eun who would follow him around pretending not to be tired seemed to give him a bit of strength.

“I’ve taken care of the Go Young Hoon matter. The CCTV has been erased too.”

Though he had damaged Go Young Hoon’s phone, worried about potential backups, he had sent someone to break into Young Hoon’s home to delete files and install a virus. He would have checked after work yesterday.

“Good work.”

“But is there something troubling you?”

Trouble, trouble…

The longer Da Eun’s deliberation went on, the more anxious Yu Kwon became. Da Eun was holding out more firmly than expected.

The fact that Da Eun was his secretary was actually an obstacle. She frequently visited not only Myeongil but also Hyangnimjae. She knew the ins and outs of the Myeongil family people, including himself.

It wasn’t because Yu Kwon would be her husband, but the burden of becoming the wife of a third-generation chaebol, the granddaughter-in-law of Chairman Cha Myung Il.

If not money, what would be good?

“How about giving flowers as a gift? My ex-girlfriend liked it.”

“Ex-girlfriend?”

“Yes. We broke up recently.”

“Oh dear. What happened?”

“Because I didn’t buy her a single flower.”

Yu Kwon, who had been carrying on the conversation dryly, turned his head to look out the window at Jung Woo’s last words.

Flowers, huh.

Suddenly, he thought of Da Eun’s face, smiling brightly while eating delicious food. He wanted to see that face again. She had been drawing a line with him even more since his proposal.

“Stop the car for a moment.”

At Yu Kwon’s words, the car that had been driving slowly came to a complete stop. Without time to respond to Jung Woo’s question of where he was going, he quickly moved his steps and entered a flower shop.

The owner, who was preparing to open early in the morning, greeted Yu Kwon cheerfully.

“Welcome, customer.”

Yu Kwon, looking around inside, had a perplexed expression. He had only sent flowers through his secretary, never personally choosing and buying them.

“It’s my first time giving flowers as a gift, what would be good?”

As Yu Kwon asked with an awkward smile, confused among the numerous flowers, the owner stared blankly at his face.

“She’d probably like it even if you gave her dung instead of flowers…”