She had thought that if she joined forces with Minjae, they could drive out Minsu and take over the group. It was a huge misjudgment.
“Son of a bitch. Fucking bastard. The bastard who wouldn’t be satisfied even if I chewed him to death. Fucking bastard. I’ll kill him, ahhhhh! I’ll kill him!”
In the meantime, Minjae couldn’t contain his mounting anger and stamped his feet furiously like a child, throwing a tantrum. Each time he did so, his bandaged shoulder throbbed.
All of these were wounds inflicted by Ganghyuk. Even though several days had already passed, the pain was severe. When the pain flared up, the rage, fear, and despair he’d felt at the time came rushing back, turning his mind into a complete mess.
That’s why he’d done drugs. When he took drugs, drank alcohol, and had sex, he could breathe. But when the drugs wore off again, reality came crashing back.
Thinking about the shares he’d handed over under Ganghyuk’s threats and imagining Ganghyuk and Minsu’s future success made it impossible for him to just sit still.
Unable to do anything about his feverish head, he was shouting like a half-crazed person when it happened. With a splash, ice-cold water poured down from the top of his head.
At the shocking coldness that snapped him to attention, Minjae’s bloodshot eyes fluttered. Despite his appearance that would make most people’s knees go weak, Nayeon didn’t bat an eye and glared at Minjae.
“Unless you want your other shoulder smashed too, pull yourself together now, will you? I’m holding back from screaming and smashing everything myself right now.”
Nayeon’s eyes were filled with killing intent. Since childhood, if someone hit her once, she’d make sure they could never use that hand again.
Among the three siblings, Nayeon resembled Chairman Tae Hyeonseong’s ruthless side the most. Those who served Chairman Tae closely would say it would have been absolutely perfect if Minsu and Nayeon’s personalities had been swapped.
Just because she was a woman, she couldn’t ascend to the successor position. Still, when their father was mentally sound, she was given opportunities like cruel hope, but from the moment he started hovering between life and death, Nayeon became worth less than even the scoundrel Minjae.
She couldn’t accept it. That she resembled Chairman Tae more than Minsu, that she was more capable, yet had to be pushed aside like this.
Chairman Tae had set up an entertainment company for her early on, but that wasn’t enough. She wanted to prove her abilities.
If they had at least competed on equal footing, she might have accepted the results. But the executives wouldn’t even pretend to listen to Nayeon. They ignored her as if she were completely invisible. That’s when she realized.
That without her father’s power, she was nothing within the massive Taehyun Group. Thinking this couldn’t go on, she’d allied with Minjae to try to bring Ganghyuk in, but the situation went awry.
She’d tried to induce Ganghyuk’s rut cycle to make it look like he’d forcibly mounted her, intending to turn Ganghyuk into a puppet, but she failed.
It was because Ganghyuk had stronger resistance to drugs than expected. Even though she’d given him enough drugs to make even a dominant alpha go into heat and collapse immediately, he’d pushed her away and disappeared.
After that, Minjae was dragged away by Ganghyuk and came back having handed over all his shares. An absurd situation had occurred, like having one’s nose cut off while one’s eyes were wide open.
Even Minjae’s mental state had gone out the window. Not only had one of his shoulders been ruined by whatever Ganghyuk had done to him, but several of his teeth had also been broken.
Thanks to that, he’d gotten several implants at an early age. When he should have been recovering while taking care of himself, he was stuffing himself with drugs and having sex with omegas, so right now she felt like strangling Minjae with her own hands.
“You don’t want to get beaten by me too, do you, oppa?”
Nayeon said to Minjae with a bright smile. Maybe not before, but Minjae had rapidly deteriorated both mentally and physically while doing drugs.
With just one syringe hidden in her handbag, it would be very easy to render Minjae unable to resist. As if sensing something, Minjae headed to the bathroom, breathing heavily.
Nayeon, who’d let out a long breath, went to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator door. She took out a water bottle and gulped it down. Her carefully applied makeup was coming off, but she didn’t care.
She threw the quickly emptied bottle into the trash can, took out a cigarette from her handbag, and put it in her mouth. She bit down on the filter with her teeth and lit the tip.
When the distinctively acrid scent of tobacco seeped into her nose, she felt like she could live. After burning through one, two, three cigarettes, Minjae returned with water still dripping from his hair.
Unlike before, he was wearing his pants properly, so Nayeon threw him a newly taken out water bottle while still holding a cigarette in her mouth.
Minjae caught the bottle that flew in an arc and emptied it in one gulp. He irritably threw the empty bottle on the floor, then wiggled his finger at Nayeon.
“Give me one too.”
Nayeon obediently put a new cigarette in Minjae’s lips. When she kindly even lit it for him, Minjae sucked in the smoke until his cheeks hollowed.
“So, do you have a plan?”
His eyes looking at Nayeon were clear, as if he’d regained some sense. Even to this question that cut out all context, Nayeon nodded.
“I wouldn’t have come if I didn’t.”
“What is it?”
“The omega that Tae Ganghyuk’s been hanging around with.”
Hearing Nayeon’s words, Minjae’s eyes narrowed. Even though quite some time had passed, the face of the omega he’d seen that day immediately came to mind.
That’s how much the omega Ganghyuk had taken away definitely stood out. How should he put it—being a dominant omega was obvious from head to toe.
Thanks to that, on that day, Minjae hadn’t been satisfied with a substitute and had nearly killed his partner while having violent sex.
“Are we going to kidnap him?”
“If it can move Tae Ganghyuk, we have to do whatever it takes. Is kidnapping a big deal?”
At Nayeon’s nonchalant words, Minjae grinned. His mood, which had felt like rolling in mud just moments ago, improved.
He’d been feeling regretful anyway. The omega that Tae Ganghyuk was deeply infatuated with. What a delicious prey. Moreover, if he could deliver a heavy blow to the arrogant Tae Ganghyuk.
“Did they even imprint?”
“I don’t think so. But it’s definitely worth taking the risk. You’re an alpha, so you know, oppa. How fucking terrible it feels when your omega gets stolen by another guy.”
“Oh, absolutely. It makes you want to bite your tongue in frustration.”
He’d never had an omega he cherished, but there had been times when prey he’d marked was stolen. Each time, Minjae had experienced his head turning red with possessiveness over the omega he couldn’t have.
“The method is…”
The Ganghyuk that Minjae knew would never leave his omega in a dangerous place. He’d definitely either hide him away in a safe house or attach skilled guys to him like bodyguards.
Several faces flashed through Minjae’s mind. Especially that guy with a buzz cut and a disgusting scar on his mouth. He was Ganghyuk’s right-hand man and had tremendous fighting skills.
If that guy was protecting him, sending just any guys would accomplish nothing. Rather, they might face a counterattack from Ganghyuk and the situation could become even worse than now.
“Let’s borrow oppa’s connections. You know Gal Hongdo, right?”
“Gal Hongdo?”
“Yeah. That guy who used to offer you omegas from time to time.”
Lost in thought, Minjae flicked the half-burned cigarette with his fingertips. The butt that fell to the floor burned by itself and gradually died out.
“Why him?”
“Turns out Gal Hongdo originally had that omega. Seems like he was unjustly robbed of him.”
“Really?”
At this story he was hearing for the first time, Minjae raised one eyebrow. If it was Gal Hongdo, he could definitely compete with Ganghyuk. Taehyun had cleaned out most of those who’d made their living doing illegal work or eating from the Hyunho faction’s table as they climbed into the legitimate world.
Ganghyuk and his subordinates were still doing that kind of work, but compared to their former prestige, it was honestly lacking. On the other hand, Gal Hongdo was a guy who maintained close connections with old politicians and did all kinds of profitable work. He mainly used guys from Yanbian.
So that omega had been Gal Hongdo’s property. At the thought that things might work out more easily than expected, Minjae’s lips twisted crookedly.
“If we’re going to do it, we have to do it right. Can you kill Tae Ganghyuk?”
