Beep! Peep!

The irretrievable sound of the beep echoed and her heart pounded as if trying to break a drum.

It was 10pm and her husband still hadn't returned home.

A tense expression creased Heeju's face as she fiddled absently with her necklace.

Am I doing the right thing? N- No... I can do this, right?

What had begun with sheer will and stubbornness was about to take shape. But as her carefully laid plans began to materialise, her thoughts began to falter.

Her teeth chattered with tension.

Maybe I should've taken something before?

Beep! Beep!

The seemingly endless ringing sounded like a precarious countdown.

Each passing second was an agonising reminder of her former helplessness.

Finally, as her breath grew short and dizziness set in, the ringing stopped abruptly.

"...!"

Her tightly shut eyes twitched at the sudden silence.

'It worked. It answered...!'

'Cam down! I have to stay calm...'

As she inhaled to speak her first word -

- "Is my wife going to die at your hands again today?"
"Cough.. Cough!"

Heeju was startled and her face twisted in horror.

His mocking tone had already shifted the balance of power. Damn it. This wasn't the start she wanted.

-"You sound pretty shocked."
"N-no, n-not at all. I'm..."

She tried to imitate the flustered hostage-taker from earlier, but her words were easily tangled up on their own.

Fortunately, the voice modulation seemed to work well enough, as Baek Sa-eon remained calm.

-"Then let's hear your plan to harm me, shall we?"
"...!"

How did he recognise her? Did he memorise each number and eliminate possibilities?

-"You'll keep my wife safe, won't you?"

She was the one who should be making threats, but instead he was laughing at her.

Don't get carried away. Stay in control.'

Biting her stiff tongue, Heeju took a deep breath.

"Who said she was your wife?"

She felt a pang in her heart but decided to ignore it. All that mattered now was regaining control of the conversation.

"You left your long time fiancée and married your future sister-in-law."
-"...!"

The air slowly became tense.

"That's what I'm going to expose."

Finally, Heeju pulled out the gun to attack her husband - a crack in Baek Sa-eon's supposedly flawless moral image.

This was the first scenario she had prepared.

"You don't even know where your original fiancée is now, do you?"

Her sister, who had disappeared without a trace before her wedding day, hadn't been heard from in three years. In desperation, the chairman had sent out a search party, his frustration growing with each passing day.

Her sister's absence loomed large over everyone. That gave Heeju plenty of room to make things up.

"I wonder what happened to her? Did you have a hand in it?"

Of course, there was some exaggeration. But the truth didn't matter. What mattered was sticking the labels on him.

Innocence, once lost, is irretrievable. A single rumour would be enough to tarnish his reputation.

Baek Sa-eon would not tolerate a blemish on his immaculate image.

"You used one sister after the other. Conveniently."
-"..."
"And now one of them is missing? People will love this story. Their favourite Baek Sa-eon, the articulate spokesman, turns out to be so dirty, perverted and trashy. I'm sure the public will enjoy it.

Such a scandal involving a family wasn't just strange - it was taboo.

In a society where ability and morality were hard to separate, the fervent trust in him would come back as a scathing condemnation.

Baek Sa-eon wasn't naive enough to ignore the gravity of the situation.

"What do you want?"

Good. That's better.

Heeju was finally satisfied with his tone. Without missing a beat, she replied, "Before I expose everything, you're going to fix this yourself."

-Be specific.
"Dump Hong Heeju and bring back your original fiancee."

-"..."
"Restore everything as it should have been."
-"..."
"Besides, you don't need Hong Heeju anyway."

Heeju's expression was already twisted. But the unbearable satisfaction distorted her face even more.

"She wasn't even meant to be your partner."

Heeju never expected that her long-standing inferiority complex would become a bargaining chip for her escape. The intoxicating defiance was new.

"Do you understand? If you don't want your father's campaign to be drowned in dirt, put things back in order. You can do that easily, can't you?"

The man remained silent.

Baek Sa-eon wasn't the type to throw away his political career in its infancy, and this was Heeju's chance to get the upper hand.

"A man on his way to the parliament, falling right here? Over a dirty scandal? Could you even forgive yourself? Get real, brother. Do the math yourself."

Maybe that was why people wore masks in the kidnapping scenes. The shrill, cunning voice she had projected was frightening even to herself.

"Imagine your father, the next president, being humiliated by your antics. Who would want a man with no loyalty, no conscience and no decency to represent the government? It won't be a small stain. But something that would end your career.

The words exploded like fireworks.

Heeju spun around, savouring the unprecedented feeling of liberation.

"You have until tomorrow to decide."

To top it off, she let out a wicked laugh that echoed in her ear.

The shy second daughter of Sankyung Daily was gone. Now she was a nameless, ageless, unemployed blackmailer.

"Or you can settle for 2 billion won."
-"..."
"It's cheaper than having your private life exposed."

For Heeju, neither divorce nor 2 billion won would be a loss.

"I'll call again tomorrow."

She looked at the timer.

This wasn't bad for a first call. Her demands were clear, and her threats hit right at his perfectionism.

Now was the time to hang up. Ending the call decisively would assert who was in control of the conversation. She moved to press the disconnect button without hesitation.

-"Are you done?"

The screeching sound of a chair being pushed back suddenly interrupted her.

"All this build-up and this is the big threat you come up with?"

The man let out what sounded like a mixture of a sigh and a sneer. There was a hint of boredom in his drawn out voice.

-"It amazes me how people like you never change your repertoire."

His muttered words of contempt made her freeze.

-"If I claim a madman is out to get me, that's the end of it. I'll discredit you as a deranged threat to society, and your argument would be invalid."
"......"
-"Do you want this to stay as a phishing scam or do you want to expand it into something more?"

In just a few words, he had turned the tables on her, exposing a vulnerability she hadn't even considered.

Heeju's lips trembled slightly.

-"If you want to try blackmail, start by studying me first."
"......!"

A wave of humiliation washed over her and she bit her lower lip in silence.

-"Hundreds of journalists have tried to make me talk. What makes you think you'll succeed?"

She had never expected to defeat him so easily.

Was it her overconfidence in the years she had spent watching him? She thought she knew him well enough.

Her moment of triumph was cruelly cut short by the exposure of her hidden arrogance.

-It is easy to play this down as an unfortunate misunderstanding rather than a scandal. To catch an amateur blackmailer like you? That's child's play."

 

It felt as if an invisible finger was repeatedly poking her forehead.

-"But why should I..."

His voice, which had been full of ennui, suddenly became cold and sharp.

-"Why should I entertain the audacity of your demands to abandon my wife?"
"......!"
-"Why would I drag down the person I was trying to protect?"

"My wife?

The words were angry, even furious.

Heeju let out an incredulous sigh.

In the previous call, he was waiting for a corpse. And now he's suddenly playing the devoted husband?*

Whether he had realised she was recording him or had some other hidden agenda, she couldn't tell.

His sudden shift into a protective role was clearly undermining her progress.

"Y- You...! Did you check Hong Heeju's car?"
-"What nonsense are you going to spew now?"
"She had it scrapped!"

Baek Sa-eon remained silent as if trying to analyse her words for meaning.

"Did you even know? And you call her 'my wife'?"

The satisfaction of hurling those words at him made her feel vindicated.

"You still think this is a game? That I'm some loser stuck in my room? That night I had your wife's hair, her neck, even her lips in my grasp."
-"......"
"I could have held her captive."
-"......"
"She was afraid. No, she was terrified."

The thrill of using his painful memories against him was intoxicating. It was a twisted satisfaction, but it felt like a weight had been lifted from her chest.

-"I think I was afraid."

His calm, measured voice broke through the tension like a low rumble.