Burning The House Of Cards: taking revenge on my billionaire family
Chapter 112 - 111. Retracement

Chapter 112: Chapter 111. Retracement

"How could you lose?!" Sua looked at Hajin incredulously after he returned with paints on his side.

The tactical vest had to go, but the black shirt and harness remained.

Hajin raised his hands in defeat and shrugged. "As you said, I’m her bodyguard," he said. "I’m not made to pull a trigger on her."

"You simp," Austin scoffed. "What’s that about fair and stuff?"

"I was bribed--ouch!" Hajin argued, and Sarah kicked him in the shin to prevent him from saying anything further.

"That’s cheating, Eonni!" Sua pursed her lips while shaking Sarah’s shoulder. "You shouldn’t seduce the general!"

"It’s not my fault if he fell for it," Sarah shrugged.

"Now, now—what does it matter?" Sol came with boxes of delicious stuff in his hands. "Let’s have some pizza and chicken."

"Pizza!"

"Chicken!"

Sua and Austin--even Little Bird--snatched the boxes from Sol, all whines and protests forgotten. It felt more like a consolation meal than a winner’s prize, but as Sol said--what did it matter? They were doing it for fun, anyway. There was no bet or anything.

Of course, the real winner was Hajin, who later bagged a session of a probably kinky exercise.

With food and drinks in front of them, the battle quickly vanished from their mind. It was rare for them to meet offline like that, so even the banter felt nice. But since they were formed around Sarah’s revenge plan, their conversation naturally steered toward that again.

To be precise, they continued where they left off before Hajin killed off Suoh.

"It’s weird, isn’t it?" Suoh started again after finishing his second slice of pizza. "What did he gain by what he did to Sarah Noona?"

"That’s where I get confused," Sarah frowned. "It’s not like getting rid of me would change anything in the house--I mean, Mason would still be the heir no matter how excellent I could be."

It was especially weird because if what Little Bird said was true, then the family members had no involvement in the accident. It was all Joseph’s doing, but what did he gain by that?

"Maybe your grandpa had a secret will or something about leaving the company in your hands? He did favor you, right?" Austin said while placing pieces of spicy fried chicken over his pizza under Sua’s disgusted but also intrigued look.

"So...it’s to discard me?"

"Discard or discredit?"

"None of that fit," Sarah shook her head. "If he wanted to get rid of me, he should be able to kill me while I was lying unconscious on the street--the gangsters must have followed me still, right?"

"And there was no such order given," Hajin added while pouring a green mocktail from the shaker, a special blend for his jade princess. "They were only told to trigger the malfunction when you were on the bridge."

Suoh added more. "Or they could do something while Noona was in a coma."

"True..."

"And if the objective was to discredit, wouldn’t it make more sense to do it right before the SAT?" Sarah tilted her head.

"Oh! And if the objective were either of those, there was a lack of effort afterward, right?" Sua finally freed her mouth of food and chimed in.

"See? There were a lot of scenarios that made it more sense, but doing it on my birthday..."

All of them nodded in agreement. Sarah and Hajin had been vigilant, but these days, they felt like it wasn’t needed. Hajin never found any bugs or hidden cameras in the annex; the attempt to look into the car’s GPS had been sloppy--they even had to send a mere cleaning staff to spy on Sarah. The extent of their surveillance was watching the annex from afar and following their car to certain places.

These people might be conglomerates, but they weren’t very good at playing dirty secrets. Covering things up, maybe, but not extensive spying. That, or they just didn’t think Sarah had any value left to be put on tight surveillance.

In short, there was no further action against her. Even that snake Joseph did nothing but put her in a company. The only instances she got into danger were either by her own device or the stupidity of her half-brothers.

That was why it was so confusing. She had thought that Ethan would know something, but the idiot wasn’t even worthy to be called a lackey. He was just a lowly informer; the special treatment he received was only up to putting him in an assistant manager position right away. Based on their investigation, Director Seo didn’t put much care into Ethan, probably just keeping him close to make sure he didn’t babble.

Sarah sighed and pulled a box of chicken toward her before Sua and Austin ate them all. Before she could put any of the chicken into her mouth, however, she felt someone tugging on her sleeve.

"Umm..." Little Bird looked at her cautiously, eyes wide and round beneath the hood.

Sarah thought the girl wanted a piece of chicken, so she picked Little Bird’s favorite boneless chicken with a fork and offered it to the younger girl. Little Bird took the fork and held it tightly, but she also shook her head to tell Sarah that wasn’t what she meant.

"Umm..." she bit her lips before starting again in a quiet voice. "C-could it be...not you, Miss Diamond?"

Sarah raised her brows. "You mean...the target?" she frowned slightly at the implication of such a thought. "Are you saying the target was my mother?"

Little Bird flinched and immediately lowered her gaze, fiddling with the fork while fidgeting nervously. "I...I’m sorry..."

"I’m not mad, Birdie," Sarah quickly patted the young girl until Little Bird sighed in relief, smiling so the younger girl wouldn’t have to feel guilty. "But he also had a lot of chances to get rid of a widow living alone easily."

"Like faking a robbery," Sol remarked.

"Like that," Sarah nodded.

"I...I see..." Little Bird nodded, feeling relieved that her thought was actually wrong.

Sarah smiled and patted the younger girl again, telling her to eat the chicken before it grew colder. "Still, that eliminates another probability," she said, taking a piece of chicken for herself so Little Bird would eat too.

Sol leaned back on his chair and crossed his arms in contemplation, fingers tapping his elbow. "This started to sound more and more like it had to be done by that certain date..."

Sarah tilted her head. "My birthday? What’s so special about it?"

"You’re the one who could answer that," Austin pointed at Sarah with his fifth slice of pizza. "What do you do differently on that particular day?"

"Well...going out with my mother? But I went out with her at least once a month," Sarah replied.

"Did you always go to the same place?"

Her brows dipped at that. "Not at that time, no. I took her to a new place for my birthday dinner, somewhere we had never gone to before," her eyes narrowed as she tried to dig into her memory. It was basically more than ten years ago for her, after all. "I went to a place recommended by..."

She paused, black eyes gradually widened. Just from that reaction alone, the other could already guess who it was.

"Director Seo?" Hajin voiced it.

Sarah felt her throat choked by a hot lump, feeling so stupid and so enraged at the same time. Of course, there was no way she could know Joseph had pushed her into that accident by himself, but still...it left a bitter taste in her mouth.

"So, it had been planned meticulously from the start," Hajin said. "He just needed a precise schedule so the thugs could mess with the car."

"But to recommend you that specific place, does it mean it had something to do with the route?" Sol tapped the table to muse and Sua suddenly clapped her hands, gasping.

"Wait--go back, go back! Go back to the mail!" she said, turning toward Hajin. "You said they were told to do it on the bridge? Specifically the bridge?"

"And to reach the recommended place, Noona had to go through the bridge...right?" Suoh added with a soft gasp.

Sarah clutched her head, cursing silently into the tense air. It had only been years since she started cursing, but she had to spit every curse word she could think of at that moment.

"Princess, that bridge was under construction, wasn’t it?" Hajin pulled her mind back from the deep gutter of curses. Right--they still had work to do.

"Yeah," Sarah took a deep breath. "It was stopped temporarily due to a dispute between three companies," she furrowed her brows. "Including HS."

"Huh? Why would HS Group have anything to do with construction?" Sol tilted his head. "Do you even have a construction company?"

"Not with the construction per se, but the media city and the shopping mall built on the other side," Sarah said with a sigh, remembering the chaos surrounding the project at that time. "Getting involved with the construction process was the chairman’s idea of expanding business."

"Hmm...this is..."

Suspicious, Sarah agreed. It was the chairman’s effort to have some kind of achievement on himself rather than riding on the previous chairman’s coattails. Honestly, Sarah had no idea what happened to the bid afterward since she was lying in a coma and busy mourning her mother alone once she woke up. She got depressed right after, so she couldn’t care less about the company’s business.

One thing she was certain, however, was that HS got neither the construction bid nor a place in the new media city.

Could it be...because of her accident?

Sarah frowned deeply and turned toward the girl beside her. "Birdie, can you find out which company was in charge of that construction?"

"O-okay!"

Little Bird immediately fetched out a device from her oversized jumper, looking somewhat like a game console, and started to dive into the net while Sarah fell into deep contemplation filled with curses.

A bridge. A bridge where her mother died. Why a bridge? Why that bridge? Did her mother really die because of a bridge? Was it truly to make sure HS didn’t get the project by blaming the daughter for crashing into one of the construction projects?

All kinds of thoughts swirled inside her mind, but they were interrupted by Little Bird’s shout.

"I f-found it!"

It wasn’t a guarded secret project anyway, so it wasn’t hard to find who was responsible for the construction project. As the name flashed over the screen, both Sarah and Hajin couldn’t help but widen their eyes.

"Huh? This is..."

In Little Bird’s small screen, a familiar name was written. Daesung Construction.

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