Burning The House Of Cards: taking revenge on my billionaire family
Chapter 21 - 20. Angel With A Shotgun

Chapter 21: Chapter 20. Angel With A Shotgun

Right. They were still in the middle of a road—or a traffic accident, if anyone passed the path. The driver was unconscious while Hajin was checking on Sarah, but he woke up shortly after and had been trying to get out of the wrecking front, stumbling down the road in a wobbly state.

"Do you think you’ll find anything from the data you took?" Hajin asked, casually stepping on the back of the crawling man while his eyes were still on Sarah. "No, no, you stay here~"

"No," Sarah looked down at the groaning, screaming man under Hajin’s boots. "But I still want to try."

The boots traveled to the man’s neck, and Hajin asked casually between the man’s screaming, "You’re not going to let this go, right?"

Sarah still had her eyes on the struggling man, who was gasping from asphyxiation under the heavy boots. She remembered the maniacal laugh coming out of that mouth--the man was having fun chasing her like prey, not because he found her skulking around their hiding place.

"No," Sarah said, and her vision of the man was covered by Hajin’s broad back as he crouched. From the snapping sound coming out a few seconds later, however, she could guess what transpired.

"Is he dead?" she asked rather tensely, swallowing through her dry throat.

"No, but he will be," Hajin answered nonchalantly, yanking the unconscious driver and stuffing him back inside the wrecked truck. "Oh, there’s pretty useful stuff," he pulled out a black handgun from the driver’s jacket with a smirk. "Even with a silencer...is this guy playing a hitman or something?"

Sarah clenched her fists. At least, she knew that any gangster with a gun must be people who were fine with killing. It eased the guilty conscience she had in the back of his mind. "What’s after?"

Hajin tucked the gun somewhere inside his jacket and rummaged through the truck. "Just toss them over the road," he said lightly, like it was just a regular Tuesday, and Sarah was once again reminded of the Hajin she met in her previous timeline. The man wasn’t as cold this time, but the way he did things did not change.

Sarah, sitting on the side of the road, looked up and let the mountain breeze cool her mind. It was just outside the city, but this was still a mountainside road, so she could see the stars adorning the black sky. It seemed far away, yet serene, even with the sound of Hajin starting the truck’s engine. There was something calming about sitting still and letting someone do the work in her stead—the dirty work. Reminding her of the time she felt she still had people on her side, like her mother and her assistant.

Two rumbling sounds and a loud crashing later, Sarah opened his eyes—didn’t even realize she’d been closing them. The night sky and the darkness of her eyelids seemed to blend together. Someone was touching her sprained ankle gently—someone who once asked her to be owned.

"Where do you get them?" there was a roll of bandage on Hajin’s hand.

"My bike compartment," the man replied shortly with a smile, and Sarah looked at the broken guardrail. A billowing smoke could be seen from a truck and a motorcycle down there, along with a very dead driver.

A fussy detective might find some strange things, including why there was only one driver. But who would waste time investigating a mountain traffic accident in detail when no one reported a missing person? It was a pain in the ass just checking on the wreckage at the bottom of a ravine, even more when they find out the driver was a crook. They would think the rider fell into the river and swept up somewhere.

"You took off your plate number, didn’t you?"

Hajin smirked, pulling on the bandage wrapped around Sarah’s ankle to tighten it. "You think I’m an amateur?"

"Ngh--as long as they don’t look up for the factory serial number..."

"They won’t bother," Hajin stood up and held out his hand. "The motorcycle would be reported as stolen ’a few days ago’. You have other things to bury..." the grey eyes narrowed as if replacing the moon above, "Princess?"

Sarah stared straight at the cold fire inside the deep lake. She still couldn’t see the full intention between that fire, nor her heart had calmed down from the nonchalant cruelty. But she knew that cruelty wasn’t directed at her.

The question was; would there be a day when the beast’s fang gnawed at her instead? Would there be a day when she was the one who drowned inside the cold, deep lake, breathless at the bottom of a ravine like that driver?

And would the beast stay until the end, instead of leaving so suddenly once he was bored?

Ryu Hajin...

Sarah took the sturdy hand in front of her, taking a gamble with a deep breath.

* * *

Choi Jintae had operated his group for quite some time. Fed up with the unsophisticated way of his former gangster mob, he went his own way, forming a team and walking what he considered an ’elite’ way.

Rather than meaningless turf war and petty protection fees from the neighborhood, he took work from those elites who controlled the country. Rich men always need people to do their dirty work, and they would pay handsomely just for others to take the blame.

Thanks to that, he amassed a fortune to expand his group and even managed to secure a worthy base in the city--though not in the capital. It was fine; the underworld’s web of the capital was more treacherous than the deep sea anyway. But he could be a king in another city and soon, he would be able to say goodbye to this place that made him feel like a mountain bandit.

Surely, a prestigious handyman who worked for conglomerates and politicians like him should work in a more respectable establishment.

But still, this mountain villa had sentimental value for him, so even if they had to part ways, he wanted to throw some party with the rest of the gang. Unfortunately, a rat bastard sneaked around the compound. He had checked his vault, but nothing was stolen so the person probably hadn’t managed to come inside.

Welp--just let his men handle it then.

With that mindset, and without realizing the incoming pandemonium, the party continued.

"Ugh—do we really need to wait here?" a man in his early twenties grumbled. He could hear the cheering sound from inside and longed for a sip of alcohol. But as the youngest, he got the lovely task of standing outside the gate waiting for the person chasing after a rat.

His partner, a slightly older and bulkier man, shrugged. "He’ll be back quickly. It’s just one rat—well, unless he decided to have some fun."

"Aah! But that sunbae likes to toy with his prey..." the maknae lamented.

"Eh, don’t worry. He won’t want to miss—"

With a soft dull sound, the older man suddenly collapsed to the ground, getting propelled for several meters by an unknown impact. "Wha—" the youngest stood still for a second, stunned beyond belief. But that second was enough for him to topple down following the other. The ground is painted with two red puddles that slowly getting larger. Quietly. Wordlessly.

A figure walked out of the small forest surrounding the villa toward the entrance as if he were on a casual stroll. Honestly, the neighborhood would indeed be a good spot for a leisure walk. It was even secluded enough for some rigorous activity without attracting attention.

Like purging.

Perhaps these people chose the site so it would be easier for them to eliminate any target. But it became easier for Hajin to calmly enact his trash disposal activity.

The man approached the lifeless bodies and rummaged through them, fishing out another handgun and a tactical knife from the two. "It’s so easy when they provided the tools for me themselves," he smiled deeply, waving to the slightly limping man who followed him from behind. "Why are crooks these days so well-equipped, though?"

Sarah stared at the two lifeless bodies on the ground. She thought she was used to violence—her whole life was a series of violence, she had trained to protect herself from such violence for five years, and she brought herself to watch a lot of fights. But taking lives was something that she had never done. Even if it wasn’t done by her own hands.

And yet, barely in an hour, she had already seen three dead bodies, losing their lives so swiftly.

It got her to realize how easily humans could lose their lives, like she was. She was frightened, her nape was cold and she felt sick. But as she watched the blank eyes of the two mobs, probably didn’t even realize how they met their end, her heart felt cold.

Her mother didn’t have that swift of a death.

Her mother had been bleeding profusely, but not enough to knock her unconscious. She had to endure excruciating pain and the slow death of blood loss for many minutes under the starless sky. He had died in the harsh cold, waiting for an ambulance while her daughter was unconscious.

Waiting for help. From passing people. From god. From someone she was once called husband...

She had to endure two weeks of excruciating pain while suspended on life support before her light finally went out. And her lifeless body had to wait until her daughter was strong enough to process her funeral.

Sarah took a shaky breath.

It doesn’t seem fair.

"Looks like they’re partying inside. It will be pretty easy to round them up," Hajin looked at the villa with a deep smile. He turned to Sarah and pulled the girl’s hand. When Sarah looked down, there was a weighty gun in her hand. "Hold on to this for protection. Ah—you know what, just stay outside or go back to your car. I’ll take care of things here, and—"

Hajin paused, and his lips slowly formed a smirk, staring at the muzzle in front of his face and the deep black eyes that looking straight at him behind the gun.

Rather than a scowl, the cold eyes narrowed with a hint of mirth and a speck of warmth. The hand that held the gun was steady, even if the grip was too tight. But the black eyes were shaking, ever more when Hajin leaned forward into the muzzle, and the cold metal rested between his eyes.

"Do it," the deep smile on that face was filled with conviction and sincerity. "If it’s you, I don’t mind."

Sarah gritted her teeth. She was scared. She didn’t know what she was afraid of: this man, or the possibility of killing someone with her own hand.

"But if you won’t, then hold it tight and use it on your enemy," there was a subtle gentleness inside the voice that had Sarah lowered his hand.

Enemy. Who was her enemy? Sarah looked down at the dead members of the group who messed with her car and her mother’s medical equipment. But were those three the ones who took part or accepted the job? Was there any need to take their lives?

But if it wasn’t so, why did she feel it was unfair?

Sarah felt dizzy as the conflicting thoughts swirled in her mind.

"You’ve never killed before, have you?"

It was eerie when such a sinister question was asked in a calm manner and a nice, soothing voice. Sarah still stared at the bodies—corpses—and the gun in her hand.

"If you decided to walk on this path, you must know there won’t be a peaceful option," Hajin spoke again, and Sarah closed her eyes slowly.

Of course, she knew. If she had thought of doing it lawfully, she wouldn’t have gone to such lengths to make herself look like an idiot who couldn’t even reach the minimum needed GPA to graduate, or a gaudy person who only knew how to waste her father’s money.

If she wanted to thread that path, she would set herself to be the successor even more, so she could achieve the highest authority and conduct a proper investigation that wouldn’t get blocked or thwarted by the mastermind.

But she didn’t. She had no patience in her for that. She no longer had any light in her for a long, drawn-out fight.

No. Not with the only light of her life snuffed out so mercilessly.

The path he wanted to take was retribution. Like the whip of nemesis carved on her shoulder.

Hajin reached out his hand and rubbed the ink on Sarah’s collarbone. His thumb pulled the collar sideways, revealing more of the black tattoo. It wasn’t fully revealed, but Hajin knew enough.

"Yes, you have decided," the gloved hand traveled down and rested above the tensed hand holding the gun. A sweet voice, like an angel, grazed Sarah’s ear. "But you don’t have to do it by yourself."

Sarah lifted her gaze and stared at the angel of destruction. "Give me your word, and I’ll do it in your stead. Own me, and use me to your heart’s content."

The hand retreated, and the man stepped back. That sweet voice, the handsome visage, the mesmerizing pair of eyes, truly made him look like an angel. Sarah opened her mouth, but it took her a while to get anything out.

"Show me," she said, with blank eyes and a hazy mind, and the angel flashed her a beastly grin; cold fire ignited inside the deep lake.

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