Burning The House Of Cards: taking revenge on my billionaire family
Chapter 38 - 37. Royal Squabble

Chapter 38: Chapter 37. Royal Squabble

The moment Mason entered the living room, Sarah turned her face away, sneakily so. She cast her gaze downward while glancing at the older sister sitting near her. Biting her lower lip and clenching her jaw slightly, she looked like a frightened cat.

Amber furrowed her brows; what--are you trying to ask me for help? She narrowed her eyes as it finally dawned on her why Sarah took only one, good-looking bodyguard. Was she trying to seek protection? Did she think Mason would back off if he knew she took a fancy to someone else?

She clicked her tongue--what a fool! As if something like that would deter her older brother. He was the kind of person who secretly killed all of his classmates’ goldfish in elementary school because his own goldfish died first.

And she asked Amber for help now? She hadn’t even finished her investigation. Her brother was still her brother, and if this girl thought Amber would turn on him just from what she saw last week, then this girl was truly stupid.

"We’re just talking about Sarah’s new bodyguard, Oppa!" Amber stood up, welcoming her brother and mother. She glanced at Hajin and added with a mocking giggle. "He’s quite an eye-catching one."

"A new bodyguard?" the first wife, clearly knew nothing about the ’audition’ that her son granted the girl she hated, followed her daughter’s gaze to find the dashing man who looked like a celebrity cosplaying as a bodyguard.

If one could be honest, the man looked more like a young master than the other three young masters in the room, especially with those enthralling eyes that clearly showed he had foreign blood.

Not that it mattered; a servant was still a servant, no matter how beautiful they were.

"Yes, Mother," Amber circled her arms around her mother’s elbow, added with a whisper that was still loud enough for everyone to hear. "Isn’t he handsome? Sarah must like him a lot, since she even dressed him differently. Don’t you see that necklace?"

The first wife looked at the black gem and pendant around the bodyguard’s collar, which led her gaze to the dark mark on the man’s neck. She raised her brow and gasped softly, giving Sarah an intrigued glance. "Oh, my..."

"I heard she took that man to a hotel yesterday," Amber added, this time quieter, as if it was a scandal. She giggled in mockery, but her eyes were observing her older brother.

Yes. How would Mason react to this piece of information?

Amber watched her brother’s indifferent eyes harden slightly as he looked at the new bodyguard. Of course, Mason would already know about Hajin. But it would be his first time seeing the man directly.

And it would be his first time seeing the hickey.

For a short second, there was a glint in those eyes that made the little sister shudder. A gaze full of hatred; a gaze that she remembered her brother made before one of his classmates ended up cripled and couldn’t receive admission to Y-university and stole the school’s attention from him.

At that moment, Amber truly thought her brother would order his men to beat the new bodyguard to death, but the house steward came over then and told them that the Chairman’s car was already in the driveway.

With that, everyone stood up and moved to the dining room. Mason shifted his gaze from the bodyguard to Sarah, lingering for only two seconds before walking away.

Those two seconds, however, were enough for Hajin to hear an alarm blaring in the back of his mind. Like a beast, his spine was stung with warning as he recognized the emotion in that gaze.

Because that emotion, evidently, existed within himself.

* * *

Lee Hyuk, the chairman of HS Group, much to people’s annoyance, was a handsome man. Even in his sixties, his looks could pass for a veteran actor. He inherited his visual charm from his mother, which was probably why his father always had a soft spot for him.

No matter what trouble he brewed, how many affairs he had, the previous chairman could only sigh and hope his oldest son would mature soon.

While not exceptionally smart, Lee Hyuk had a knack for choosing competent people and making connections, which helped keep the group afloat even after the previous chairman passed away. His charm, easily captured his business partners, also worked for many women.

He was notorious as a player since his youth, but having a lot of lovers and affairs wasn’t exactly a crime, so people normalized it easily. He did not marry his first wife out of love, but for convenience. His second marriage was arranged by his father, and the last was a temporary lust resulting in pregnancy.

At any rate, he spared no love or affection for his family members. While he was the family head, he seldom spent his time in the mansion, frolicking from one villa to another hotel where his mistress--or mistresses--lived. For the only wife who loved him, it was painful. For the other two, however...

They couldn’t care less.

Love? In the first place, they never married for love. No one seemed to have any interest in hiding their ultimate desires: the throne and the wealth that came with it. Lee Hyuk, in return, did not care about what scheme his current and former wife was pulling--hell, he didn’t care who would succeed the Group.

He’d be dead by then, so would he care even if it collapsed?

Truly, this family was a joke. Sarah shook her head and lamented her poor mother for falling in love with such a jerk. It took her years to realize that her father would never show her any affection, and while she received some from her grandfather, it proved to be poison instead of nectar.

Sarah was rather fond of her grandfather, but she also hoped the old man rolled in his grave every day.

He probably was, if he could see the condition of the empire he built.

With the absence of the king in the mansion, the queen was playing sovereign even when she didn’t have much power. Lee Hyuk never gave her the reign of the house, still putting it in the hands of the house steward. Still, she played where she could, befriending the steward so the condition of the mansion--the menus, the decoration, and such trivial things--could be done with her taste.

Unfortunately for her, a dethroned queen--or rather, a queen who had decided to leave by herself--was bothered by this arrangement. She already pushed in when Sarah’s mother was still the legal wife, and she pushed in even more when her son became the apparent heir.

The current official madam and the mother of the next chairman...it was a neck-to-neck confrontation that got these middle-aged women acting like high school rivals.

During this kind of occasion where they would meet, they always came dressed to the nines, as if it were a banquet instead of a family dinner. They flaunted their newest designer clothes and the most expensive jewelry in their arsenal, talking about meeting this important person or that public figure not long ago.

It used to be suffocating, but for once, Sarah planned to enjoy the dinner as an outsider watching the fight.

Or at least, she planned to. But what was the deal with the seating arrangement?

Somehow, she was seated right across the third wife.

Who made this arrangement? Sarah would assume it was the third wife, but if that was the case...what was the objective?

"What happened to your hair, Lee Seul-ah?" as she nibbled on her salad, Sarah suddenly heard her father’s voice. She turned her head and received a disapproving gaze from him--not because of the color, per se, but because her original black hair made her look like her grandmother more.

Which, in turn, made her look like her father.

Ah...was she seated so close to the head of the table so her father could criticize her? Sarah glanced at the third wife’s nonchalant smile.

"It’s Sarah," she smiled in response, flicking her nicely styled hair. "And I thought I looked prettier like this?"

She smiled charmingly, enough to make her father raise his brow and said nothing more--probably out of shock. Not that Sarah expected he would know her well enough to know that she had changed.

"Hah! Obsessing over appearance!" the first wife scoffed. "How unbecoming of someone from HS Group!"

Sarah pressed her lips--that was rich coming from someone who cared about nothing but appearance.

"Don’t be like that, Unnie," Auntie said with a slight giggle. "Seul-ah--ahem, Sarah--is still young. She must crave attention since she didn’t get much of it."

"What young? She’s already an adult."

Oh, look at how they decided to gang up on her suddenly? It had only been a minute since they were bragging about whose summer vacation was better.

"I read somewhere," a calculatingly soft and elegant voice came from the woman in front of Sarah. "Kids like to seek attention by behaving strangely--perhaps even...unruly?" letting out a soft sigh, she flicked a sly gaze forward. "Don’t you agree, Seul-ah?"

Sarah held back the temptation to squint her eyes or glare at the woman. She let go of her fork and knife--both ideal weapons to hurl across--and smiled sweetly.

"Of course, Mother."

This time, even the father couldn’t help but notice the change, as everyone turned their heads toward Sarah, parted their lips. Even during her meek, obedient era, Sarah never used that word to call the third wife. It was the only rebellious thing she did when she was still the beloved, model daughter, so...

What was this?

Still with a smile on her lips, Sarah turned her head toward the youngest. "I wonder if that’s why my dear little brother joins a motorcycle gang..." she furrowed her brow in a worried expression, sighing softly the way the third wife did earlier. "I see...so it’s because he wants some attention. Do you feel like you’re lacking affection too, Jasper?"

"W-what?!" the boy who was suddenly dragged into an adult battlefield widened his eyes in shock.

"Haa...mother, Jasper is still a teenager. Don’t you think he needs a lot of affection right now? Isn’t he supposed to take the cSAT this year? It’s worrying already that he got a bad grade, but to be involved with thugs?"

The uncle parted his lips with a flabbergasted look on his harmless face. "Sarah?"

Of course, Sarah ignored him completely.

"Please shower him with a lot of affection, Mother," Sarah continued, putting on an obviously fake concerned act. "This sister is worried about his future."

Once again, the table was quiet. Even the father stopped eating to watch the confrontation with an amused gaze.

Sarah could see the corner of that fox’s eyes twitch, but the woman was always good at acting, so it didn’t take long for her to compose herself.

"Yes, of course. You don’t have to worry, Sarah," she smiled brightly. "At least Jasper still has me, so I can always provide my love and support for him."

Sarah narrowed her eyes, but thankfully, that kind of thing wasn’t enough to shatter her composure.

"Although...ah, I’m quite saddened," the third wife sighed, this time heavily. "It must be heartbreaking for Raisa-unnie to watch her daughter grow up like this..."

She covered her mouth with her fingers, casting her gaze down in a show of sorrow and thus failing to see the flash of warning within the black eyes across her in the process.

"Perhaps if she lived a little bit longer--aack!"

Failing to see the pale hand gripping a glass of wine, which contents had just been emptied on her hair.