Burning The House Of Cards: taking revenge on my billionaire family
Chapter 73 - 72. Catching At Straws

Chapter 73: Chapter 72. Catching At Straws

The wall kept blinking with the enlarged images of familiar digital correspondences, lighting up the room and making the already pale man even paler. His face had turned from white to ashy, as dread filled the trapped rat’s eyes.

Ethan looked at the girl in front of him. There was no longer the carefree, haughty rich brat she was known for these days. The black eyes, deep and distant, were a reminiscence of the family’s favored daughter who excelled at everything. The girl he used to assist.

But within the familiar gaze, within the trace of depth and kindness he knew from her before, was an abyss filled with pain and fury. Dripping with cruelty.

"Young Miss...?" his voice was shaking, like a man standing on a bridge of fragile glass. The girl was holding the rope, his lifeline, and Ethan was hoping for old-time compassion.

Too late for that.

"Oh, you refer to me as your ’young miss’ again, now?" Sarah sneered. "I’d rather not--you seem to see your ’young miss’ as someone you can kill on the fly."

"W-what are you talking about?" Ethan stood up, like a defendant trying to argue his case. "What is this? Are you...are you seriously thinking I’m the one who--that I was responsible for your accident?"

He laughed incredulously, looking around with a snort as if everything was ridiculous. The shaking pupil, however, was as good as an admission of guilt.

Even if he was an excellent actor, he couldn’t deny the connection between his own email address used as a security key for the other email address used to send Sarah’s schedule to the gangster.

"Oh, I know--" he looked back at the girl, snapping his fingers. "This is a prank, right? You’re doing a prank for our reunion?"

The nervous laughter tapered through Sarah’s expressionless stare. Even a foolish man would know it was impossible for Sarah to pull up a prank--much less about an accident that killed her mother and made her left leg lame.

"N-No..."

Ethan shook his head. For a few seconds, he could only opened and closed his mouth repeatedly--perhaps trying to see a way out of the damning walls. In the end, he resorted to a full-blown denial.

"No--that is not me! Come on, Seul-ah--you know me; there’s no way I can do that. I was--" his open mouth paused for a few seconds as his brain whirred up excuses. "It was a set up--yeah, this is a set up! Whoever did this must have wanted to throw away their scent--yes!"

Sarah prolonged her silence, simply observing the charade with a pair of cold abyss. The clicking sound of the door locked from the outside was loud against the quiet, and the bodyguard’s footsteps were heavy as he circled the table.

"What are you doing, Lee Seul-ah?" Ethan slammed the table as flight turned into fight. "How could you think I was able to do that?!"

"Yeah," Sarah replied sharply. "How could you do that?"

It was already there, but a certain email text moved from the corner of the wallscreen to the middle, both behind Sarah and Ethan. While there was only one email containing the schedule sent to the gangster, there were more exchanges between that email address and another, unknown address.

All about the plan to mess with Sarah’s car.

One of them, in particular, was about an ’extra’ reward. An additional cash reward should the plan go according to plan. It contained instructions on when and where he could take said reward and an order to delete every trace.

With a soft blink, a recording played then; from a CCTV with a clear date and time. People would think such a recording from five years ago would already be gone from the archive, but regular people weren’t the Little Bird of Helios.

There, so clear it looked stupid, was a twenty-seven-year-old Ethan taking something from a locker room, matched with the instructions from the email.

On the day Sarah was still lying unconscious in the hospital bed.

The black eyes narrowed. In pain, in disbelief, in question. "How could you do that to me?"

Ethan stumbled back, sending his chair crashing to the floor. "No, wait--that’s--"

"How?" Sarah leaned forward, eyes squinting inquisitively. "What have I done wrong, Team Leader Yoo? Did I unknowingly kill your family? Did I cripple you in some way?"

"I--"

"What kind of grudge do you have to betray me in such a way? No--"

The sharp voice shimmered down considerably as Sarah let out a sigh.

"Were you even on my side in the first place?"

"I was!" Ethan quickly replied. "I...I was...but--"

"But what?"

Sarah asked with a raised brow and a tensed voice. Deep down, she had hoped there was a valid reason behind all of this. Maybe he was being threatened? Did he have a debilitating debt she didn’t know about? Was he greatly indebted to someone?

Sarah had to admit that, amid everything the family had thrown at her, she didn’t really know anything about her ’people’ beyond their basic background and shown personality. She had reasoned that perhaps...perhaps it had all happened because she wasn’t a good employer to them. To him.

If that was the case, then maybe...just maybe...Sarah could find a way in her heart to forgive him.

"But...but I need to survive..." Ethan lowered his head and said dazedly.

Sarah widened her eyes slightly, back straightened a little bit so he could hear the man better.

Was that really it? Was he being threatened?

"Someone like me, who wasn’t born with a gold spoon like you, who was a mere orphan and scholarship graduate...there’s no way for me to survive in the company if I stay with you..."

Sarah froze.

Or was it her heart that did so?

"Everyone was against you; your fall was inevitable--I...I had to save my own skin...you understand, right?" the man raised his head, eyes filled with nothing but self-importance. "It’s not like you would be able to do anything to help me."

"You..."

Sarah was at a loss for words. All she could do was take a deep breath to calm herself. Preventing a self-deprecating laugh from escaping her lips.

"You knew someone was trying to kill me--kill my mother..." Sarah said with gritted teeth. "But instead of telling me or the chairman, you sided with them?"

Who...who was this man? Who was this person who put others’ lives beneath his success, beneath a dream of a glamorous life as an elite? She didn’t know him.

Did he change because of his life situation, or...or had he always been like this? Had she been too naive to see, too blinded by wishful thinking and rose-tinted glasses?

Sarah had no idea anymore.

"Are you...even human?"

"You don’t understand!" Ethan yelled defensively, like a petulant child who wouldn’t want to admit hitting someone was wrong. "You won’t understand how I feel! Always getting put down because of my background! Constantly worrying about my future! A rich girl like you--you won’t understand--"

Slam!

Not one second after his tirade, Ethan found himself on the floor; head slammed against the tile and back pressed with the weight of an adult man.

"Pardon me," the familiar voice of the bodyguard came from above him. "I should have stopped him before he polluted your hearing too much, Master."

"It’s fine, let him talk," Sarah said pathetically. All the mercy she carried in her heart had been exhausted. "I want to hear how pathetic he is."

Ethan groaned on the floor, flailing like a worm. And Sarah looked at him like he was.

"Let me ask you something," Sarah spoke again, and the bodyguard yanked Ethan’s hair so he could look at her cold eyes. "So, no one was or is threatening your life?"

"What...?" Ethan replied dazedly, dizzy from his bruised temple.

Sarah sighed. "I was about to ask about your family, but I remembered you don’t have one."

"You--"

Slam!

"Tsk--this one is quite rude," Hajin gripped the man’s hair again. If it were up to him, he would just end the man then and there, but...

Fortunately for the man, Hajin’s master still had a use for him.

"So you only did it so you can switch to a more prospective career?" Sarah asked again, just to make sure, driving it deeper into how ridiculous it sounded.

Still, the bruised and now bloodied man splurted out bravado. "W-what’s wrong with that?"

"Nothing," Sarah flashed a cold smile. "Just like how there would be nothing wrong with what we’re going to do to you."

"W-what?"

"Now," Sarah tilted the man’s chin with the edge of her shoe. "Who gave you the instructions?"

Ethan blinked in a daze, staring at the woman who looked familiar, but very much a stranger. Yes, Lee Seul-ah had changed. But she didn’t change into a useless, arrogant, conglomerate princess.

She changed into something her grandfather probably wanted her to be.

Someone who deserved to inherit his empire.

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