“So there was a place like this here.”
I finally did it.
I managed to persuade the guard captain and get into the club’s CCTV room.
“Wow, do you keep this for about a week?”
“People might come later and complain about incidents like today, right? We store and manage them for at least a month, and then dispose of them all at once at the end of the year.”
“Oh!”
That’s enough time.
It hasn’t even been half a month since the incident, let alone a whole month.
What the team leader is showing us now is the corridor CCTV that faces outside the room, but there’s something that can’t be explained by that.
‘Quite a few screens are off.’
One or two might be broken.
But if it’s enough to fill ten fingers, that’s a different story.
It means they were intentionally turned off.
And that’s probably because they were temporarily conscious of us.
They wouldn’t advertise that they’re monitoring the VVIP rooms with CCTV.
They don’t need to reveal their insurance to us.
An important weapon to use when problems arise.
“Hmm, indeed, no one entered our room.”
Most importantly, I also confirmed the location of the CCTV cameras inside the room through the waiter.
When I said there wasn’t entirely no way, I followed his gaze and saw a subtle light shining from what looked like a decoration.
When simply looking, it was so perfect that you wouldn’t notice it at all.
“I told you, didn’t I? We don’t manage things that shabbily.”
That made me even more certain.
Now it’s worth trying.
I plan to hand over this information to the prosecution through Lawyer Ahn Gyeong-hun.
Then the prosecution will take care of it.
“It definitely gives me confidence.”
“So, you’ve checked everything now, right?”
“Yes, thank you.”
I bowed to the guard captain and left the CCTV room with Lawyer Yoon.
Then, returning to the room, I recognized the installed cameras and diligently scanned everywhere.
I was pretending to laugh and chat, assuming there was CCTV in this room, to retrieve the handbag I had let slip to the floor and kicked under the sofa.
“Here it is. My bag.”
As I took out the handbag, I deliberately shook it widely.
Meaning, “Watch closely.”
When I thought it would be well caught on CCTV, I sat on the sofa and spoke.
“Will you be angry if I ask for a meeting this weekend?”
“Of course not. I’m itching to have the meeting myself.”
“Wow, this is the first time I’ve seen Lawyer Yoon welcome weekend work.”
“I’m someone who gets things done when it’s time, too, you know?”
“That’s right. You really did an amazing job this time.”
“Hoo hoo hoo. This is so much fun for me. I guess I have a knack for this.”
“I admit that too. I’ll definitely tell that person.”
“Please tell them well. I really want to live a long life.”
No wonder. He worked very hard on this.
Director Cha Kang-hyuk’s gaze towards Lawyer Yoon was still quite sharp.
Director Cha, his lingering resentment was a bit longer than I thought.
“Both your loyalty and your lingering resentment are long.”
“Huh?”
“No, it’s just something.”
By the way, I wonder if Cha Kang-hyuk is meeting with Woo Jin-gon properly.
After all this trouble, at least he should find the item I asked for.
“Hey, have you been waiting long?”
“Yeah. A long time.”
Come to think of it, he had.
Woo Jin-gon was never on time.
Kang-hyuk shook his strong drink with a bitter smile.
“You scoundrel. You’re supposed to be on probation, can you really be going around like this?”
“That’s why I suggested we meet in a private room.”
Cha Kang-hyuk leaned back in his chair and said.
“If you’re going to get a room, at least get a decent one. You’re always so boring.”
The “room” Jin-gon was referring to was a place with women.
Not a place like this, where food is served one after another.
He had never gone with him, but he saw him frequenting such places with the club crowd last time, and after trying to correct him several times, he had now given up.
Because the more he tried to stop him, the more he’d do it.
No, maybe Woo Jin-gon was just the type of person he didn’t get along with from the beginning.
Kang-hyuk tore off a piece of the red seabream neatly arranged in front of him and said,
“But you’re 20 minutes late and you don’t even apologize?”
“You know what Seoul is like, why are you like this? If there’s traffic, 20 minutes flies by.”
“Then what am I, who always comes on time?”
“What, you scoundrel. You called me to such a boring place, why are you so prickly?”
“Yeah, you’ve always been like that.”
It’s just that I’m only seeing it now.
If it weren’t for Kim Yoo-hee, I might have gone my whole life without knowing.
No, this is nothing.
Cha Kang-hyuk downed the strong, high-end soju straight from the glass.
“Why are they hitting me so hard on your broadcast?”
“Ah, are you sulking because of that? You know, our dad is just a major shareholder there, not really that influential.”
“Oh, is that so.”
“Well, the president there handles everything, so what can we do? If we interfere here, it’ll just look like a major shareholder meddling with the broadcast.”
“As if no one knows your father is deeply involved in that president’s appointment.”
“This scoundrel is accusing an innocent person.”
“Who’s making false accusations now?!”
Cha Kang-hyuk could no longer hold back and shot up from his seat.
He approached Woo Jin-gon and shoved his face close.
“Hey, Woo Jin-gon.”
“W-what? What is it? Why are you calling my name so menacingly?”
“What do you mean, ‘what is it’? The innocent person is pissed off.”
“What nonsense are you talking about?”
Woo Jin-gon quickly tried to leave.
He knew very well what kind of person Cha Kang-hyuk was.
If it were for loyalty, he’d give his all, but this situation was far from that.
He couldn’t not know, having used Cha Kang-hyuk’s loyalty all this time.
“It was actually you who caused the accident at the club that day. I just ended up like that trying to stop you, but your name was completely missing from your news. Not even a single character of your name appeared.”
“Th-that’s probably because the reporter couldn’t get any more information than that.”
“He even took a picture of my fist reflexively punching, and he doesn’t know your name at all? Does that make sense?”
“Why wouldn’t it make sense? It could happen!”
“You scoundrel, I knew it, but you’re really trash.”
“What? Are you saying there’s nothing in your eyes just because I’ve been nice to you?”
“Why, should I hit you like those people?”
Cha Kang-hyuk pushed his face even closer to Woo Jin-gon, as if daring him to strike.
He meant, “Hit me if you dare.”
“Ha, I’m holding back because you’re not worth dealing with, honestly.”
“Is it not because I’m not your match?”
Unlike Woo Jin-gon, who was obsessed with women and alcohol, Cha Kang-hyuk enjoyed physical activity.
A prime example was weightlifting.
He would even work out at hotel fitness centers when on business trips.
Thanks to that, he neglected his studies a bit, but that didn’t mean he was unintelligent.
He just hated opening books.
And one of the people who knew this best was Woo Jin-gon.
That he had no chance if they got into a fight.
It wasn’t good to get into a fight at this time and have his name linked with Cha Kang-hyuk.
Jin-gon pushed Kang-hyuk away with an annoyed expression.
However, the guy’s body didn’t budge.
“Let’s stop. There’s nothing good about fighting me in this situation.”
“For me, there’s nothing more to lose here. But aren’t you different, with not a single character of your name mentioned?”
“Were you always the type to harp on people’s words like this? You’re annoying, so just stop it!”
His father had deliberately omitted his name from the media and thrown Cha Kang-hyuk to the wolves.
To be precise, he bribed some low-level reporter who wasn’t even a proper journalist.
He promised that if there were good sources again, he’d formally reveal the source.
And he reprocessed and produced that information to spread it to other media outlets.
‘That annoying bastard, there’s nothing else for it when he’s trying to save the article.’
He heard he was a reporter for some internet newspaper, and Woo Jin-gon only learned that such a newspaper existed this time.
Now he couldn’t even remember its name.
Actually, as long as his name wasn’t sold, he didn’t care much.
It was like his father’s company had pulled off a coup.
The deviation of a chaebol’s third-generation heir, no less.
He actually wanted to see that annoying guy’s face get messed up a bit.
In Woo Jin-gon’s world, there were ranks even among chaebols, and it was annoying that his company was indeed inferior to Cha Han Construction.
He had annoyingly known since he was little that a place with just one news channel, not even a regular broadcast, and Cha han Construction, which had mountains of cash, couldn’t be on the same level.
So, he subconsciously wanted to get rid of him, and a good opportunity just presented itself.
Jin-gon felt like applauding his father’s plan.
“Was that your true feeling? That I’m annoying?”
“Wow, you’re pushing it like this? Yes, it was my sincere feeling. I’m so annoyed with you, I could die. So please, just get lost.”
Woo Jin-gon was more sincere now than ever.
Kang-hyuk threw a punch at him.
At that moment, Jin-gon instinctively squeezed his eyes shut and screamed.
“Aaaaaaaaaah!”
“Such a coward, so scared.”
Jin-gon barely opened his eyes at Cha Kang-hyuk’s mocking words.
Then, Kang-hyuk, wearing a sneer, grabbed him by the hair.
“Aargh, aren’t you going to let go?”
“You’re in pain from just this much, so why did you hit those people like that?”
“Because those bugs deserve it.”
“That’s not funny. Those people were at least doing their jobs diligently and heading home from work. Bugs? The real bug is someone like you, who spends their whole life playing around and doing all sorts of dirty things with your father’s money.”
“What did you say? You son of a bitch, you must not be able to see straight now that you’re about to go to jail.”
“There’s no law saying that won’t be you.”
“Crazy! Let go! I can’t listen to your nonsense anymore. Aargh!”
At his plea to be let go, Kang-hyuk obediently released his hand from Jin-gon’s hair.
Then, Woo Jin-gon, still flailing with the force of gravity, plummeted to the ground.
“You, you’re really going to regret this. I’m going to bury you completely.”
He meant he would retaliate through his father.
Kang-hyuk shrugged and said,
“Go ahead and try if you can. I have nothing more to lose here.”
“You annoying bastard to the very end! I’m completely done with you, done!”
Woo Jin-gon quickly bolted out of the room, fearing he might be grabbed by the hair again, and said.
Vowing never to come to such a Korean traditional restaurant again.
“Who’s talking. I’m the one who’s done with you. You little bug.”
Kang-hyuk looked at the strands of Jin-gon’s hair in his hand and smiled bitterly.
He wanted to smash his face in, but if he did that now, he’d go straight to jail, so he couldn’t.
He took out his phone from his pocket.
And he dialed a number from his recent call list.
“I’ve secured the item.”
You did well.
I asked for plenty, just in case.
“I didn’t know how much I’d need, so I grabbed everything I could lay my hands on, so don’t worry.”
Ahahahahaha.
Kim Yoo-hee’s laughter came through the phone.
It was the signal announcing the beginning of the true counterattack.