When Kim Jae-jun and Kim Ye-sol returned back to the room, Kim Seo-yeon had already woken up, and was attempting to sit up. Kim Ye-sol rushed to her and helped her arrange the pillow.
"Seo-yeon, honey, you're fine now. Do you remember anything?" Kim Ye-sol asked.
Kim Seo-yeon shook her head.
There was a knock on the door and some servants brought in steaming food. They put a table over Kim Seo-yeon's bed and laid out the food before her. Kim Seo-yeon smiled and picked up a spoon.
"Mother, I can't remember anything. I only remember being rescued." Kim Seo-yeon said and ate the food with a delighted look on her face.
"Okay, the food is nourishing for your body. The doctor says you should rest in the hospital for a few days. After that, you'll be discharged. Don't worry we'll be here 24 hours so you won't get harmed." Kim Ye-sol said in a caring tone.
"Mother, I'm fine. I'm 23, you can't look after me like a baby." Kim Seo-yeon said and laughed.
"No. No. You're too weak right now. I'm not taking any chances." Kim Ye-sol said with a firm look on her face.
Kim Seo-yeon shrugged weakly. "What can I say?"
…
Second day.
Kim Seo-yeon was staring down at her phone when there was a knock on the door. She turned her head to the door.
Son Ji-woo poked her head in and waved. Kim Seo-yeon stared at her blankly. Son Ji-woo bit down on her teeth and mustered up courage to open the door.
She placed the basket of fruits on the table beside Kim Seo-yeon. Kim Seo-yeon stared up at Son Ji-woo, her gaze blank, her eyes without emotion.
"Ms. Kim. Ma'am, you must have been very worked up these past few days, so I brought you some fruits to reinvigorate you." Son Ji-woo said slowly.
Kim Seo-yeon did not say anything as she looked at Son Ji-woo from head to toe. She looked very different from her usual professional self. She was wearing a pair of loose jeans with a white shirt and white sneakers. She looked like the girl next door.
Kim Seo-yeon opened the drawer with some difficulty and took out a handbag. From one of its inner pockets, she took out a black card.
"Get something new. Don't wear those crappy clothes to my office again." Kim Seo-yeon said smoothly and passed the card to Son Ji-woo. She leaned back and lay on the bed.
Son Ji-woo knew it was her cue to leave. She bowed.
"Thank you Ms. Kim! God bless!" She said and ran out of the room.
…
It had been a week since Kim Seo-yeon had been found, and she had already been discharged and returned to work.
During this time, Kim Jae-jun and Kim Ye-sol had tried to get Kim Seo-yeon to give details about the kidnapping, but no matter what they asked, Kim Seo-yeon refused to talk about it or said she'd forgotten. They were worried something terrible had happened to her which she couldn't speak of and they consulted the doctor who reiterated that other than being mentally tortured, Kim Seo-yeon was fine. He advised them to be patient with her and that it was probably still the trauma of the incident affecting her.
Kim Seo-yeon sat at her desk and opened her laptop.
Son Ji-woo walked in that moment. She was dressed differently. She was wearing a dark blue skirt, with a black inner shirt and a short dark blue jacket over it. The crop jacket was laden with golden buttons and Son Ji-woo paired the clothes with a pair of shiny black high heels and black socks. She had also gotten her hair dye removed on Kim Seo-yeon's orders and had her brown hair cascading over her shoulders in soft waves. She looked very different from before.
"Ma'am, we have the board executives of Bios and Logos at Sichuan restaurant. They would like to meet."
"Okay. I need the marketing and sales department to draft me a new ad. We need to put our name on the new banking app. It looks promising." Kim Seo-yeon said and stood up.
She walked out of the office, as employees ran to her, explaining and asking her for something.
She was dressed in a dark green dress and she paired it with dark green high heels. She was walking with the confidence of the CEO that she was and with Son Ji-woo following behind her, looking polished, they formed a picture perfect CEO and assistant entourage.
Anyone who didn't look closely would think they were sisters; although Son Ji-woo was smaller and slimmer, she had about the same height as Kim Seo-yeon.
...
Kim Seo-yeon settled into the private room at Sichuan restaurant, the scent of chili oil filling the air. She didn't bother with small talk. The two executives from Bios and Logos—one nervous, one smug—sat across from her.
"Let's bypass the pleasantries. I've been quite unwell these past few days." Kim Seo-yeon began, her voice cool and steady.
"Yes. We saw the news." The smug executive said with a hint of a smirk on his face.
"You publicly withdrew your investment due to 'internal stability concerns.' You know that's a lie. You were forced to withdraw." Kim Seo-yeon ignored the executive and continued.
The nervous executive stammered, "Ms. Kim, our shareholders—"
"I don't care about your internal politics, we already made a deal." Kim Seo-yeon cut him off.
"Ms. Kim, it's in our best interests that we cut off this deal." The smug executive said, his expression turning into one of noticeable annoyance.
"I want the name of the entity that applied pressure. Give me the name, and I will compensate your loss and increase the value of your next merger by twenty percent." Kim Seo-yeon said without a hint of emotion on her face.
The smug executive laughed, a dry sound.
"You think you can outbid them, Ms. Kim? They told us if we went through with the Jeongwon deal, they would expose our offshore subsidiaries and tank our primary stock. It's not something Jeongwon Capital can stand against."
Kim Seo-yeon absorbed the information.
"And the name?" she pressed.
The executive leaned in, his confidence dissolving into fear. "We only dealt with their lawyer, a man named Mr. Geum. He operates out of a shell firm called Hansol Capital. That's all we know."
"Hansol..." She savored the name in her mouth. It sounded slightly familiar.
Kim Seo-yeon nodded once, stood up, and glanced at Son Ji-woo. "We're done here. Arrange for the compensation to be wired. Get our legal team to look into Mr. Geum. There must be something underhanded going on. Start digging."
"Ms. Kim, don't bother, you won't find anything."
Kim Seo-yeon ignored him as she walked out, leaving the two executives behind.
...
The sleek black car zoomed along the deserted highway.
Kim Seo-yeon lowered the window of the car, vibing to the music playing in the car as the wind blew at her hair, the hair she ever so rarely let down.
She stopped at an old building, whose rusty gates bore a sign that read 'Jang Steel'. A thin figure in a black hoodie got in.
Kim Seo-yeon turned down the music.
"Do you have it?" She asked in her cool voice.
"Here." The thin hand passed a file to her.
Kim Seo-yeon opened the file and started looking through the contents. There were pictures of her mother's half-brother, Koo Cheol-seo, leaving his house, on a phone call and getting into a car. Kim Seo-yeon's eyes squinted.
"That is S Cars' limited edition bulletproof model. Whoever's driving that car eats gold. Who could it be?" She asked, more to herself than the hooded figure.
"I couldn't get too close to the car to avoid being noticed, but the license plate doesn't seem to have been made in this country. It's Chinese." The thin man said in a raspy voice.
"I paid a substantial sum and this is all you got?" Kim Seo-yeon asked annoyed.
"Remember, Kim Seo-yeon, I have nothing to do with this. Don't get me tied up in your problems. Finish what I asked you to do, and I probably will have more pictures." The hoarse voice sounded.
Kim Seo-yeon looked up at the figure. She had only ever seen his eyes, because he always covered his face. But the little skin she saw seemed to have survived a fire.
"I have a Glock 19 in the car. Where are the rest of the pictures?" Kim Seo-yeon asked coldly.
The hoarse voice laughed, unconcerned.
"Finish what I asked you to do. I died a long time ago, I don't mind dying again." He said as his dark eyes narrowed.
Kim Seo-yeon closed the file and slammed it on the dashboard in anger. She took deep breaths.
"Are you Korean? Your Korean is very bad." Kim Seo-yeon asked, trying to sound calm.
"That's none of your business." The hoarse voice said in slight annoyance.
"Get off."
Kim Seo-yeon zoomed away as soon as he got off. She opened the car compartment and took out a small silver flask. She opened it with one hand and inhaled the deep rich scent of it. She took a small swig of the gin inside and closed the flask.
That morning when she was in Yeon Ji-a's room, the hooded figure had called her and told her he knew how Yeon Ji-a died. She had immediately gotten his location and went to meet him alone.
He explained his plan to her:
"Your uncle, Koo Cheol-seo, is planning on kidnapping you. I can't tell the motive. But with Yeon Ji-a's death, he seems to want to pull back on the plan." The hoarse voice of the hooded figure said.
"How do you know of this?" Kim Seo-yeon asked as she stood some distance away from him.
"That's for me to know." He said.
"You stand there unarmed, what if I came with people?" Kim Seo-yeon asked with a slight raise of her head.
"Do you want to know if your sister's death is a suicide or a murder?" He asked.
Kim Seo-yeon paused, sucked her teeth, "That day, at Ji-a's, you were watching me." She recalled the weird feeling she had that day, her eyes narrowing.
"Precisely. And I'm the only one who knows what happened when the servant went out to buy groceries." He said and Kim Seo-yeon could almost see him smiling, even though only his eyes were visible. "I know what Yeon Ji-a's last moments alive were like."
"Tell me what you know!" Kim Seo-yeon snapped and raised her gun to point at him.
"Say..." His raspy voice sounded as he paced about, not fazed in the slightest about the gun in her hand. "What's better to catch, tuna filled with caviar or goldfish?" He said and turned to look at her.
Kim Seo-yeon stared at him for a while, before she pursed her lips and asked, "What's your plan?"
Since Koo Cheol-seo wanted to pull back with his kidnap attempt, they had double crossed the kidnappers and falsely informed them as Koo Cheol-seo that Kim Seo-yeon needed to be kidnapped that day.
And they did, Kim Seo-yeon endured the torture to get what she needed from them.
Koo Cheol-seo didn't inquire from the kidnappers either. He thought that since she was already kidnapped, he might as well go with the original plan.
Neither the kidnappers nor Koo Cheol-seo knew they had been planned against.
Kim Seo-yeon did inform Kim Jae-jun before she was kidnapped. Kim Jae-jun had been reluctant, but soon he agreed. They agreed to keep it away from Kim Ye-sol to not ruin the plan.
So when Kim Seo-yeon had called Kim Jae-jun that day, she indeed missed him as she was being mentally tortured. But they had been aware of this possibility, and Kim Jae-jun needed to think of a way to wake her up momentarily; hence his calling her 'puppy', a name he used to call her as a child.
She picked up her phone and made a phone call.
"Hello?" A merry male voice sounded as Italian music blew in from the other end.
"I need your help." Kim Seo-yeon said calmly.
"What?!... Hold on... What did you say?!" The voice shouted into the phone. It seemed the loud music made the receiver unable to hear a word.
"Get away from there!" Kim Seo-yeon snapped.
A few seconds later, " Seo-yeon, I'm on vacation, I can't help you with anything." The voice said unhappily.
"I need you to run a search on Hansol Capital. I suspect it's a paper company based in the US." Kim Seo-yeon ignored the unhappy rant of the receiver of the call and hung up.
She turned on the music again, her eyes narrowed as she zoomed off.
The hooded figure would be dealt with later.