CHAPTER 163: CHAPTER 162. BLADE INSIDE ONE’S HEART

Little Bird straightened up slightly, and scooted her chair closer to Sarah as if the report was for her only. With how small her voice was, it might as well. The others had to perk their ears to catch what she told Sarah.

"Umm...s-so..." Little Bird started, fiddling with her sleeves while glancing at Sarah from beneath her hood. "I t-told you ab-about how that p-perrson spent l-lots of time ab-broad..."

"Right," Sarah nodded. "You told me it was a long time ago, when my grandfather was still the chairman."

"Y-yes," Little Bird nodded several times. "It w-was diff-fficult because uhh...n-not much inter-rnet b-back th-then."

Her eyes darted around, nervously. It was as if she wanted Sarah to know that she needed a lot of time because it was ultra difficult, not because she was lazy or anything.

"Yeah, and I remembered you told me it was somewhere not well-integrated digitally even to this day," Sarah chuckled. Did you send field agents over there?"

Little Bird nodded hard. "Y-yeah, a-and l-look f-for an-anything onn your Grrandpa s-side!"

"I see," Sarah smiled, patting the girl’s head to praise her. "Thank you, Birdie. So, what did you find?"

"S-son," Little Bird said quietly--so quiet it was almost a whisper. Probably because it was a scandalous topic. "T-that p-person ha-had a s-son."

"A son?" Sarah furrowed her brows. For all she knew, Joseph only had a daughter, who was conceived quite late. She never heard that Joseph had a son before, alive or dead. Well...not officially anyway. "Don’t tell me...out of marriage?"

Little Bird nodded, and Sarah groaned into her palm. Was it so hard for people to keep their loyalty to one partner?

"But does that mean this son is already dead?" Hajin asked. "You said he ’had’ a son."

"Y-yes," Little Bird nodded again, the bunny ear of her hoodie bounced around her hunched shoulders. "In...in p-prison."

Sarah raised her head, blinking her wide eyes. "What?"

Little Bird flinched, probably feeling Sarah’s agitation from her eyes, which made the girl nervous. "Uhh...h-holiday a-and...and...d-drrugs...and..."

Sarah bit the inside of his cheek, closing his eyes briefly to manage her emotions. When she opened them, she gave Little Bird an apologetic look while reaching out to stroke the hand behind those oversleeves.

"So, the son went on a vacation to this foreign country and got arrested by the local authorities because he was doing drugs?" Hajin tied the nervous mumbles together.

Little Bird nodded. "P-par-rty."

So, this illegitimate son of a company executive went abroad for a vacation and somehow went to a drug party that got busted by local authorities--which was also in the middle of combating a drug problem.

Hajin scoffed. "What an idiot."

"Whoa, J..." Austin held up his hands.

"What? Just because the man’s dead I can’t call him stupid?" Hajin tilted his head.

"Usually, yeah."

Hajin rolled his eyes. How ridiculous. He didn’t have sympathy for someone who received the consequences of their own action.

Especially, not to someone related to Sarah’s enemy.

"Then...Joseph must be busy going back and forth to get the son out of there, right?" Sarah narrowed her eyes. "And...he must be asking my grandfather for help."

Again, Little Bird nodded. If this happened inside the country, perhaps Joseph could do something himself. While he wasn’t the main family, he had enough connections to the authorities to make a request and bribe both the police and the prosecution office.

But abroad? He would need more than money and connections.

"But the fact that this son died while still in prison meant Joseph failed to get his son out," Hajin tapped the table slowly in contemplation. "Was he killed?"

Little Bird lowered her head before shaking it. "Umm..."

"He killed himself," Hajin concluded after seeing the girl’s reaction. Little Bird nodded slowly. "Why?"

"No h-help..."

Sarah widened her eyes. "My grandfather refused to help..."

The table turned silent as they gradually pieced together the puzzles. Why Joseph kept doing something that harmed the company or the family, from preventing the group from getting a hold of a project to actively sowing the seed of chaos in the family. Whether he wanted to take over the company or destroy it, the root cause of it was the grudge toward the previous chairman.

Unconsciously, Sarah pressed her solar plexus. This piece of the puzzle, while it finally seemed to complete the picture, made her feel uncomfortable.

Hajin stood up, as if to break the stagnant flow, and started to prepare a cup of tea for Sarah, who hadn’t had one since earlier. Waking up from the grim atmosphere, Suoh spoke as Sarah had her first sip of warm tea.

"Knowing the place, it was hard anyway," the younger twin said. "Taking him out would require help from the embassy, but this country is very harsh on drug cases."

Sua chimed in immediately. "It would be a different story if the son were tricked or if it were only a misunderstanding, but the son was using it, right?"

Little Bird nodded strongly. There were cases when people got involved by being in the wrong place at the wrong time, but Joseph’s son wasn’t like that. Little Bird had made sure to look for additional information, and found out that it wasn’t the son’s first offense.

"H-he...caught once, here..."

"Then, it’s hard," Suoh shrugged. "A drug party is very different from just being caught with a packet, or being flagged for a residue."

Glancing at Sarah, Sua added carefully. "If...if we’re looking at the previous chairman’s perspective, he probably thought it was hopeless and blamed the son for doing drugs in the first place--abroad, no less. Not to mention, he was an illegitimate son. Him being caught once here also made it harder to expect help from the embassy, don’t you think?" he said, getting energized with each sentence as if she were Sarah’s grandfather’s attorney. "Getting involved might only damage the company if the press caught wind of it."

Suoh and Austin nodded in support. Even Little Bird, who had already nodded so much during the last twenty minutes. "And I heard that country’s prison was bad--especially in the past. The son probably thought he would rather die than stay there when he realized no one would be able to help," Austin gave his two cents.

"Mm..." Sarah mumbled into her teacup.

The twins and Austin looked at each other with unspoken worry in their eyes. Sua and Suoh had known Sarah for years, since they were still teenagers; but even Austin, who only joined the group a few months ago, already knew Sarah enough to know that she was still distraught.

Little Bird looked at Sarah and then the others, in panic and confusion about what to do. This was supposed to be a fun tea party while they talked about the progress of Sarah’s plan, but at that point, the atmosphere was nothing short of grim. She sent a pleading gaze toward the older guys at the other side of the table, almost glaring.

Suph flinched as he received the glare and cleared his throat, turning his head to the quiet Yonghwa who did nothing but observe them while drinking his tea. As usual.

"What...what would you do if it were me, Hyung?" Suoh asked the man.

Yonghwa wasn’t their blood brother--wasn’t even their cousin. But he knew the twins since they were babies--hell, he was in the hospital when they were born, while their father was trapped in the airport because of a hurricane. The man was basically their godfather, even though he was also their father’s boss. If something were to happen to the twins that their father couldn’t handle, certainly their father would also ask Yonghwa for help.

Certainly, Yonghwa would get what he was trying to do, right?

"If you were caught doing drugs abroad?" the older man tilted his head for a second, before replying shortly without prolonged contemplation. "I’d take you out and throw you into the ocean myself. At least you can feed some sharks and be a bit more useful."

"Understood," Suoh straightened his back and made a salute. While he only asked to help show Sarah that others would also make the same decision as her grandfather, he did not doubt that Yonghwa would really do what he said.

There was a reason why Sol’s group--or rather, Helios--never fucked with drugs after all.

"I’ve never done any, I swear!" Austin raised his hands high, and Sua nodded for herself, prompting Little Bird to giggle before clasping her mouth, glancing cautiously at Sarah.

Looking at Little Bird and the others, Sarah realized she had made them worried. Smiling wryly, she leaned back and sighed. "So...it is revenge, huh?" she looked up, fiddling with the empty cup in her hands. "Was everything he did...a revenge? To my grandfather?"

And not only that, Sarah realized that what she had been doing--amassing the group’s shares and tearing the family apart--was just what Joseph had been doing.

Thinking about that, Sarah felt her stomach churn again.

"Princess," Hajin whispered softly, with a soothing voice and gentle strokes of his warm hand on her back. He poured new, warm tea into a cup and had Sarah drink it slowly.

"Eonni--"

"A blade of retribution..." Yonghwa put down his cup, "...should be pointed at the one responsible."

Sarah looked up, staring at the calm pale eyes. Those eyes looked serene, but also piercing, as if speaking to her soul instead of her ears.

"That’s why people who wield revenge in their heart must do it very, very carefully."

Sarah lowered her head and closed her eyes, gripping her inked shoulder tightly as if she was holding her heart.