CHAPTER 214: CHAPTER 213. PHANTOM OF THE PAST

"Y-you can’t!"

Sarah arched her brow in surprise at the scene, watching Jeong Mina throw herself at the table as if there was a cure for an incurable disease that plagued her there. Her long nail art grated on the table as she clawed at the documents, snatching them.

"You can’t kick me out! You can’t divorce me!" She retreated to the couch and started to rip the documents in her hands. "You have no proof!"

"M-Mom?"

The documents were inside a folder, but Jeong Mina ripped them as if she had supernatural strength. Her wide, unblinking eyes made even her children look at her with fear.

With reddened eyes, she looked around as the ripped papers swirled around her. Her hair had been messed up from constant grabbing by herself, that she looked like a snow woman surrounded by falling snow.

From how the others looked at her, she might as well have turned into one. Faces full of grimace, doubt, and questions. She looked at the chairman, his husband, and saw nothing but contemptuous mockery.

Mina looked at the pieces of ripped paper around her. Right, they could still take these papers and glue them together. She couldn’t let the police find it. She couldn’t.

"Y-you can’t..." Mina dropped to the floor and hurriedly gathered the papers in her hands, like a leprechaun gathering gold. "Y-you have no proof!"

After screaming like that, she ran toward the fireplace, throwing the papers into the swaying flames. The papers bounced against the screen of the electric fireplace and scattered on the floor again.

And yet, the reddened eyes framed by running mascara still glared at the flames as if they were eating the papers, muttering lowly.

"You have no proof...you have no proof..."

The chairman squinted his eyes and sighed. "Quit it, Mina."

The advice, which was meant for her to snap to reality, sounded different to Mina. For her, it was as if the chairman told her the effort was futile.

She gasped. "The recording..."

Mina scrambled to the table again, where Lee Hyun looked at her with widened, shocked eyes. But she didn’t see him, or his smushed face on the table. All her eyes focused on was the device on the table, where her voice was stored. She threw the device to the floor, smashing it with her stilettos.

And as she stomped on the device, she remembered something else from the annex.

"V-video--"

She looked around, and then up, chasing the staff uniform with her eyes. Gasping, Mari scooted behind Sarah, prompting Mina’s eyes to fall on her stepdaughter instead.

The daughter of her dead friend.

The dead friend she saw in front of that daughter, floating on the railing with that plain appearance and sweet, innocent smile.

With shaking eyes and trembling lips, Mina shook her head and turned toward the chairman.

"You can’t do this to me!" she screamed at her husband. "Y-you can’t just...you can’t just bring a new woman and replace me!" She gripped the front of her blouse, shouting in frustration. "I’m supposed to be the Madam! I’m supposed to be the one who stays here! Not her!"

Vivian gasped and hid behind Sarah together with Mari, but those dazed eyes of Mina weren’t even on her.

"N-not her..." Mina grasped her hair. "Why...why is it always her?! Why does she always have everything?!"

The chairman frowned. At this point, it was clear enough that Mina wasn’t in her right mind. Her speech kept getting slurred and incoherent.

"I--I’m prettier...I’m better..." she mumbled, grasping her cheeks as if caressing herself. "She...she’s just an orphan...just a timid girl. W-why...why should she be the one who...who marry rich..."

Vivian peeked out nervously behind Sarah’s shoulder. "But...I’m not an orphan?"

"Mom?" Ruby was frowning in confusion too--not to mention worry and...fear.

Where...where was her mother? Where was the confident, imposing Madam she always showed her children?

"Y-you..." Mina snapped her gaze up, glaring at the phantom in the railing. "It’s all your fault! Everything is your own fault!"

Lee Hyun, who was no longer being held too strongly in the midst of the confusion, was just as bewildered. "Mina, what are you--"

"T-that’s right..." The caressing hands on her cheeks turned into a clawing pair. "It’s...it’s your own fault that you died...that’s right..." she let out a guttural laugh from her throat, as if she was choked on something mid comedy. "It’s your fault...it’s not mine..."

"She’s not talking about you," Sarah told Vivian, staring at the mad woman dryly.

Mina grasped her messy head and screamed at the empty air. "It’s your fault, Raisa...It’s your fault!"

"She’s talking about my mother."

* * *

Despite Mari’s quiet whining, Sarah left right away, when Mina was still screaming in the living room. She had planned to sleep in the mansion originally, since it was too late already, but looking at Mina’s condition, the woman might come to attack her in the night, thinking she was her mother.

Hajin could easily subdue her, but...

Taking down someone who was not in their right mind felt disturbing.

Besides, looking at Lee Hyun and Mina made her feel uncomfortable. Or rather, uncomfortable thoughts started to reappear in her mind, just like the time she realized that Joseph’s motivation was revenge.

These thoughts made Sarah sigh heavily on their way home. "Puppy..."

"Mm?"

Sarah leaned against the window and muttered. "Do you think I’m being hypocritical?"

"Why?" Hajin smiled, watching the reflection of his brooding princess in the glass. "Because you loathe those two for trying to kill the chairman?"

"Mm," Sarah spent a while chewing the inside of her cheek, her lips, and probably her thoughts. "I mean...I also had no qualm about killing Joseph, and let you do whatever you want to Mason," she turned her head, pursing her lips when Hajin responded with a rather sinister, self-satisfactory smirk. "I don’t have any plan to kill the chairman, but what I’m about to do soon might kill him in another way."

"You mean like how he killed a part of you long, long time ago?" Hajin looked at her while tilting his head.

Sarah pressed her lips hard, and turned her head to the window again, watching the light outside passing by.

Ah, she hated this. She hated the need to feel pity for the chairman; the man she still didn’t want to call father

. She just wanted to hate him to her bones, without a shred of sympathy. She didn’t want to feel uncomfortably sad because the old man she hated had poison swirling in his system.

She hated thinking that she might not be able to go through with her plan because of a freaking pity.

"Well...I don’t know what might comfort your mind, my soft-hearted Princess--"

"I’m not," Sarah pursed her lips, grumbling.

"Yes, yes, you’re not," Hajin smiled cheekily, but his eyes were looking at Sarah warmly. "But, Princess...even without that, you already hate them, don’t you?"

"Well..."

Even without the poison, she already hated Mina to her core; hated her cowardly uncle who projected his insecurity onto her. The poison was just an extra reason to hate them.

"Anyway, all I can say is that those people reap what they sow, that’s it," Hajin said. Even the chairman, who was poisoned because he couldn’t commit to one woman or treat his brother well. "We are just the agents of the universe, bringing retribution to them."

"Retribution..." Sarah stroked her shoulder. She looked at her own reflection, where she could see a bit of ink below her collarbone. "Do you think it’ll come for us too?"

"Perhaps," Hajin shrugged. "It’s called a cycle for a reason, but you don’t always have to be the one who breaks it."

Sarah blinked, turning around to look at Hajin again. It was intriguing how casual he was about it, how direct. Sarah had thought he was going to find a way to sweeten it, making it soothing and validating. Instead, he added with a smile.

"Perhaps sometimes other people would come for our asses," Hajin said. "Funnily enough, I think I can accept that kind of end better than being dead for no reason."

Again, Sarah blinked. "Huh?"

"At least, I won’t have to die while questioning ’why is this happening to me’ or something like that," Hajin said. "It’s easier to accept, don’t you think?"

Sarah raised her brows. "Even if it’s unfair?"

"Hmm..." Hajin tapped his steering wheel in contemplation. "My mother said humans would always think their death is unfair, even those who seek one themselves," he said. "So, at the very least, I want it to end without questions."

Sarah stared at the man, eyes narrowed and mind swimming in more questions than answers. Sometimes, she felt like she couldn’t understand Hajin at all, like she found a new layer of him that she didn’t have time to peel before.

"You’re weird as always," she shook her head and looked at the street again. Even the way he looked so nice spouting wise words while driving was weird.

Hajin laughed and responded with a wink. "But I’m your weirdo, so it’s okay."

Sarah scoffed at the confident remark, but...

"Yeah, it’s okay," she smiled.

What could she do if it was the truth?