Contract Marriage with a Male Friend - Chapter 59

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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#59

When Beom Jin stepped into the container, five men knelt on the floor with their heads bowed.
A mixture of tears—or perhaps mucus—and blood dripped steadily onto the concrete.
“Men who’ve traded a few blows with An Dong Jin, I’m told.”
“Yes, Director.”
The word “Director” made the men flinch. They exchanged glances, their bodies trembling.
“You’d better answer well. And if you want to win big at the house and still have hands to beat people with, you need those hands to work, don’t you?”
“We—we made a mistake!”
“We were just angry about being cheated.”
“Angry about being cheated?”
“Ah, that bastard An Dong Jin—I mean, that man kept running scams on us, dealing from the bottom of the deck and all…”
“His technique must have been impressive. You all seem quite taken by it.”
The men nodded eagerly, falling over each other to agree.
“Yes, yes, he was no ordinary card sharp. His hand work was so fluid—I’d say he ranks among the best in the country.”
Beom Jin’s eyes narrowed slightly.
While An Soo Yi cared for her alcoholic mother alone, An Dong Jin had wandered the nation, working as a card sharp in gambling dens.
Of course, it must have started for the sake of his family.
To make up for the money lost in his bankruptcy, to support them again.
The reason An Soo Yi spoke of her father without bitterness, still longed for him, became a funeral director to find a father who might have left this world as a person with no one—it all came down to that.
But whatever his intentions, the fact remained: he had abandoned his young daughter.
Well, in a way it was a matter of consequence—
And that was precisely why he had been able to meet her.
If An Soo Yi had never known loneliness or lack, she wouldn’t have so readily given her place beside her to a stranger who appeared one day.
‘So he became a card sharp?’
Then he would have earned considerable money, but like all drifting gamblers, he must have squandered it just as quickly.
Either that, or he’d gotten tangled up in violence, forcing him to flee and disappear repeatedly.
The reason he still hadn’t appeared before An Soo Yi was…
Was he ashamed of his circumstances?
Or had he completely forgotten his daughter?
‘I’ll find out directly.’
Locating An Dong Jin’s whereabouts.
It was An Soo Yi’s wish, and so Beom Jin had decided to move himself.
Moreover, it was the fundamental reason An Soo Yi remained shackled—unable to express her feelings honestly, as if trapped in a curse.
On the day she reunited with her father and cleansed the deep wounds embedded in her heart, becoming whole enough to lean entirely on him.
That was when Beom Jin would confess.
Not a contract—but that she become his wife for all of life.
That she become his true family.
That their “forever” would truly be eternal.
“His whereabouts.”
“We—we really don’t know!”
“One day he just vanished without a trace. From what we’ve heard through the grapevine, he’s always done that—disappearing suddenly with no warning.”
That was precisely the problem.
Beom Jin had stationed men at every gambling den where An Dong Jin had surfaced.
Yet each time, An Dong Jin effortlessly lost them—men seasoned in surveillance and pursuit—and disappeared.
‘Someone is definitely looking after him.’
Was it Uncle’s side?
But they lacked that kind of patience.
The moment they had a winning hand, they couldn’t resist boasting about it; they’d get caught red-handed, undone by their own arrogance.
They couldn’t be this meticulous.
…Perhaps that very carelessness was the problem.
“Well, uh—”
That was when it happened.
The man who had been quietest trembled violently, watching Beom Jin’s face for a reaction.
“Speak.”
“An Dong Jin seemed to be heading toward Yeosu.”
“Yeosu?”
“He said something about a big game happening there… that he’d make one big score and then smuggle out illegally, where nobody could find him. We heard him muttering it while drunk.”
When Beom Jin’s cold gaze fell upon him, the man hung his head and trembled like an aspen leaf.
“He was so far gone that he was talking nonsense, so—so I thought it was just drunken babble. I didn’t mention it because the information wasn’t solid…”
Beom Jin looked down coldly at the man prostrate on the floor, contrite as a criminal, then tilted his chin toward Ma Do Hwan.
“Spare this one. Hand the rest over to the police—make sure they never set foot in a gambling den again.”
Bang—
Beom Jin exited the container and headed straight for his car.
“Send men to Yeosu. Ma Do Hwan, pick only people you trust completely.”
“Are you concerned there may be an information leak from inside, sir?”
“We need to consider every possibility.”
Beom Jin’s eyes glinted with cold calculation.
“And put more men on Uncle’s operations. Focus especially on overseas fund movements. There has to be another route besides the ones we’ve already mapped.”

***

An Soo Yi’s proposal to house elderly residents displaced by the fire and coordinate funding through the Kangho Group New Business Division’s corporate social responsibility efforts passed without incident.
Chairman Dok Go Hyung Jun skimmed through the documents and nodded lightly.
“Go ahead with it.”
“Th—thank you so much!”
“At this rate, my eardrums won’t survive you, you know that?”
Chairman Dok Go Hyung Jun clicked his tongue, but An Soo Yi found him far less frightening than before.
In fact, she smiled.
By now, she understood perfectly that his reaction came not from dislike, but from the opposite.
“I’ll do my very best!”
“And there you go saying obvious things at full volume again.”
As An Soo Yi laughed—a bright, genuine sound—Chairman Dok Go Hyung Jun let out a small chuckle himself.
That was how the Kangho Group New Business Division team came to head down to a care facility in Anseong.
[Currently heading to Anseong]
Not long after sending the message, her phone rang.
– Honey. You’ve left?
“Yeah. I should be back around four o’clock this afternoon.”
– I’ll probably be even later today.
An Soo Yi asked while trying to hide her disappointment.
“How much later?”
– A little? Just go to bed first.
“Should I wait up for you?”
– If you want to stay up all night, sure. Just seeing you sleep gets me going, but if I see you waiting for me like that, I’m gonna—
That was when it happened.
“Team Lead, would you have a moment to look at this for us?”
When her colleague approached, An Soo Yi startled and hurried to end the call.
“Something just came up—gotta go! Talk later!”
– Drive safe. Call me when you can. I miss you.
“…Yeah, me too.”
– You too what?
Really. He knew perfectly well.
An Soo Yi covered her flushed face with her hand and spoke quietly.
“I miss you, you idiot.”
– …Should I come back up now?
“Don’t you dare. Finish up and come home. I’ll wait as long as I can.”
– Okay, you rest while your husband finishes up, love.
The call ended with a kiss.
‘He’s more affectionate than you’d think.’
An Soo Yi pocketed her mobile phone with a smile playing at the corners of her lips and turned toward where her team was waiting.
‘I really wish we could have dinner together tonight.’
Beom Jin’s business trips had become notably more frequent lately, making it difficult for them to sit face-to-face and simply look at each other.
Now it had reversed—An Soo Yi found herself waiting for Beom Jin instead.
Of course, Beom Jin called whenever he could, and his affection hadn’t changed.
But the loneliness was unavoidable.
‘Did he feel this way when I made him wait?’
She’d have to be better to him.
With that thought, An Soo Yi quickened her pace.
The sky stretching beyond the car window was bright and clear.
She had a strange feeling that something good was about to happen.
Yet when she arrived at the site, An Soo Yi couldn’t tell whether her premonition had been right or wrong.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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