Prosecutor Kim Seo-Jin - Chapter 138

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

Keeping Quiet (1)
*
*
*
“I apologize for the trouble you’ve gone through.”
It was the smoking area outside the Hotel.
Seo Jin bowed respectfully to the Police Officer.
Nearly thirty officers had been dispatched, yet they would have to return empty-handed.
Of course, someone within the police department had colluded with those criminals and leaked information.
Thanks to that, Anna Roux’s escape had become somewhat easier, but Seo Jin still needed to apologize.
The Police Officer exhaled smoke and glanced at Seo Jin.
“There’s nothing to apologize for. Thieves run and we chase—that’s how it works. This isn’t something new. But you’re Prosecutor Seo Jin, correct?”
“Yes.”
“The higher-ups might not favor you, but those of us working the field are different. You’re a prosecutor who understands the reality on the ground. I’ll always support you.”
The Police Officer smiled sadly and extended his hand for a handshake.
And the moment Seo Jin grasped his hand, I saw through psychometry.
‘So it was him?’
The one who had been in league with those criminals.
The one who had tipped off Anna Roux that the police were moving in.
I wondered who it could be, but it was this man smiling so pleasantly.
‘Sigh…’
I shook my head.
But I couldn’t arrest him now.
To catch the bigger fish, the small fry had to be released for now.
Just then, my phone vibrated.
It was the Bodyguard tailing Anna Roux.
I bowed slightly to the Police Officer and stepped out of the smoking area, bringing the phone to my ear.
“Yes, go ahead.”
-I’ve been following her the whole time. It looks like she went into a house.
“A house?”
I tilted my head in confusion.
If she were being pursued, I expected her to head straight to the organization or someone higher up to explain the situation.
When people are anxious, they seek something to lean on—that’s human nature.
But a house?
‘She’s bolder than I thought.’
Anna Roux doesn’t seem to care about the pursuit from the Prosecutor’s Office and the police.
‘And she’s an illegal resident at that?’
It’s absurd, but it’s not a loss that Anna Roux isn’t heading to the organization.
I now know where she lives, and I can stick to her like a leech and follow her trail.
Then the true nature of that organization will be revealed.
“I’m sorry to bother you, but could you do me a favor and keep watch?”
-Surveillance? You mean stakeout work? It might sound juvenile, but I’ve always wanted to try it.
“I appreciate that. Thank you.”
Seo Jin ended the call, already thinking he’d need to give a generous bonus later.
*
*
*
“Any shadows in the windows?”
After work, Seo Jin stood outside Anna Roux’s house with one of his security personnel.
The bodyguard shook his head.
“Didn’t see any. I wasn’t watching the windows for all 24 hours, so I can’t say for certain, but nothing stood out.”
Three days had passed since I began tailing Anna Roux from the hotel.
But all that happened was the lights turning on and off repeatedly.
Apparently, the only other activity was delivery food arriving the next day.
Anna Roux hadn’t left the house.
And the bodyguard I was seeing for the first time in days looked haggard.
Three of them took turns on stakeout, and it wasn’t easy work.
Standing in one place, mind blank—it was torture.
“You’ve worked hard.”
At my words, the bodyguard chuckled and cracked a joke.
“You see detectives doing stakeouts in movies and dramas, right? They look cool when you watch them, but actually doing it? It’s killing me.”
I laughed along with the bodyguard’s joke and turned my gaze back to Anna Roux’s house.
A ultra-luxury villa worth tens of billions.
To live in a place like that with an illegal resident status, I could barely imagine how many crimes she’d committed, how many ordinary citizens she’d bled dry.
I shook my head with a bitter expression.
‘Either way… it’s been three days, hasn’t it?’
Anna Roux hadn’t come out for three days.
Continuing to watch someone whose movements were unpredictable was unreasonable.
And the target was a criminal organization.
There was also the possibility she’d already slipped out of the house without the bodyguards noticing.
‘I need to verify this.’
I picked up my phone and ordered delivery food to Anna Roux’s house.
Moments later, a motorcycle pulled up outside.
The delivery person headed toward the security office.
“Unit 301.”
After confirming the restaurant name, the security guard nodded, and the delivery person entered the villa.
I watched and checked the time.
‘About now.’
The delivery person should be arriving at the door.
‘They’ll ring the doorbell.’
I recalled the sequence of events in my mind.
After hearing that no one had pressed the doorbell or ordered a delivery.
If I took the elevator back down,
I slowly directed my gaze forward.
‘Now.’
A delivery person was exiting through the main entrance, speaking with the manager on the phone.
Up to this point, every prediction I’d made had proven correct.
However, the delivery person’s conversation deviated from my expectations.
“Manager, no one’s here. I kept ringing the doorbell. Try calling them.”
I pressed my lips together.
‘No one’s there?’
Three possibilities existed.
Pretending to be absent, fled, or dead.
I walked toward the delivery person.
First, I needed to take the food I’d ordered.
“My apologies. I stepped out and missed it. I’ll take it with me, so please hand it over.”
“Pardon?”
When I showed the delivery person the order details through my phone’s app, they nodded.
The bodyguard standing behind then received the food, and I continued walking toward the security office.
The security guard was a young man in his early thirties.
The guard, who had been watching a video on his phone, straightened his posture as he sensed my approach.
“What can I help you with?”
I pulled out my identification from my pocket.
“I’m from the Prosecutor’s Office. I’d like to verify something and need your cooperation.”
“…What is it?”
I began reviewing the CCTV footage.
From three days before Anna Roux arrived until now.
And just as the bodyguards had said, the next day, a delivery person wearing a hat was seen entering.
I paused the footage and asked.
“Can delivery personnel enter just by confirming the restaurant name?”
“Yes, for packages and such, we usually accept them out front if they’re not heavy, but many residents prefer to receive food deliveries directly.”
I narrowed my eyes.
When I’d just placed the delivery order, the verification process had been remarkably simple.
It was nothing more than checking whether a name appeared on the list.
I rewound the footage to the moment the hat-wearing delivery person entered.
Then I pressed play and checked the time.
The duration from when the hat-wearing delivery person entered until they left was
‘Seventeen minutes.’
Far too long for a simple food delivery.
“There’s no CCTV at the entrance, is there?”
“Yes, well, most people tend to view that area as private. The surveillance only goes up to the elevator. Unless someone installed cameras privately in their own units.”
An unsettling thought crept into Seo Jin’s mind.
‘Surely not….’
The possibility he’d kept buried deepest.
The notion that Anna Roux might have been murdered began to surface, creeping upward like a slow poison.
Seventeen minutes was more than enough time to commit murder.
Seo Jin pressed the phone to his ear, speaking with urgency.
“Chief Prosecutor Jo, I’ll need a search warrant and a locksmith specialist. It’s in Cheongdam-dong.”
Seo Jin ended the call.
He rose to his feet and turned toward the security guard.
“I’d like to go up and check. Would you come with me?”
“Ah, yes. Of course.”
The security guard had heard the conversation about the search warrant.
He was eager to wrap this up quickly before things got messier.
The security guard stood and led the way.
*
*
*
Unit 301, where Anna Roux lived.
As the security guard had said, there were no cameras.
‘Seventeen minutes in here.’
Something felt wrong.
Seo Jin pressed the doorbell.
Once, twice, three times.
But no answer came.
He pressed his ear against the door to listen for sounds inside, but nothing.
Not a single sign of life.
‘Damn it!’
Seo Jin pressed the doorbell again.
And in that moment.
Seo Jin’s vision drained into black and white.
Ding-dong.
The doorbell chimed and the door swung open.
Anna Roux stood in the doorway as a delivery person in a cap entered.
The man strode boldly into the apartment.
He thrust forward the metal case he was carrying and spoke.
“I’ve put everything you need inside. Hide yourself.”
“Hide?”
“Did you bring a cop with you?”
The “cop” the delivery person mentioned was the bodyguard Seo Jin had stationed outside.
He had mistaken the Bodyguard for a Police Officer.
Anna Roux furrowed her brow and opened her mouth.
“Can’t I just disappear from this country? I’m sick of living in this squalid place. I hate pandering to these filthy Korean bastards.”
“The Boss told the Chairman he wouldn’t report this. Do you understand what that means?”
It meant they wouldn’t kill her.
In other words, it was an order to do as instructed.
Anna Roux exhaled a sigh.
“Thanks for letting me see another sunrise tomorrow.”
“At 2 AM tomorrow, an early morning delivery will arrive at Unit 201. Since it’s dumbbells and heavy, I asked them to leave it in front of the house. The delivery driver is obviously one of ours.”
“So I hide in another box they bring and escape?”
“No police officer suspects a delivery truck.”
Anna Roux nodded, and the Delivery Person handed her a note before speaking again.
“An Officetel in a provincial area. Lay low for about two months, then come back. You know how it is, right? This country’s judicial system. They’ll poke around for a few days, then forget it ever happened. And once you disappear, there’s no way they can catch you.”
Anna Roux was an illegal resident.
There was no way to verify her identity in South Korea.
She was living like a ghost.
“Okay. Got it. Since I’ll be bored, find me some work over there.”
“What kind?”
“A mistress to some provincial notable would be fine. Age doesn’t matter, but I’d prefer someone with a wife—I’ll get caught on purpose and make them divorce.”
“You’re insane.”
The Delivery Person chuckled.
And that was the end of their conversation.
The Delivery Person turned his body, and Anna Roux waved the note in her hand like a farewell gesture.
“See you later, then.”
The psychometry ended, and the world regained its color.
Seo Jin stopped pressing the bell.
‘Damn.’
Seo Jin let out a hollow laugh.
For a moment, I had worried about Anna Roux’s life and death.
But they had escaped this country while mocking its judicial system.
‘This is maddening.’
I thought I had her in my grasp, but she slipped away.
And she did it while mocking me and this country.
Seo Jin stood still for a moment, then ran his hand through his hair.
His eyes gleamed with a cold, steely light.
*
*
*
Anna Roux was sitting in an Officetel.
Though it was a spacious 25-pyeong unit, compared to the luxury Villa where she used to live, it was absolutely wretched.
At least the surrounding buildings were low enough that the night view spread out brilliantly before her.
‘So his name is Seo Jin?’
The first thing Anna Roux did upon arriving here was to identify who had been tailing her.
And the conclusion pointed to Seo Jin.
The hotel’s CCTV footage showed records of someone presumed to be Seo Jin moving through the corridors.
And if that was indeed Seo Jin, then he was also the one who had directed Anna Roux to a different elevator.
‘How cute.’
That’s what she thought, but Anna Roux was biting her lip.
Now she understood why the Boss regarded Seo Jin as such a thorn in his side.
‘So, I can’t let him live.’
Anna Roux felt it keenly.
Seo Jin was dangerous.
He was merely a prosecutor now, but in a few years, things would change.
He might even grow large enough to threaten their organization.
He had to be eliminated before that happened.
Anna Roux picked up her lipstick and painted her lips a deep red.
She drew a thick eyeliner and smiled with an enigmatic expression.
‘Whatever.’
This wasn’t the time for deep thoughts.
Two months of extended vacation.
She wanted to toy with some wealthy man from this neighborhood and arrange a convenient divorce by the time her leave ended.
Playing with another woman’s man.
Hearing him gasp and cry out his love in her arms.
Then getting caught.
Watching his twisted expression—that was Anna Roux’s greatest pleasure.
Just then, Anna Roux’s phone vibrated.
The fool was calling.
Anna Roux answered in a soft, gentle voice.
“Oh, you’re here? I’m so sorry. I was reading and lost track of time. Yes, I’ll come down right now.”
Anna Roux waited for the elevator to descend from the officetel.
The elevator doors slid open slowly as it arrived.
Anna Roux walked toward the elevator with her arms crossed, her heels clicking against the floor.
But her pace gradually slowed.
Then she stopped as if frozen.
Anna Roux stared ahead with a rigid expression, as if she had witnessed something horrifying.
Seo Jin was stepping out of the elevator.
Seo Jin stood before Anna Roux and offered the gentlest smile in the world.
“Where are you going?”

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