To My Brother’s Friend - Chapter 60

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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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Chapter 60
“…Sigh.”
Kwon Yeol exhaled deeply and scrubbed his face with rough, dry hands.
My mind could not escape the image of Hee-jo’s face—pale and drained the moment my hand touched her.
That bewildered gaze and trembling lips replayed in slow motion, over and over.
For days now, I had not been able to look at Hee-jo properly.
Or rather, I could not.
Every time I saw her, a base possessiveness and exclusivity churned from the depths of my chest, rising beyond my control.
Merely suppressing emotions that threatened to detonate at any moment was already my limit.
If our eyes met, I feared I would unconsciously press her, my voice turning sharp.
Were the rumors true?
Did she truly have that kind of relationship with Ryu Seung-won?
Was that why she had avoided my gaze and my embrace lately, kept her distance from me?
Was the real reason she had withdrawn—
truly because another man had claimed a place in her heart?
Suspicion and jealousy gnawed at my reason.
Barely clinging to a rationality stretched to the breaking point was all I could manage.
Kwon Yeol gripped the steering wheel tightly, ashamed of his own cowardice in fleeing the house, leaving Hee-jo frozen in shock behind him.
The veins on the back of his hand bulged as if enraged.
Even knowing it could not be true—
doubt kept rearing its head.
My feelings for Hee-jo were unwavering, but conversely, I could not be certain of her heart toward me.
I was steadily preparing to keep Hee-jo entirely by my side.
But that was only valid if she wished to remain there.
The relentless pursuit of the Beomho Smart City Project, the covert preparations to betray my grandfather—
this dangerous gamble, even risking demotion from the successor position, would be utterly meaningless if she did not want it.
“….”
The moment I entered the office after forcibly composing my turbulent thoughts, Secretary Director Hong Se-gi delivered his report.
“Executive Director, the New York Metro Fund has deferred their final confirmation regarding equity participation in the Smart City Project. It appears the rumors reported previously have reached the local area. They are pressuring us to renegotiate contract terms, citing risks to the owner’s family as justification.”
Kwon Yeol’s brow furrowed deeply.
Succeeding with the Beomho Smart City Project within a year and elevating Beomho Construction to a holding company.
These were the conditions I had laid before Chairman Beom when securing approval for my marriage to Hee-jo.
Failure meant divorce and remarriage to the woman my grandfather had chosen.
To prevent that horrific outcome, I had driven myself relentlessly these past months.
When I had traveled for the Southeast Asia resort project previously, I realized that being apart from Hee-jo was far more painful than I had anticipated.
Because of that, I had managed this foreign investment venture through video conferences, delaying business trips as much as possible.
But now, it seemed better to be apart.
If I remained, I might not endure the suspicion roiling within me and would inflict greater wounds upon her.
“I will depart tomorrow. Prepare everything.”
“Understood, Executive Director. I will confirm the private jet schedule immediately.”
Silence settled over the office as Hong Se-gi withdrew.
Kwon Yeol gazed quietly at the wedding photograph resting on his desk.
‘…What should I do.’
What can I do to make you stay by my side.
If I held too tightly, she would shatter; if I let go, she would scatter like a mirage.
Kwon Yeol stared at Hee-jo’s smiling face in the photograph for a long moment before finally turning his gaze to the documents.
Hoping that when he returned, he would find a clear answer to this relentless thirst consuming him.
* * *
On her way to work, Hee-jo struggled to push away the memory of Kwon Yeol’s cold gaze, forcing her mind to focus on other thoughts.
As she deliberately redirected her attention, the image of the woman she had seen for the first and last time at the banquet hall days ago surfaced.
‘Could it really… be Mother?’
When Hee-jo turned seven, her mother left home.
Even while they lived together, her mother was never truly present.
Unable to resist her father’s relentless demands to earn money for alcohol, her mother worked day and night, so Hee-jo spent far more time with her brother Hee-jae than with her mother.
On the rare nights when her mother returned late, her face was always weighed down by exhaustion and despair.
Even as a child, Hee-jo suppressed the urge to cling to her mother, instead gripping her brother’s hand tightly as she drifted to sleep.
Perhaps it was a blessing in disguise.
After her mother left, the void she left behind was not so large.
Only the image of her mother staring blankly into empty space occasionally surfaced in memory.
Even that faded gradually with time.
‘If it really is Mother.’
What should I do.
What will become of her.
‘If she came looking for me because things got difficult… does that mean she was thinking of me all along.’
I understood well that it was not maternal love, but the primal human instinct to survive when cornered.
And yet… a faint sense of relief was blooming in the depths of Hee-jo’s heart.
That Mother had not completely forgotten me, after all.
But that fragile hope shattered the moment she arrived at the Foundation.
Upon reaching her office, Hee-jo was summoned by Madam Jung and ushered into the Director’s Office.
“You really didn’t know? That woman has been using Kwon Yeol’s and Beomho Group’s names to rake in money from every direction!”
Unwilling to hear Hee-jo’s response, Madam Jung struck the armrest of the sofa with trembling hands.
“Do you have any idea how much humiliation I suffered today cleaning up your mess? How dare you drag my name through such vulgar scandal!”
The woman who had claimed to be her mother had apparently been leveraging the fact that her son-in-law was the heir to Beomho Group to extract money illegally.
There was a reason this fact had only now come to light.
She had employed a cunning strategy, gradually targeting subcontractors with no direct connection to Madam Jung.
The scandal, which had been slowly growing, had finally reached Madam Jung’s ears.
She had not come out of desperation after enduring in silence.
That woman had appeared from the beginning with meticulous calculation, intending to exploit her daughter.
I had anticipated this. I had known….
The last fragment of hope, that gossamer thread of attachment, shattered, and Hee-jo’s breath caught in her throat.
‘…How foolish of me.’
A hollow laugh escaped before I could stop it.
Though it was self-deprecation, Jin Seo-ryeong misinterpreted the situation, and her fury burned even more fiercely.
“You—are you laughing right now? Laughing? How can you laugh at a time like this!”
“I… I apologize.”
“This is exactly why I should have opposed it to the end. Bringing in a girl of unknown origins as my daughter-in-law, tarnishing my son’s life and my own reputation!”
Madam Jung, trembling with rage, seemed to feel her blood pressure rising as she staggered and collapsed onto the sofa.
With her hand pressed to her forehead, breathing heavily, she opened her mouth with eyes filled with contempt.
“I heard you tried to extort money by claiming my son was your younger brother. That you didn’t hesitate to kneel and beg… Truly, such vulgar blood will show itself anywhere. Like mother, like daughter.”
Vulgar blood….
That word hurt too.
But what tore through my chest most mercilessly was the fact that my mother—this woman—had not hesitated to kneel even for her son.
In that moment, my brother came to mind, and my throat tightened.
Another son who should have received her care.
That son ground his entire life away to fill the void she left behind.
He knelt to protect me when I was small, abandoned his pride, and endured every humiliation without complaint.
He threw himself entirely to protect me, yet no one ever protected him.
The eldest son she should have loved and cherished from the start suffered his whole life before vanishing into nothing….
The woman who abandoned my dead brother and gave birth to a new son showed the most desperate maternal love for that child, not hesitating even to beg—and that reality shattered me completely.
What was my brother to that woman, after all?
What were my brother and I?
“Your very existence is an obstacle to my son.”
I wanted to deny it, but I couldn’t refute it.
Madam Jin Seo-ryeong was right.
I was nothing but an obstacle.
So I had no choice but to leave.
Perhaps the appearance of the woman claiming to be my biological mother was a signal.
That it was time for me to leave Kwon Yeol’s side.
I clenched my trembling hands into fists and steadied my ragged breathing.
A firm resolve crystallized in my hollow eyes.
Soon, with a face turned cold and hard, I looked directly at Jin Seo-ryeong.
“…Mother.”
At my low, quiet call, Madam Jung’s eyebrows twitched.
“From this moment forward, I intend to step down from the Vice President position.”

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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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