Chapter 7: The Escape Begins

If Cha Hae-jun had been properly settled in the right position and receiving his rightful share, he probably wouldn’t have shown any particular reaction even if the assets were divided like that.

But the timing was terrible. The CEO and largest shareholder had collapsed without properly naming a successor.

No one knew where the assets would end up, and relatives with burning eyes, eager to claim even a single coin more, had been coming and going from the main house every day. Each day was dreadful.

No matter what, his grandfather had to wake up within the six months before the will was revealed and the shareholders’ meeting was held.

Otherwise, just as his grandfather often muttered, the assets would end up being donated to society, and the GQ Group would collapse like a sandcastle.

It was obvious how viciously he would be torn apart at the shareholders’ meeting that would be held alongside the reading of the will.

“If that’s not a super-recessive trait, then what is it? Even if it happens to be one, how compatible will its wavelength be with mine? Well… even if the wavelengths don’t match normally, if it’s constantly drenched in my pheromones, it’ll probably be forced to match eventually.”

Cha Hae-jun sighed tiredly.

“How long would it take? One year? Two? No… If I want to use it stably for a long time, I’d have to spend at least ten years slowly adjusting its wavelength to mine. But do I really need to waste my time like that? Hmm? Tell me, Secretary Kang. Is that omega’s existence really more important than the thing that bastard stole right now?”

Perhaps because he hadn’t slept properly for days, the man’s eyes felt dry and heavy. After pressing his eyes for a moment, Cha Hae-jun suddenly stopped breathing and clutched his chest tightly.

Deep lines formed between his brows as if he were enduring pain. He fumbled through the inside pocket of his jacket, took out a painkiller, and swallowed it. Soon the pain subsided, and he finally exhaled.

The pain, as if someone were gripping his heart and twisting it mercilessly, was an incurable condition that returned whenever he began to forget about it. Even now, his heartbeat, faster than most people’s, was clearly far from normal.

“Vice President…”

Secretary Kang looked worried, but Cha Hae-jun raised a hand as if to say he was fine and replied slowly with a sigh.

“An omega… It would be nice to keep hold of one. Just keep it quietly and hand it over to some other guy who needs a super-recessive trait later. That wouldn’t be a bad deal. It’s valuable enough for that. The only problem is that it has to be after everything ends up in my hands.”

The reason super-recessive traits were rare was simple, they were practically no different from betas. They were almost like empty vessels of traits.

They had never experienced a heat cycle in their entire lives, and ordinary tests could hardly distinguish them. On top of that, they had almost no pheromones at all.

Usually, people said that super-recessive individuals could only sense dominant traits, but dominant types themselves were so rare among ordinary people that they were almost impossible to find.

Naturally, many people lived their entire lives without ever realizing they possessed such a trait.

Even if one managed to find a super-recessive omega, it couldn’t be used right away. You had to keep them nearby and steadily adjust pheromone wavelengths. The omega also had to learn how to release the pheromones they had absorbed.

Only after going through that long and troublesome process could they finally perform the role of a proper “super-recessive omega.”

In many ways, Bae Si-hyeon was like a chicken rib, neither here nor there. Cha Hae-jun didn’t want to waste his time on something uncertain.

“More importantly, the item.”

“It doesn’t seem like Mr. Bae Si-hyeon stole it. His checkout time was different, and above all, his movements don’t match. Because the clothing was identical, we couldn’t proceed with further investigation. I’m sorry, Vice President.”

“Forget it. Since he did stay at the hotel, keep an eye on him for now. And the trail for the item ends there…”

If someone had used it, there should have been a record. It was something many people were after. Anyone who got their hands on it wouldn’t just leave it unused.

“What a nuisance.”

Its absence wouldn’t disrupt anything, but it was another matter entirely if it ended up in someone else’s hands. Perhaps it would be better to take out a little insurance…

Thinking of Bae Si-hyeon, who had smiled awkwardly and said something stupid like “You’re like a boss, sir,” Cha Hae-jun placed his hand on his knee. His fingertips twitched a few times before he spoke with a sigh.

“Call Dr. Go, the one who was in charge of Madam Yoon.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Bring him here first. For now… yes, for now we’ll just watch. If he exists, he might be useful someday. Whether I sell him off somewhere else or make use of him myself… someday.”

After replying in acknowledgment, Secretary Kang stared at Bae Si-hyeon’s name on the tablet for a moment before scrolling past it. His fingers moved quickly as he relayed the instructions to the secretary team.

“From now on, handle everything related to the omega yourselves. Don’t report every little thing to me.”

“Understood. However… there’s another problem.”

Secretary Kang pulled up the headline article that appeared in the New York Times that morning. It was news about the accident that occurred at the hotel. The story had already spread widely online, but it had only just appeared in the print newspaper that morning.

“The online articles have already spread, and it was published in today’s issue of the New York Times. There were too many people checking in, so we couldn’t completely block it. I’m sorry.”

For a moment, the public would likely focus on the relationship between Cha Hae-jun and Bae Si-hyeon. It was extremely irritating that he had to pretend to be a kind-hearted businessman on the surface.

“Secretary Kang, I’ll leave it to you. Handle it up to that point.”

Although he knew the man didn’t particularly welcome the omega, Secretary Kang kept his expression neutral and bowed his head.

“I’ll take action as quickly as possible.”

Just then, after checking his phone as if he had received a message, Secretary Kang looked troubled.

“Vice President.”

“What.”

The response came a beat late, as if his mind had been elsewhere. Seeing his secretary hesitate, Cha Hae-jun sighed and stood up, thinking it was time to move on to the next schedule.

“The security team just contacted us. They said Mr. Bae Si-hyeon has disappeared.”

“What were the security staff doing? It’s not like he was locked up, he could move around freely anyway. Tell them to look again.”

“No… they say he’s truly disappeared. Apparently… right after returning from going out, he destroyed the entire hospital room…”

Cha Hae-jun twisted his lips in irritation. That clueless, cat-like idiot must have caused trouble after all.

*****

After canceling his previous schedule and heading to the hospital, Cha Hae-jun let out a hollow laugh the moment he opened the hospital room door.

Soil from a flowerpot was scattered everywhere, and the bed sheets had all been torn apart. It was a complete mess.

The patient who had been in a room on the 20th floor had vanished. Not only that, he had even smashed the cameras beforehand. The recorded footage clearly showed him breaking the lens with a thrown stone, and just before that, flipping the camera off with his finger.

There were limits to stupidity. This wasn’t the Stone Age; who throws rocks at cameras?

“I’ll redeploy the security personnel and have them check the hospital CCTV.”

“No need to make a big deal out of it. It’s nothing. We haven’t actually lost anything.”

Tapping the broken camera pieces on the floor with the tip of his shoe, Cha Hae-jun slowly looked around the room.

The flowerpot was half broken with soil spilled across the floor. The wide hospital bed’s blanket was torn and half hanging down to the ground. The window was tightly shut, and a scented candle placed in the corner of the room was still burning.

“The door was opened?”

“…According to the guard’s testimony, he came in after hearing knocking. The room was already like this, and through the slightly open door he heard something running out.”

After listening to Secretary Kang, Cha Hae-jun nodded lightly and scanned the room again.

“Check outside first.”

“Yes, sir.”

With those soft words, the door closed. Silence filled the hospital room so completely it felt like even a falling strand of hair could be heard. It was so quiet that it seemed as if the room were empty.

Not long after, a faint rustling sound came from one corner of the room, followed by the sharp sound of someone releasing a breath they had been holding.

More precisely, it came from beneath the bed where the blanket hung loosely.

A palm slapped against the hospital floor with a clattering sound, followed by the heavy thud of something collapsing. A groan of pain came afterward.

“Ugh… I’m not some spy agent. Why am I going through this?”

Maybe because he had been stuck under the bed for so long, his entire body felt stiff. Thankfully, he was strong enough to hold out until the man left the room.

Si-hyeon silently thanked his days working at the bread factory carrying sacks of sugar and flour as he pushed aside the bed sheet.

Outside was still quiet. Muttering that those guys were idiots, Si-hyeon rolled his eyes around and checked the surroundings.

“Oh yeah. Nobody around?”

For a hastily made plan, it had worked pretty well. Standing still with his ears perked up, Si-hyeon waited and waited, but not even a faint sound came. He then pulled out the slippers he had hidden in the corner and slipped them on.

He carefully stood up and walked with his back hunched low. Still, no sound.

Pressing his ear against the door, Si-hyeon checked the situation outside and slowly, very slowly, moved his hand.

The door opened gradually, leaving a gap just big enough for one person to pass through. Keeping his eyes on the floor, Si-hyeon crawled out and took a deep breath.