A Contracted Gangster Who Has to Die to Survive - Chapter 113

Team Leader Seo barely acknowledged my greeting, his expression stiff and unreadable.

Only then did I notice the man he was holding.

Dressed in a long black padded coat, with a hat pulled low and a mask covering his face, the man looked as though he could collapse at any moment. He was hunched over, trembling violently.

As I glanced at him, his gaze lifted and met mine.

“…Ah.”

His eyes, bloodshot and filled with ruptured vessels, were unsettling. I had seen that look somewhere before. But before I could place him, Team Leader Seo roughly shoved him forward.

“Walk. Don’t stop.”

The man hung his head like a guilty criminal, dragged along in Seo’s grip. I had no idea why he was here at the hospital, but from the looks of it, he had done something seriously wrong.

“Executive Director, we’ll wait in the car.”

They were likely giving Taejoon and me a moment alone.

I watched Seo walk away. The moment Taejoon opened his mouth, we both spoke at the same time.

“What are you doing here?”

“Why didn’t you tell me about the debt?”

Taejoon seemed to realize what I was referring to and looked slightly troubled.

“I was going to. You just found out first.”

I stopped walking and turned to him, bowing my head as politely as I could.

“…Thank you. Please let me pay it back.”

“Pay it back?”

It was an unspoken way of saying, How exactly do you plan to pay back that kind of money?

He wasn’t wrong. Without winning the lottery, there was no way I could ever repay such a massive sum.

“I feel awful just accepting it. I really do want to pay it back, but saying that out loud is ridiculous, and yet it doesn’t feel right to just take it either. I don’t know what to do.”

At my defeated tone, Taejoon responded indifferently, as if it were no big deal.

“You don’t have to pay it back. But instead…”

He trailed off, glancing at me as if an idea had just occurred to him.

Instead? Was he about to ask for something else in return?

If this were Alcohol Swab, I would have known exactly what to expect. But I knew this Taejoon wasn’t the type to pull anything sleazy. He wasn’t the kind of man who would use money as leverage for a sexual relationship.

Seeing my tense expression, Taejoon exhaled quietly and chuckled.

“I can’t even joke around with you anymore… Forget it.”

“…That was twenty billion won. How do you just give away that kind of money? Please don’t tell me you sold your house or something.”

He laughed at my concern.

“Who said it was twenty billion?”

“…It wasn’t? But that was months ago, so with interest, it must be even more now… What, twenty-one? Twenty-two?”

“No.”

He shook his head.

“…Then… was it thirty or forty billion?”

At this point, money had lost all meaning. The difference between thirty billion and thirty thousand might as well have been the same to me.

Taejoon shook his head again.

I stared at him, horrified. Just how much had he given away? My mouth went dry, and my knees felt weak.

“…How much was it, then?” My voice trembled. “Just tell me. I think my heart is going to explode.”

“I didn’t give them a cent.”

I blinked.

“…Huh?”

“I didn’t pay anything.”

“How?”

“The original debt wasn’t much to begin with. It got blown up because of illegal loan sharks inflating it. They passed it around as promissory notes, which made things a bit complicated, but I handled it on my end.”

His words carried the weight of something left unsaid.

In short, he had given the loan sharks a choice: Take the original amount and walk away, or get completely ruined.

And they must have chosen, Please, just give us the original amount.

But if I understood his words correctly, he hadn’t even given them that.

Of course, someone like Choi Taejoon, who knew the ins and outs of these things, wouldn’t have actually handed over that kind of money.

Thank God.

“…They’re still alive, right?”

I furrowed my brows. Judging by his smug expression, the situation had been handled thoroughly—but I wasn’t sure how he had done it.

“Yeah. They’re alive.”

Regardless of how he had resolved it, the weight pressing on my chest finally lifted.

Whether through power or money, he had taken care of it—for me.

And I knew he had done it purely for my sake, just to make things easier for me.

I was genuinely grateful.

Taejoon studied my visibly relieved expression, then reached out and pulled my coat tighter around me.

“But I should still get compensated for my trouble.”

“…Compensated?”

“Yeah. It’s been a while since I personally stepped in. There’s my daily rate… and hazard pay.”

“I-I see. What do you want?”

Taejoon’s umbrella tilted slightly as he leaned in.

Warm breath ghosted over my ear, and in a low, smooth voice, he murmured—

“…!”

I barely managed to hold back a gasp, clamping a hand over my mouth.

Taejoon smirked.

Before I could even respond, he turned to Captain Jo, who had been standing a distance away.

“Make sure Hyun Woo Kyung gets home safely. Be careful on the roads.”

Inside the car, Team Leader Seo sat behind the wheel, while the restrained man was bound to the door handle. Taejoon occupied the remaining seat, observing them quietly.

“What do you think?” Taejoon asked, lighting a cigarette.

The man gulped, shifting his eyes nervously.

“I-It seemed similar… but also not? His voice was distinct, so I remember it, but… he can’t speak right now, so…”

Taejoon thought back. Was his voice that distinct? No, what he recalled more clearly was the man’s sneering tone rather than the sound of his voice.

“It was too short a glance, so I can’t be sure… but I think it might be him.”

“Quit stalling and give me a straight answer!”

Seo’s sharp voice rang through the car.

“You’re just trying to buy time, hoping to live a little longer. It won’t work.”

“N-no! It’s not that!”

Despair flickered across the man’s face. He seemed to have realized—this wasn’t about living or dying. It was about how he would die.

“If you don’t want your little brother to see your face in a basement morgue, think carefully before you answer.”

Seo’s icy warning sent visible shivers down the man’s spine.

“His face was so messed up that I got confused, but… I think he’s the guy I knew. But if it is him, last I heard, he quit this line of work. He said he was working as a road manager… or maybe driving trucks?”

Taejoon exhaled a cloud of smoke and asked,

“Manager? Driver?”

“Yes.”

The man, still visibly unsure, widened his eyes as if suddenly recalling something. His dazed expression sharpened with realization.

“He could drive dump trucks and heavy machinery.”

“Tell me everything you know.”

“H-he also mentioned working for some entertainment agency…”

Taejoon, who had been listening with his eyes closed, opened them and asked in a low voice,

“Which agency?”

“I-I don’t know that.”

A cold, unsettling feeling crawled up Taejoon’s spine. The unease sat heavy in his gut. As if to shake it off, he crushed his cigarette against the ashtray and leaned back against his seat.

“Check every short-term employee and recent resignation at ST Entertainment.”

“Yes, sir.”

A Few Days Later

“It’s really good to see you, Woo Kyung!”

It had been a few days since I visited my father’s hospital.

I had occasionally wondered how Minsoo was doing, and just when I was starting to think about reaching out, he contacted me first. He had business in Seoul and wanted to meet.

I studied his face as he grinned at me.

“…What the hell happened to you?”

Later, Taejoon had told me that it was Kim Minsoo who had tipped him off about my captivity at Kang Jae Wook’s place.

“Why are you looking at me like that? It’s me, Kim Minsoo.”

“What… what happened to you?”

But Minsoo’s condition was far worse than I had expected.

He could barely walk without crutches, and a deep scar ran from his cheek all the way up to his cleanly shaven scalp. It was clear now why he had suddenly disappeared and cut off contact.

We met at a small café near my home, a casual spot frequented by office workers and passersby grabbing a quick coffee.

If I had known he was in this bad of a state, I would have gone to him instead.

“You got seriously hurt… Was it an accident? How are you now?”

“Oh, this? Yeah, it was rough for a while. But I’m fine now.”

He smiled, as if trying to brush it off, before launching into an animated conversation about what he had been up to lately.

His physical condition was a mess, but at least his face looked more relaxed than it had back when he was still with Taesung.

I let him talk as much as he wanted, waiting for the right moment before I slowly asked,

“You said you had something important to tell me.”

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