Chapter 13
The words she couldn’t bring herself to say to the child were caught in her throat. The handsome face that didn’t look like a dad leaned closer to me. Without realizing it, she almost instinctively stepped back, but she forced herself to hold her ground.
“Are you going to hit me with that?”
Owen asked with a hint of amusement in his voice. When she looked down to where his gaze was directed, she saw that she was still tightly gripping the brick in her right hand.
“Some bad people came up to me earlier.”
Even as he answered, Sarin didn’t let go of the brick. Maybe it was instinct. It was the only thing that could protect her here.
“There are bad people over there too. Go on, try hitting them.”
Owen laughed, urging Sarin on. His eyes found amusement in the way her hand holding the brick turned pale.
It didn’t matter to him what choice she made. He just found it fun to play with someone who suddenly appeared in his boring daily life.
She was just a toy that occasionally crossed his mind.
That’s all.
“I don’t want to.”
Sarin replied firmly, without hesitation, and only then did she let go of the brick from her hand. The sound of it falling with a heavy thud was like the sound of her heart dropping.
“It’s good to be clear about what you like and dislike. You’re not even trembling.”
It scratched Owen in a weird way: she’d drop everything when her own life was in danger, but she’d stand up for the lives of others. It bothered him enough that he could feel it on his skin.
Watching him rustling like this made her stomach heat up. A clear desire boiled him up. The more he looked at her, the more affectionate and tender he became. Owen quietly picked up the brick Sarin had dropped.
Then she tightly closed her eyes.
“Ugh.”
As if preparing for the next shock, she suppressed a groan, and he laughed sharply.
You think I’m going to hit you with this?”
What else am I not going to do?
Sarin barely lifted her eyelids at the sound of the man’s laughter that seemed like he wouldn’t even blink his eyes if he killed a dozen people like her. Looking at Owen, who was laughing with a stunned face, she realized that her expectations had been completely wrong this time.
He looked at Sarin with a narrow gaze, then turned away. And three dogs followed him like tails.
Owen, who approached the man who was groaning, smashed the brick at the man’s head without hesitation.
“Crunchhh….”
Thud.
The man fell to the ground without even screaming.
Sarin covered her mouth with her palm. Owen had used ruthless violence against those who had broken the rules at the casino. It was impossible to become immune to such scenes, no matter how many times she saw them.
As he had said, if she had insisted on her chips until the end, it would have been Sarin who became a corpse.
Turning around with the blood-stained brick in hand, Sarin trembled at the sight of Owen’s eyes looking at her.
He threw the brick on the ground, as if to say, “Even if you do that, you’ll still live.”
Or not.
The words he left out echoed in her mind like a hallucination. Was he dead? He might have died after being hit in the head like that. If so, she couldn’t even guess how involved she was in this murder.
Approaching Sarin again, he meaninglessly turned the ring on his left index finger with the opposite hand. He slowly smiled as he noticed her gaze.
“Oh, this. It’s a habit.”
The ring spun another half turn. Sarin belatedly realized that it was similar to the rosary ring that Mrs.Hong used to wear. He turned the ring slowly again, as if to show her.
Grasping the blunt part of the ring with his fingertips, he turned it one or two times again.
He came so close that she could see that the protruding part of the ring was quite worn out.
“I wore it to remind me to think before I act, because I act and then I think.”
Owen clicked his tongue briefly at the pointlessness of wearing the ring. Then, as if it was a habit, he lifted Sarin’s chin to make her look at him.
“There’s no room for hesitation here. So it’s better to commit to what you’ve decided. Good people are always taken advantage of.”
He kindly informed her that if she picked up the brick, she must definitely bring it down.
She had no intention of learning his ways. She wasn’t a resident of Eden City. She stubbornly clenched her chin.
Seemingly indifferent, Owen stared into her ash-gray eyes with a resolute light for a frighteningly long time. Sarin continued to roll her eyes to avoid his gaze.
Looking at Owen’s golden pupils surrounded by a deep black border, it feels mesmerizing. It’s a color that’s both beautiful and merciless. It sends shivers down her spine, as if bugs were crawling in the corner of her heart.
She never believed in the concept of karma or an eye for an eye, but the thought that the man who stole her chip might be dead or alive made her heart turn black. She quickly suppressed that dark feeling, as if it was willing to accept the truth.
Owen was still looking at her.
The way his eyes crinkled as if he had noticed the blackness she was hiding, left her speechless.
The man was a monster.
Living in the shadows of Eden City, greedily sucking up people’s desires and hopes, and if there was nothing left, he would even take their bones and skin. His golden eyes seemed to speak of it.
Doberman, that was a fitting name for the monster.
She doesn’t remember how she returned to the hotel in Owen’s car. She just rushed into her room and flipped the blankets. When the dogs scratched at the door, they gradually moved away as Owen whistled.
She wanted to hear Hayan’s voice.
Her mom and sister are no longer in this world, she is the only person she cares about in this world. She waited, laying still in the blanket, holding my phone, hoping to hear the voice of that person.
Her head was spinning, not knowing if the bad mafia was dead or alive. Her fingers itched as if she had done it herself since he was hit with the brick she brought.
“Why are you doing this…?”
What does he want?
He seemed like a man who needed to take something much bigger than what she was hiding. She had messed with the wrong person. She was trying hard to ignore the sound of bells ringing in her head.
Tick tock.
The sudden knock made her body jump under the covers.
Had she locked the door? She probably had. It was the minimal safety measure she could take in this place. Owen had only been here a few times after leaving the dogs, but Sarin always made sure to lock the door.
“Let’s talk.”
The voice outside belonged to his secretary, Yuri.
In a situation where she couldn’t face Owen, his voice brought some relief. Whatever story Yuri would bring up, it would probably be about Owen, but it didn’t matter. As long as she could avoid those eyes that were digging into her inner self.
Hesitating, she opened the door and Yuri came in.
Then he closed the door and looked at Sarin quietly. Now, the man’s gaze inside the sealed room didn’t seem as scary as it used to. She was more concerned about Owen than this man.
“What’s going on?”
“Why do you do useless things like that?”
Yuri’s face showed some displeasure as he talked about the incident with the dogs in Lux street. When Sarin couldn’t say anything, he realized that blaming this small woman would lead nowhere and sighed.
“Normally, this time of year, his condition isn’t great. So, try not to go out of the room as much as possible.”
“Why?”
“It’s not a good sight to show to others. Just knowing about it is enough.”
There was no need to show that side to this woman.
But Yuri knew that around this time, Owen’s nerves sharpened. It was like an old chronic illness that he suffered from once a year.
It was better not to touch Owen at this time. Owen himself knew that, so he tried to stay away from people as much as possible. So, it was strange that he spent this time in the hotel’s suite room.
It made him wonder if it was all because of this small woman, but he couldn’t accurately guess the reason.
“Oh…”
“No one will come to clean for the next three days. There’s food in the fridge, so you can eat it in the afternoon. Don’t come out of the room at night.”
Yuri remembered what Owen had done when his condition was very low in the past. After the long night stained with murder, Owen had firmly regained his composure. The smell of blood that was present at that time suddenly came to mind.
“It’s scary when you put it that way.”
Alone with Owen and herself, with no one else coming here. Such scary words, where else could they be.
“Okay then.”
But Yuri left the place as if running away, leaving only the minimum explanation. Sarin was left alone in the room, thinking of Owen, who had been standing in the abandoned building. It was clear that the reason Yuri called her to watch the scene was an extension of the warning about Owen’s poor condition.
It was a great perversion. The worst person who mocks and teases the darkest part of a person’s mind.
Sarin was more surprised by the dark part in her own heart than by Owen.
“What am I supposed to do…”
Looking at the window, she saw that it was raining.
This seemed like the beginning of her misfortune, so she cried for a long time, unable to move.
