Chapter 24

That day, Lee-jin kept following Kwon Ki-joo around. In the car, she sat right beside him, just like when she had gone to the hotel wearing clothes stained with filth.

Seeing Lee-jin’s dazed face as she wondered if this was how it normally worked, Kwon Ki-joo spoke in a calm voice.

“Manager Kang always sits in the front, so that’s the only seat left. It’s not like I can make you sit on my lap, right?”

But that was exactly as far as it went. As soon as Kwon Ki-joo got out of the car, he instructed Lee-jin to wait and went inside with only the others. At the gambling den and at Havana Club as well.

Even though he joked with her all day and acted loose and easy, he did not easily allow Lee-jin into his territory.

“I heard you saved Boss’s life, is it true?”

When Kwon Ki-joo slipped inside Havana Club, Ho-seong came over to her side and asked.

He was the bouncer guarding the entrance to Havana, the same man who had dragged Lee-jin to the warehouse by the reservoir and who, after she was acknowledged as not being a stalker, had diligently greeted her with nods ever since.

It was a trivial matter, but the explosion from that day, the one that had made Manager Kang fly into a rage, had already become something everyone knew about. Along with Lee-jin’s part in it as well.

Come to think of it, there had been no further word after that. Whether it was because Wonjae had not personally brought the trash there and no tail had been stepped on, neither Kwon Ki-joo nor Manager Kang mentioned that day anymore.

“No. I just overreacted. But Boss keeps praising me as his lifesaver, so I used that as leverage and even got myself hired.”

“Right? I thought it was strange too.”

Saying that Boss had only just gone in and so it would take some time before he came out, Ho-seong pulled a cigarette from his pocket. Then he jerked it lightly toward Lee-jin.

“Want one?”

“I don’t smoke.”

“Really?”

As if he had never seen a person who did not smoke before, Ho-seong said, “You’re a good one,” in a slightly surprised voice.

Lee-jin felt like she could tell that this big man was friendly toward her.

“What did you do before coming here? Professional bodyguard?”

“No. I boxed at Roxana.”

When the name Roxana came out of Lee-jin’s mouth, Ho-seong nodded as if he understood without needing to hear anything more, then lit his cigarette. The acrid smoke scattered through the air.

“Still, I guess you must’ve been pretty good? Seeing that Boss hired you.”

“I don’t know.”

She suddenly felt dazed about how she had ended up here. Thinking about it, Kwon Ki-joo had always been generous with her.

When she said she was following him around because she liked him, he had openly given her permission to do it, and he had also made it possible for her to win a match she was supposed to get beaten badly in and lose, and when she asked him to hire her, he had agreed without even thinking about it for long.

Could it be that he likes me? Lee-jin, who had that foolish thought for a moment, ended up laughing because even she thought it was absurd.

Kwon Ki-joo was, literally, just amused by her. It was obvious from the countless women she had seen during the time she had followed him around.

And at that moment, as if to tell her not to entertain such ridiculous thoughts even for an instant, a car stopped right in front of them.

One of the thugs under Kwon Ki-joo got out of the front seat and immediately opened the back door. Then a glamorous beauty stepped out of the car, the sort of woman who seemed as though a sweet fragrance would drift from her just by looking at her.

“Looks like it’s that woman today.”

Muttering almost like to himself, Ho-seong threw away his cigarette and quickly bent at the waist in a deep bow. Lee-jin, caught off guard, followed his lead.

Without giving even a glance to us as we bowed, the woman walked with elegant steps into the building where Havana was. Several people quickly followed after the woman, who really did smell wonderful when she passed before their eyes.

Lee-jin knew at once. That woman was Kwon Ki-joo’s partner for today. And she already knew that on days when she did not appear with him, sometimes the woman came alone like this.

But Lee-jin suddenly felt strange. The thought that such a dazzling beauty, someone incomparable to herself, would soon be held in Kwon Ki-joo’s arms gave her a feeling she could not understand.

Even though she had already known it all, even though she had already known exactly what Kwon Ki-joo did with the women who changed every night.

“How does our Boss only ever spend time with such beautiful women?”

Sounding envious, Ho-seong took out another fresh cigarette and put it in his mouth as he spoke. Lee-jin tore her gaze away from the building entrance she had been watching until now. For some reason, the flashing lights were making her eyes sting.

The reason her mood had suddenly become strange was probably because Kwon Ki-joo, who treated her with endless generosity, had made her foolishly wonder for a moment whether he might possibly like her.

While following him around, Lee-jin had seen more than enough women. Every single one of them, glamorous, pretty, and dazzling, could not even be compared to her in her cheap jacket. So why would Kwon Ki-joo, for what reason, choose her.

“It’ll take at least two or three hours before Boss comes out, so until then, take it easy.”

The man who had brought the woman but stayed behind instead of following her came closer to Lee-jin and spoke.

The man named Jae-hyeon was someone Kwon Ki-joo kept as close as Manager Kang. He was always beside him whenever they watched Kwon Ki-joo, and according to what Wonjae had found out, he was a highly loyal right-hand man.

She had heard he did whatever Kwon Ki-joo ordered, but she had not known that included even transporting women.

Since he had told her to make herself comfortable, Lee-jin moved away from Kwon Ki-joo’s gathered lackeys and went over to a corner.

But there was not really anything to do. Thinking, ‘Is this why they smoke’, Lee-jin blankly looked up at the night sky. After following him around all day in a state of tension, she only now felt that her legs hurt.

After she had been there for quite a while like that, the front of Havana suddenly began to grow noisy.

As the cars escorting Kwon Ki-joo appeared one after another, everyone threw away the cigarettes they had been smoking, buttoned their jackets, lined up in a row, and straightened their backs. It seemed Kwon Ki-joo was about to come out.

When she checked the time on her phone, it had already been two and a half hours since Kwon Ki-joo had gone inside.

Perhaps because he saw Lee-jin still standing awkwardly in the corner, Jae-hyeon crooked his finger at her.

When Lee-jin quickly went and stood at the end, she could see Kwon Ki-joo strolling out from inside the building with a group of dark-clad men behind him. One arm wrapped around the waist of the woman who had gone in earlier.

With her eyes haughtily lifted, the woman was declaring with her whole body that the man beside her belonged to her.

Once again, Lee-jin’s chest churned strangely. It was clearly something she had seen every day until not long ago, but maybe seeing it up close made her dizzy; while Lee-jin was forcing herself to think of something else, Kwon Ki-joo drew closer and closer.

Manager Kang had been talking away earnestly on his own, but Lee-jin could not hear him very well.

“What were you doing while I was gone?”

Kwon Ki-joo, stopping in front of her, asked. Lee-jin lifted her head and looked at him.

Maybe because he had drunk a lot, a strong smell of alcohol was coming from him. Along with the smell of cigarettes, his own scent, and even the woman’s perfume scent that seemed forcibly mixed in.

Without realizing it, Lee-jin looked at the woman beside Kwon Ki-joo. The woman was looking at Lee-jin, whom Kwon Ki-joo had deliberately stopped to question, with curious eyes.

But only for a moment, the woman placed a suggestive hand on Kwon Ki-joo’s chest and pressed her body close.

It felt as though a soundless message was being spoken.

This man is mine.

“I just, was waiting here…… no, I was waiting here.”

As Lee-jin quickly corrected herself, remembering Manager Kang’s words telling her to fix the way she spoke first, Kwon Ki-joo leisurely moved the hand he had wrapped around the woman’s waist.

At that moment, Lee-jin ended up remembering Kwon Ki-joo’s hand stroking her waist at the hotel. She quickly turned her gaze away, but only after she had already seen Kwon Ki-joo’s mischievously smiling face.

“It’s your first day, and you worked hard staying late. You should head in now.”