Chapter 53
Chapter 53
“Director Seo was a good man.”
She must have seen the two of them exchanging something back at the motel. So perhaps, as part of the business arrangement, he was acting as the decoy with the AS car to draw attention.
Dad told me to trust him, but no matter how I looked at it, Shin Chi-woo seemed like someone who moved strictly according to his own interests. He wasn’t swayed by emotion.
That’s what made me even more curious about him. Not Shin Chi-woo the man, but Shin Chi-woo the company chief and lawyer—what kind of person was he? Serving under someone like Pyeon Jae-ho, was he constantly under stress, just waiting for payday? Maybe like I was, working under a professor.
If we made it to Taiwan safely and Dad and I were finally out of danger, I decided I’d ask him—casually—how he knew Chief Shin and what kind of person he was. If I so much as hinted, Dad would probably be eager to share some story about him.
I had a faint smile on my face as I looked out the window when—
“We’ll hide the car in that warehouse and wait until sunrise.”
Dad looked in the direction the driver was pointing and nodded. Judging by his calm reaction, the place must be safe.
I glanced out the car window. We were entering an industrial area filled with small manufacturing plants. The rusted and decaying vibe typical of an aging industrial zone made the place feel genuinely eerie.
“Wan-yi, you know I’ve always loved you, right?”
“…Yeah, I know.”
“I would do anything for you. That’s who I am.”
“Ugh, come on, Dad. People up front can hear you.”
We’re family. A father and daughter who’ve lived together since the day I was born. There’s definitely a language that only we understand just by looking at each other. And right then, I could feel the love in Dad’s words, enough to make my eyes sting with tears.
The car made a wide left turn and entered a nameless warehouse. The empty sign where a business name should have been made it clear the place had shut down long ago. The car came to a stop.
“You can get out—wait, sir.”
“What is it?”
The moment the driver spoke, the woman in the passenger seat turned her head toward us. It was the first time I’d seen her look so tense—usually she was composed.
“Sir… I think we’re not alone here.”
“What? Then we need to contact Chief Shin right away—”
Before she could finish, someone leapt out in front of the car. No—people sprang out from every direction, ambushing us all at once.
“Aaaaah!”
“Quick! Reverse! We need to break through!”
It wasn’t a movie—it was real. Or maybe I’d been dropped into one of those trashy gangster flicks I always mocked. In a daze, not fully grasping what was happening, I heard Dad shout:
“Wan-yi, you have to run!”
“Huh?”
“Just run! No matter what! Don’t look back—aaaah!”
Men with weapons clung to the windows, smashing the glass. It looked like something straight out of an apocalypse. If real-life zombies existed, they’d probably feel like this—beyond terrifying.
“You bastards…!”
“Drag Seo Kyoyong out first!”
As Dad’s window shattered, the front seats gave in, too. Several men climbed onto the hood, swinging what looked like baseball bats. In an instant, the front windshield cracked with a harsh shatter, then tore off completely. Thankfully, it was safety glass, so the shards didn’t fly.
“Wan-yi! Run! Hurry!”
“Yeah… yeah, I’m running…”
“Miss Seo!”
“Remember what Dad said earlier!”
“Uh… okay…”
Dad, now caught, screamed at the top of his lungs for me to run. The woman with the bobbed hair was also dragged away, her hand flailing through the half-broken door as she was pulled out.
The driver shouted, trying to at least get me out of there, stomping the accelerator to reverse—but it was already too late. Dad’s side had already been overrun, and one of the thugs reached through the broken rear window.
“Aaah!”
The man’s thick neck was caught in a chokehold, and another attacker climbed into the passenger side, stabbing him in the thigh. It was to disable him—so he couldn’t drive or run.
So how could I escape alone in the midst of this chaos? I froze, trembling, not knowing what to do—until someone suddenly grabbed my hair.
“You sons of bitches! Don’t you dare touch my daughter! If you hurt her, you’re all dead!”
“You talk too much for a damn traitor.”
“Tie them up! Throw them in the car!”
“You bastards don’t know who you’re messing with!”
But where did Dad get that strength and courage? As I was being dragged out by my hair, Dad shoved away the man holding him and lunged toward me.
“Run! Wan-yi!”
“Shit!”
He swung his arm from behind, revealing a knife gripped in his right hand. He wrapped his arms around the man holding me and pressed the blade to his throat. Everyone around us froze for a moment as Dad shouted:
“You know who I am, don’t you? If you want to live, let go of my daughter!”
“Shit…”
“Oh? Looks like you’ve got a death wish, huh?”
“Shi…”
As the grip on my hair loosened, I quickly stumbled backward and looked toward Dad. Blood was trickling from the neck of the man he had taken hostage, and just as I turned my head away, my eyes locked with the bob-haired woman’s.
“Run! Wan-yi, go!”
“Dad…”
“I’ll save my daughter no matter what… You sons of bitches!”
Kneeling on the ground, the bob-haired woman silently mouthed something shaped like the word “gun.” Then she jerked her chin toward the entrance. In that moment, it all clicked in my head.
Gun.
A single syllable. A word that contained the sound “gun.”
She had a gun.
Apparently, Dad understood her signal too. With tightly pressed lips, he gave a heavy nod. And then, almost like a slow-motion scene, I saw him call out my name.
“Wan-yi! Seo Wan-yi! Now!”
“……”
“Seo Wan-yi!”
I had seen earlier at the motel that the bob-haired woman carried a gun. If she and Dad could buy me even a moment’s time, I might be able to get farther away. When Dad shouted my name for the third time, I bolted out of the factory like I had been launched.
Bang!
A gunshot rang out behind me. But I didn’t look back.
Right after the gunshot, I could hear a barrage of shouting and screaming erupting behind me. I sprinted forward with everything I had, desperate not to get swept away in that tsunami of chaos.
Huff, huff…
This must be what it means to run for your life. I dashed forward with my entire being, heart pounding so hard it felt like it might burst, slicing through the cold night air.
In moments like this, humans probably unlock some kind of unknown superpower. I could feel myself unconsciously registering the layout of my surroundings as if my instincts had kicked into overdrive—because I might actually die.
Huff—huff!
I wasn’t running through an open field where I could easily be spotted. The lighting was sparse, so the entire zone was quite dark, and the haphazard layout of the factories made the space unexpectedly useful.
If there had been a single high-rise building towering among the one-story factories, I might’ve been visible from above. But the mishmash of differently sized structures actually worked in my favor, giving me places to hide. And surely they wouldn’t go so far as to launch a drone just to catch one girl in the dead of night.
There was a chance. It wasn’t entirely hopeless that I could escape without getting caught.
Hnnngh… ohh… huh… huhh…
The industrial zone, like a giant grid, was also filled with illegally parked trucks—8-ton ones, massive in size. I ducked behind a cement mixer parked at a corner, slipped into a space between the wall and the truck, and veered right. Then I zigzagged—left, then another right—continually shifting directions to throw off any pursuit.
Uhh… uhhk… huff…!
I had no idea how far I’d made it, but my lungs were burning, and I didn’t think I could keep running. If I tripped and fell now, it would be over. Maybe I should hide for a bit and catch my breath.
Bang!
The second gunshot echoed from somewhere farther away, piercing straight into my chest with its impact. God, no one’s been killed… right?
I wasn’t going to fail like Orpheus. I bit down hard on the urge to look back and kept running as far as my legs would take me.
Hhh… hhh… nghh…
Just as I thought I couldn’t take another breath, I stumbled into an unfamiliar street. Massive trailers and freight trucks lined the roadside, the kind that haul shipping containers. I knew instantly—this was it.
I crouched low to the ground and crawled beneath one of the container trucks. Thankfully, the undercarriage was high enough for someone my size to tuck in and hide perfectly underneath.
