The Life of a Servant 3
After a grueling 16-hour flight with a layover in Vienna, I finally landed at Chișinău International Airport in Moldova, only to be met with an unexpected surprise.
“Director, you’ve had a long journey. You must be exhausted.”
Two men appeared out of nowhere. They were from the executive office. Their muscles strained against their white shirts, and their eyes were sharp and cold.
Why on earth were these guys waiting for me in Moldova?
My legs suddenly felt weak, and I nearly stumbled.
The vice chairman’s words were all true, except for one thing. He had assured me that the prosecution would close the case on the missing funds. But that needed a slight adjustment.
The overseas funds had vanished after being withdrawn by Yoon Hyun-woo, the director of the Future Strategy Planning Department at Sunyang Group. The money wasn’t embezzled by the group’s owner family; it was intended for investment in Moldova’s infrastructure project… blah blah blah…
This would be the prosecution’s official statement.
And once public interest waned, a small article would quietly appear.
Former Sunyang Group Director Yoon Hyun-woo dies from a drug overdose.
An unidentified body found on the southern coast of France was identified as Mr. Yoon Hyun-woo… blah blah blah…
The two men who had come to meet me would eventually either stab me in the heart or shoot me with a gun bought in Moldova.
How could this happen?
Thirteen years. I worked like a dog for thirteen years, only to be discarded like this!
And to think I had dreamed that when the vice chairman’s eldest son became chairman, I might at least become a department head, or if I was lucky, a vice president of a subsidiary.
But the dream of a servant becoming a butler was just that—a dream.
Even in a supposedly classless society, where the caste system ended with the Joseon Dynasty, a servant remains a servant. The new caste system is based on education and connections, not bloodlines.
Damn it.
In this filthy world, even a servant needs to be born from a prestigious school.
It’s all so damn frustrating.
Under the watchful eyes of the two men, I unpacked at the hotel.
“Director, get some rest until the bank opens tomorrow morning.”
I hadn’t slept a wink on the plane. I was too excited about my promotion to butler status and the bright future ahead to sleep.
Even lying on the hotel bed now, sleep wouldn’t come. The thought that my life would end tomorrow morning filled me with dread.
After lying in bed for a few hours with my eyes closed, I finally got up.
It was late at night. The executive office staff, or rather, the enforcers, were likely fast asleep.
If I wanted to survive, escaping was my best option.
I grabbed my wallet and passport and quietly opened the hotel room door.
As I tiptoed towards the elevator, I heard a familiar voice in Korean.
“Director, where are you going?”
Dizziness hit me again.
These guys would never leave me alone.
“Oh, just going for a drink at the bar. Can’t sleep with the jet lag.”
“Sure, I’ll join you. I could use a drink too. Let’s go together. I’ll keep you company.”
“No, it’s fine. You rest. I’ll be back soon.”
I forced a casual smile at him, but his lips curled into a smirk.
“Come on, man. You must have figured it out by now. Stop pretending. You know tomorrow’s your last day, right?”
I didn’t expect them to be so blunt.
Hearing my impending death confirmed from his mouth made my heart stop.
“Don’t think about running. Just get some sleep. I’ll even call a masseuse for you. Enjoy your last night. It’s a blessing to have a good time on your last day. Go back.”
With their bluntness, I responded in kind.
“Hey, let’s talk. It could be beneficial for you too.”
“What? You want to split the money from the bank?”
Damn it. He read my mind.
“No, you can have it all. I’ll withdraw it and give it to you. It’s over a trillion won. It’ll change your life.”
“Haha, you’re quite the fortune teller.”
“What? What do you mean?”
“The chairman said you’d say that.”
The chairman? So it wasn’t the vice chairman who chose me as the scapegoat, but the chairman himself?
I was the one who took the women he impregnated to the abortion clinic.
I was the one who got slapped by a nightclub girl while cleaning up his mess.
Considering all the crap I cleaned up for him, shouldn’t he at least spare my life?
The man looked at my dazed expression and spoke.
“Man, a trillion won? What would I do with that?”
“With a trillion won, you could fly in a private jet. You could line up luxury sports cars in your garage and drive a different one each day of the week.”
Even as I painted a picture of a lavish lifestyle, his response was the same.
“That’s why smart guys like you make mistakes at the end. Listen, man. My annual salary is 200 million won. The company gave me a Benz. They even provided a 40-pyeong apartment. I’m 33 years old. That’s a pretty enviable life. What more could I want?”
“You… you idiot…”
“We might be a bit dumb, but we’re not stupid enough to bite off more than we can chew.”
“You bastards. Did I ever try to take the chairman’s money? What did I do wrong? This is just killing the messenger.”
I shouted down the hotel corridor, but it was just an empty echo.
“Stop shouting! We know. So what? We’re just servants too. We have to earn our keep. Enough already.”
“Let me talk to the chairman just once.”
“Dream on. A director-level guy like you doesn’t get that privilege.”
“Then you call him. Tell him the job’s done and I’m going into hiding. I’ll disappear into some corner of South America or Eastern Europe and never show my face again. Please, just help me this once.”
“Man, you’re pathetic. Enough already.”
The man, tired of the late-night chatter, put an end to it.
“Stop thinking about it and get some sleep. Think about your parents.”
That one word pierced my heart like a dagger.
I collapsed in front of the elevator.
They had hostages.
And they were the most certain kind of hostages.
These guys knew my life inside out.
I didn’t have a particularly good relationship with my wife.
She married me because she was impressed by my business card from Sunyang Group’s core department, promising a bright future.
But it didn’t take long for her to see the true nature of my work, and she began to look at me with open disdain.
The reason we didn’t have children wasn’t unrelated to this.
Though we smiled together at official events as husband and wife, that was all. At home, we were practically strangers.
We just fulfilled our respective duties.
I provided the paycheck, and she was no different from a housekeeper who cooked, did laundry, and cleaned.
We never said it out loud, but we both toyed with the idea of divorce in our minds.
My parents were a much more certain hostage than my wife.
If I didn’t take the fall and die in Moldova, my parents would die.
In a car accident, a fire, or simply disappear.
There was no other choice.
The man smirked at my defeated look.
“See, if you’d just called for a masseuse and had a good time, it would’ve been better, right? Now you’re too worried about your parents to even get it up. Enough talk. Go to sleep.”
The next day, the two men grimaced at my corpse-like appearance.
“Hey, cheer up. What’s with the look? You’re a billionaire now.”
I didn’t even have the energy to retort.
I followed their orders and entered the bank. I made sure to turn my face towards the CCTV as much as possible and walked out with the thin master card symbolizing the electronic account.
“Good job. Your contribution… no, your life is being well-compensated. Don’t worry about your family. Your parents will receive a generous compensation, and your wife will be taken care of in the U.S.”
More nonsense.
Would they really give such benefits to the family of an employee involved in embezzlement?
They wouldn’t even pay my severance, and they’d probably file a lawsuit to seize my assets, leaving me with nothing.
These conglomerates never show generosity to others.
I’ve seen them throw a fit over giving a mere million won to workers injured on the job.
The two men flanking me led me to a secluded beach.
Was this my grave?
Or would the dazzlingly blue sea be my final resting place?
After staring at the sea for a while, I turned around to see a gun in one of their hands.
I thought I’d face death calmly and with dignity, having given up on everything.
But the sight of the gun awakened a last instinct for survival.
Before I knew it, I was on my knees, begging at his feet.
“Please, I’m begging you. Spare me. Please!”
“Have you seen the movie ‘Wanted’?”
“I can’t go back to Korea anyway. I’ll just hide out here… or in some remote part of South America or Africa for the rest of my life. You can report that you killed me.”
I knelt and pleaded, but the bastard kept talking nonsense.
“Angelina Jolie was sexy in that movie… The protagonist always said this when killing someone: ‘I am sorry.’”
“I haven’t committed a crime worthy of death. Just let me disappear! Damn it!”
“I always wanted to use that line.”
The bastard pointed the gun at my head.
Damn it.
I never imagined that the last thing I’d hear before dying would be a cheesy movie line like this.
“I am sorry.”
Bang!