Til Death Do Us Part

Chapter 12

I sit in my car, staring at the alleyway from this morning and taking slow even breaths, steadying my nerves and thinking through my purpose here—my plan. My head is swimming, yet I am wholly composed compared to earlier. Dressed in a killer black fitted pantsuit, spike heels, and styled hair hanging perfectly around my shoulders, and I have my war face on. Everything tucked back in behind my mask and ready to rumble. Bringing out the real Vice President Park and what she’s famed for.

It’s like earlier didn’t happen at all, and all my cuts and scrapes are concealed by what I’m wearing, not even on a pain scale anymore; their effect on me is minimal.

My mind is a jumble of thoughts, but my mother-in-law’s words are ringing the loudest and clearest inside my head. I feel like I’m hanging on to them by a thread in a bid to hold it all together.

‘Fix this by any means.’

She knows it’s what I’m good at. That I can be ruthless when called upon. That I won’t stop at anything.

I pick up the document file from the passenger seat and appraise myself in my rearview mirror once more. Flawless makeup, a slash of red on my lips as my battle paint. Sleek hair and a demon look on my face would instill fear in most people. I’m not here to be anything but intimidating, and my entire existence depends on it.

I leave the car and walk confidently to the door I crumbled in front of hours ago, grimacing that I let myself shamelessly break in front of this whore. Knowing Jyeon didn’t come back here gives me new inner strength, and I know I wouldn’t be able to do this if I found him here.

He and his mother were locked in combat in her study when I ventured down and left, and his cars were both in the garage. Yoonah was drowning his sorrows in a bottle of Jack Daniels at the kitchen counter, mourning the loss of his parental figures and following his father’s footsteps of turning to booze when life hurts him. We always were like mom and dad to that kid, and he’s taking this harder than I thought he would. That’s why I’m here to save my family from this intruder. At least, that’s what I tell myself.

I knock on her door, befitting the more demure me, and wait while she scurries to open it in haste, not knowing what awaits her. Her urgency makes me wonder if she thinks Jyeon has come back, and I smirk at how satisfying it is that I’m not him. The door is yanked open, and the expectant bright expression and questioning look falls by the wayside as her face crumbles. Seeing me for a second time today has the same effect, and she gasps openly before drawing back away from me in fear. In shock once more and not sure how to react.

“May I come in?” I raise one brow, tone relaxed and poised. Gesturing with a nod behind her.

“Why? I have nothing to say to you.” She’s instantly bristly and defensive. She moves to shut the door, but I catch it with my hand and shove it hard, knocking her back with the unexpected force.

“Really? Bold enough to try and rip apart a marriage but too cowardly to face the wife?” I mock her with disdain and smirk before elegantly flicking my hair away from my face.

“Whatever you want to say, then do it here.” She tries to stand up to me, squaring her smaller height and straightening her shoulders, but I ignore her and push past her. She’s knocked sideways because she doesn’t seem to be able to predict my actions and isn’t prepared for my weight or strength against her puny stance.

“I don’t think you want your neighbors hearing what I have to say.” I walk in, down a narrow corridor, into a small, neat, modern apartment. Boldly making my way in without direction and acting like I own the place. Disappointed with how basic and claustrophobic it is, I scowl at the open doorway of the bedroom and the sight of the rumpled bed as my first point of view upon entering. It brings up the bile in my stomach, and I turn away and fix my gaze on her as she follows me into the lounge.

“Spit it out…. What, do you want me to apologize? Say sorry? For what? I have no loyalty to you. I’m not married. It’s you that can’t keep your husband, not me. I’ve done nothing wrong. He wouldn't have come if he didn’t want to be led away. So, say whatever it is and get out.” Her bravado irks me, and her rambling because I’m making her anxious and uptight. Her voice wavers and her hands visibly shake, and I feel disappointed that this is the opponent Jyeon picked out for me. A feeble wench like this. She’s no match for who I am.

I hold out the file in front of me and smoothly and calmly slide out the pile of photographs from the other paperwork and throw them onto a nearby low coffee table so they splay across it. Like cards being scattered on a playing board. All manners of intimate cutesy couple crap from their little adventures and watch as her eyes widen in horror. The PI was only too happy to deliver them to me before I left for here.

“Do you know what exposure of this affair will do to his career, family, and reputation? Not to mention the legal ramifications of screwing the representative of a deal still in motion.” I gesture with a chin nod at the pictures and shake my head. “These alone will ruin him if they conveniently end up in the wrong hands.”

She crumbles to her knees, bowled over by them laid out in all their glory, and slowly picks them up one by one. Tears mist her eyes, and I stand over her and observe it coldly. Feeling nothing for her.

“Where did you get these?” It’s a breathy question.

“Do you think I’m the type of woman who would let betrayal slip so easily? That there wouldn’t be retribution for your actions?” I walk around the table, pulling out the paperwork I spent an hour preparing while in my room and pulling myself together. I throw it down on top of the images and sit down gracefully, crossing my legs as I do so.

“I can save him, or I can destroy him. That goes for you too. I’m a major shareholder of OLO. This is enough to dissolve the investment deal with Biochem and see you struck off and held liable for the losses while never working in this industry again. You’ll be tied up in court for years, and I’ll take every penny I can from him that I know he won’t let you pay alone. Jyeon will still have some money, but adultery and mixing business with smut are still a big no-no in this culture. The board of directors will silence him as a non-active shareholder, remove his control and leave it all to me. He can thank you for that. With his fame in the business world, he won’t be able to escape it.” It’s delivered smugly, as though this really is the best punishment for both of them.

“You really are as awful as he said you were. How could you be this manipulative? This heartless and cruel.” her rolling big fat tears cascading down her face do nothing for me, and I shrug.

“Asks the woman who steals another’s husband and tries to destroy a family. Do you think he loves you? That he would leave me for you. Where is he right now?” I lift a picture from the table with deliberate ease and admire it of them walking hand in hand. “He followed me home, and he’s there trying to pick up the pieces that he shattered within his family. Why didn’t he stay with you if he cared so much? Why didn’t he tend to you when I attacked you out front?” I raise my brow and drop it like a dirty rag, watching it flutter to the floor with a sense of calm before I rub my fingers together to remove traces of its filth. Enjoying the wounded expression that flickers across her face.

“He followed you because he was worried about you. You were a mess. He’s not a cold bastard like you are.” She scrambles to pick up all the pictures and then tugs the paper forward, her eyes growing wetter as she reads the lawsuit I intend to file against her. Against both of them. Biotech being in negotiation and her position really did give me a slaying edge over them in terms of the legal side. If only they waited until it was a done deal and the ethical questions wouldn’t be an issue in the process, only a moral mess.

“You have a choice in which way you will go. Stay, fight for your love, and I’ll single handily make you regret it for the rest of your life, where Jyeon will grow to resent his choices.” I smooth down my lapel and exhale slowly and deliberately. “Or……. Leave, resign from Biotech, cut ties with my husband, and I’ll give you the financial means to start over anywhere but here. He’ll keep his company, his investment deal, and his life. You’ll be a distant memory that reminds him he should never play with fire, and we all get to forget this distasteful mistake.”

“Do you know how hard I worked to get into that company, to get to that position? And you expect me to throw it all away.” She blanches and impulsively pushes the paperwork away from her, her face twisting in rage.

“And yet, you willingly tossed it aside for sex. You’re pathetic.” I retort.

“Do you think this is all you need to fix your mess of a marriage? Me gone, and it’s all happy families and love? You are deluded. You live on another planet.” She bites the words my way, tears trickling down her cheeks, and I only smile salaciously in response. She has no idea how the wealthy and elite conduct their personal lives.

“He told me you are a cold and unlovable monster and that any feelings he has are tied to a girl he used to know and hasn’t existed in a long time. That you make his skin crawl, and he loathes having you near him. Now I understand why.”

I don’t react to her words, but they still cut me deeply. Hearing them in his voice and knowing those are things he would say, that those are precisely what he’s implied over the years and how he has acted towards me.

“You think our marriage is only about us? About him loving me? You are really naïve.” I lean forward and push the contract back towards her before sliding the cheque out of my handbag and placing it on top blatantly. So many zeros in an amount that it pains me to have to give the bitch, but I want to send her far away and never lay eyes on her again.

“You can’t buy me off. I won’t betray him.” She wails at me and jumps up, trying her hardest to intimidate me by mirroring my posture and cold persona and failing. She’s like a weaker, outdated version of the young me before I learned how to handle all the pain and emotion that made me so.

It’s ironic now that I look at her and see our resemblances. Ironic because Jyeon always swore he never had a romantic interest in me, yet she’s practically my doppelganger with a different hair color and fashion sense. The same delicate features and eye color shade, physically similar. From what I can tell, she’s softer, sweeter, and naïve because the Park family hasn’t gotten their claws into her. She is smart and business savvy to get where she is, but she’s too soft to fight in the big boy’s world and easy to snap. She is me at fifteen.

“I’m not asking you to betray him, and I’m not paying you off. If you love him, you should sacrifice yourself to protect him and everything he has dedicated his life to building. The money is compensation for choosing his happiness over your own.” I lean back, crossing my hands over my knees, and regard her for a long moment. I'm not intimidated by how she’s standing, glaring at me.

She’s feeble. I can tell even from here. I don’t even know how she managed to anchor herself as someone prominent in Biochem unless she lied to me about her origin and how she got that position. I don’t think the office that day was their first meeting, and it wouldn’t be hard to find out.

“He’ll hate you for this. For controlling everything and making him miserable.”

“He already hates me. I’m the only one looking out for his best interests in the long term. That’s why I’m doing this, like everything I have done for him all these years. That’s love, not this bullshit right here.” It’s a tiny spike in my temper to drive the point home, and her lip trembles.

“Why can’t you just let him go? Let him be happy and still have OLO. Why are you doing this?”

“Because I can, and I have to. OLO isn’t just a company; it’s my family. Jyeon isn’t just my husband, he’s my entire existence, and I won’t let you sweep in and turn it into shit because you think he wants a life with you. He was scratching an itch, and if I lay this out in front of him, which do you think he’ll choose? You or OLO?”

Her crumbling expression gives me a sense of satisfaction that she knows how much more important the company is than what they have. I thank my stars their affair is new enough to not leave any lasting impression on my future with him.

I tap my fingertip on my watch with impatience and rise to stand, brushing off my suit and locking her in the eye. Done for now, and I need her to mull this over.

“You have twenty-four hours to decide. This time tomorrow, I’ll start the ball rolling if you haven’t contacted me. And you can watch as your lover goes down in flames.” I pull out my business card from my purse, lean down, and carefully lay it on the table. Deliberate and smooth with every mannerism, to drive home the class divide between us is like the Grand Canyon, and she will never be able to step into our world. The Parks would eat her for breakfast.

She can’t hold back her tears as she watches me walk across the floor and head for her hallway. I stop at the entranceway and glance back over my shoulder. Defeated so easily, I scowl at the fact that he picked someone incapable of fighting their corner, of fighting for their love. It’s sad.

“Make the right choice for Jyeon. You might just lose a job, a face in this city, but he’ll lose everything and everyone that was ever important to him. And he’ll only have you to blame when it’s done.”

I don’t wait for her response and walk out, clicking my heels on her wooden floor and yank open the door to blinding daylight for the first time this month. Suddenly the skies are clear, and the sun breaks the grey muggy hell of our recent weather.