When I reentered my office, I at first thought I was imagining things. As I drew nearer to my desk, sure enough, there it laid: a neatly sealed envelope, just sitting on there on my desk.
I sat down and buzzed my secretary.
“Yes Mr. Hwang?”
“Did you ever mention this envelope on my desk to me?”
“What?”
Her response made me even more cautious than before. “Can you contact security for me? Have them also review security footage.”
“Yes sir.”
The envelope was opened a few minutes later to reveal just an innocent-looking piece of paper. I sighed, dismissing everyone else. “Sorry for the false alarm, thank you for coming up here.”
“No problem Mr. Hwang, have a nice day.”
I picked up the envelope’s contents once my office was empty. It was a necessary precaution I had to take and was the reason why I had hired security in the first place; even still, it felt annoying at best that it required me to send a whole team to my office just to open an envelope revealing a single piece of paper. However, as I unfolded it, I came to realize that it wasn’t any piece of paper.
I honestly didn’t know what to expect while unfolding that paper, but one thing became very clear as I read it: resolving this issue quickly was an absolute must. If I could resolve it before anyone else had to know, all the better. The last thing I needed was my employees and family to feel at danger of any kind. In this situation, I was clearly losing the information war; I didn’t know how much power and influence this criminal organization had, nor did I wish to find out.
In the end, after much deliberation, I arrived at the conclusion that I had no choice but to acquiesce. My building was an incredibly secure place, the CEO’s office being the most secure; if they were able to bypass everything as it was, that fact alone allowed me to gauge the amount of power they had. Who knew what would happen if I refused; I didn’t want my family to pay the consequences of my oversights and mistakes.
Before even a month passed, Jonggu stepped into my office. Even though he was the CFO as well as my best friend, it was extremely rare to see him arrive in my office unannounced, and even rarer to see him donning such a hostile expression.
“Explain this.”
He threw a stack of papers on my desk, and with just a glance, I could tell what he was talking about. I knew he was smart—that was the reason I appointed him CFO after all—as well as quick-witted, but I didn’t expect him to become suspicious this quickly.
“I’ve mentioned this before, haven’t I? A new plan to add private—”
“Don’t screw around with me. The amount spent way exceeds the projections that were presented. And don’t hide behind the excuse of a simple under-estimation, I kept track of the financial records all throughout the project. I thought myself crazy to be suspicious of this sudden idea, but it looks like I was right to be suspicious.”
“Jonggun, calm down. First of all,” I replied, thankful I had readied an excuse already, “after the project was finished, I realized I failed to take anti-EMP measurements into account, so I personally oversaw the installation of the appropriate protections.”
“And it somehow slipped your mind to inform your CFO of this?”
“Well, I didn’t want to burden you with my oversight.”
“It’s my job to do this sort of thing!” he replied, clearly exasperated. “That’s not all, either. A celebrity was denied access to one of these rooms for ‘renovation purposes’ which caused them to submit a complaint, and when it was investigated, it was discovered that no such things were recorded anywhere, not to mention that there were no bank transitions signifying any kind of renovation happening.”
“As I said—”
“You know what I think?”
I paused, putting on my best poker face. I ordinarily wouldn’t take too kindly to being interrupted if this wasn’t my best friend, but even still, it irked me just a bit. “Go on.”
“I did some investigation on my own. Apparently, about a month ago, you did a short investigation on someone who snuck into your office and personally delivered an envelope to your office. The culprit was never found, and the investigation seemed to end before it could even pick up: that was the first suspicious thing. The second, of course, was the sudden introduction of this plan to create private, on-the-ready rooms for celebrities who wanted to escape press; while you may have fooled everyone else by providing your ‘modern times and problems need modern solutions’ and pointing to a recent example of a celebrity getting stalked by fans, I found it suspicious even before I discovered that fiasco with the envelope. Now that I have, I’ve arrived at a conclusion: do you want to hear it?”
Panic was welling up inside me. Why did he have to be so smart?
“Your private rooms aren’t for celebrities at all. Or maybe they are, but only when you know they won’t be used by members of a criminal organization you’re conspiring with.”
My mind was spinning and I could barely even think properly, behavior incredibly unbefitting of a CEO. “How dare you accuse me of conspiring with criminals,” I replied while slamming my desk and standing up, instinctively taking the offensive.
“Then look me in the eye and tell me you aren’t.”
I cursed internally. Jonggun was always an expert at reading facial expressions, especially mine, ever since high school. If there was ever a chance to fool him, it was now.
I carefully leveled my eyes with him and emptied my mind, replying with the simple words, “You can trust me.”
A lapse of silence followed, followed by a deep sigh from Jonggun. “Must I find definitive proof before you tell me the truth? As your best friend?”
This time, his words were more heavy, sorrowful, regretful. I, for a second, doubted my decision before reminding myself that this was all for the safety of my family as well as for him. Keeping Jonggun in the dark meant he had no sin to bear.
“I don’t know what you just read in my face just now, but I am telling the truth. As your best friend, you must believe me.”
He shook his head. “You know, I’ve never told you this before. When you lie, the corner of your mouth twitches.”
His turning around flipped a switch in my brain; if he exposed me in secret, I was done for. My family, my company, my reputation…
“It’s for my family.”
He slowed to a stop and turned around.
“It’s for my family,” I repeated, looking at him straight in the eye again.
“I have a family too. So do your employees, so do your customers, so do the victims of the crimes that organization commits. Are you saying that your family is somehow more valuable than all of theirs?”
The answer was crystal clear in my head, but realizing it made me hesitate. “Yes,” I ended up saying, “I’m selfish, I know, but that’s just what humans are. I prioritize my family’s safety because all the security this building has wasn’t enough to stop them from breaking into my private office.”
“Let me help you,” he offered. I could tell that he was sincere, but I could also tell he was speaking as my best friend and not my CFO.
I shook my head. “Stay out of this. Keep your head down and pretend you don’t know anything; that way, your wife and nine-year-old daughter can stay safe from them.”
“Look,” he said, walking back towards me, “I understand your supposed dilemma, but you don’t even realize it’s a false dichotomy. Choose the third option: keep your family safe and decide to not align yourself with criminals.”
“What do you propose can keep my family safe? You realize how easy it would be to kill them, right? Drop a bomb on the school, wire a timed explosive to a segment on a road that we frequently use, blow up a bridge as we’re crossing it—I’ve thought about it, and it terrifies me. Unless you can destroy the entire organization, I won’t budge.”
“What would Mikyung think? What would your children think?”
“They don’t have to know,” I firmly stated.
“How long do you think you can keep this a secret?”
“With your help, indefinitely.”
“And what happens if I don’t decide to corroborate? Or what happens when I’m gone?”
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