The Runaway Bride
“Please stop, CEO.”
Mi-hee, Kim Jae-mun’s secretary, had been watching the scene in silence, but the man’s eyes were completely bloodshot. He ignored her completely.
“You saw the secretary too, right? What the hell did this bitch do to me? She slapped my cheek! I, Kim Jae-mun, got slapped by a bitch like this? Am I supposed to put up with this?”
Jae-mun roared in rage, his face twisted, and hurled the liquor bottle.
The bottle crashed against the wall and shattered into pieces, the floor instantly soaked with glass and alcohol.
It was the moment the anger that had been building since morning finally exploded.
Three hours before the wedding, the bride had vanished. No, she had run away.
She had fled into the mountains wearing a wedding dress. How much did she hate this marriage?
Do-heon had known she didn’t want to marry, but he never imagined she would actually run away.
He had thought it was just defiance against her father and a childish display of pride.
He had assumed it was because she was too young and scared of marriage, but that wasn’t it at all.
This was the first time he had ever witnessed such humiliation. Her self-respect had hit rock bottom, and she no longer had the face to show anyone.
A twenty-year-old girl had made the entire Jeong family business circle look like fools.
You’re just like that. Everything you do is pathetic.
He could still feel the dirty feeling from the moment his grandfather and his mistress had coldly turned their backs on him in that gathering.
“Jae-mun, stop. You’re going to kill someone.”
When Sang-hyeon saw the blood streaming from the beaten woman’s nose, he forcibly pulled Jae-mun away.
Yoo Sang-hyeon was a friend he had met during their university days in the United States.
“Let go of me!”
Jae-mun, who had been taking out his rage on the wrong person, struggled violently and glared.
The atmosphere in the room froze instantly, and the only sound was the background music still playing from the karaoke machine.
“I know how you feel, but you’re going to cause another accident!”
Sang-hyeon’s words were meant as a warning, but they clearly didn’t register with Jae-mun.
“My feelings are fucked up? What the hell are you talking about? How do you know what I’m thinking? On what grounds are you speaking to me like that?!”
Jae-mun, who was already on edge, glared at Sang-hyeon with bloodshot eyes.
It was the look of someone who would kill anyone who crossed him.
Just as the tension between them reached its peak, the door burst open and Jae-mun’s subordinate entered.
His expression was heavy with bad news.
“CEO, we received a call from the hospital just now. Hyeong-woo is in critical condition. It seems he may not make it through today.”
“What about Hye-won?”
Jae-mun cut him off, showing no interest in Hyeong-woo’s fate, and immediately asked about Hye-won.
“Um… We’re looking for her right now, but it’s already dark and the mountain is too deep.”
“You pathetic bastards. Using that as an excuse? How many hours has it been? You still can’t find even one woman? Did you check the CCTV?”
“We did check, but the system is down.”
“Down? Suddenly? Do you think that’s a valid excuse? Where did you hear such nonsense?”
Jae-mun kicked his subordinate and roared.
“I-I’m sorry. I’ll report as soon as it’s restored.”
Sang-hyeon, who had been silently watching, bowed deeply while swallowing his pain.
“Find Hye-won. Bring her to me within the hour.”
“Yes, CEO.”
“And that truck driver too.”
***
Three days had passed.
Do-heon was still staring at the unconscious Hye-won.
“Department Head, I’ll take over here. Please go in and rest for a while.”
Sang-hyeon had been worried about Do-heon, who hadn’t slept for three nights, but he had only managed to handle urgent matters on his laptop and stayed by Hye-won’s side the entire time.
With this frail body, how many days had she wandered through the mountains? Her entire body was covered in wounds.
There wasn’t a single place on her limbs that was unscathed.
The scratches and tears on her skin told the story of her difficult life, and it was heartbreaking to see.
“Don’t worry too much. She will wake up soon. The doctor also said so, didn’t he? I looked up some information. People in severe exhaustion sometimes sleep for several days.”
Sang-hyeon opened his phone and showed the captured articles about exhaustion.
“She’ll wake up.”
“Of course! She will wake up.”
Sang-hyeon answered with a hopeful smile.
“You should go home and rest. I’ll see you at the company tomorrow.”
Even though he hadn’t come to work, Do-heon had been running between the company and the hotel, so he felt guilty and urged Sang-hyeon to leave even though two hours remained until quitting time.
“You’re coming to work tomorrow?”
Sang-hyeon’s face lit up when Do-heon said he had to go to the office. He had been secretly anxious because Do-heon had been absent for several days after returning from the United States.
“I have to. Seeing my worried secretary face makes me unable to stay away.”
“W-what do you mean by worried? I didn’t do anything like that. I’m just concerned about the Department Head’s health.”
When Do-heon smiled with his signature sly eyes, Sang-hyeon felt his thoughts were being read and stammered.
“By the way, any official news?”
“I was about to tell you, but the company issued an official statement just now. It was that the wedding would be postponed due to the bride’s traffic accident.”
“Postponed wedding.”
Do-heon imagined Jae-mun standing alone in his tuxedo and let out a dry laugh.
It was ridiculous that Jae-mun, who believed he could still marry the bride even after she ran away because she hated marriage more than death.
“Since he can’t say the bride disappeared, he’s blaming it on a traffic accident. Apparently, there was actually a traffic accident, and since no information about the bride had been released to the media, it was possible. Oh, there was also news about the driver’s death.”
“Death?”
Do-heon’s gaze, which had been fixed on Hye-won, widened in confusion.
She had crashed into the mountain wall, but it hadn’t been a serious enough accident to cause a fatality. She had simply opened the door and run away.
“It seems the driver wasn’t wearing a seatbelt. That’s why the injuries were so severe.”
“Oh dear.”
“And this is unofficial information, but Managing Director Kim Jae-mun has been going all out to find Miss Han Hye-won. He’s been searching the entire mountain for three days straight.”
“As expected. Stubborn as ever.”
Do-heon muttered to himself, as if he had anticipated this.
“What are your plans, Department Head?”
Sang-hyeon cautiously asked what he had been wondering about for a long time.
Although Hye-won had run away on her own, the person currently taking care of her was Do-heon.
He didn’t know what would happen if this fact reached Jae-mun’s ears.
Jae-mun, known as the “chaebol’s disgrace” and the “Ilhan heir,” wouldn’t stay silent.
“What do you think I’ll do?”
Do-heon asked playfully, but his eyes already held a conclusion.
Do-heon wasn’t the type to handle things emotionally.
If excessive caution was a problem, then this was another problem.
He had never had the personality to bring Hye-won here out of mere pity. He had clearly made a major decision.
That was why this situation worried him even more.
“You’re really going to marry her?”
“Should I send her to Jae-mun?”
Unlike the serious Sang-hyeon, Do-heon leaned back in his chair with a relaxed expression and let out a soft laugh.
“No, Miss Hye-won is only twenty years old, and there’s a twelve-year age difference between her and the Department Head.”
Just as he was about to say how he would convince the Chairman Jeong and the family, he cut him off.
“Am I a thief? It would be better if it was Jae-mun with only a ten-year difference.”
“No, that’s not what I meant.”
“Even my secretary thinks that? How disappointing.”
Sang-hyeon, who was taken aback by Do-heon’s shameless remark, had nothing to say.
“Ah, no. Th-that’s…”
Sang-hyeon, caught in a buffer, continued stammering with an awkward expression.
“This is all because of who?”
When Do-heon gave a lively expression mixed with a hint of resentment, Sang-hyeon’s heart sank.
“W-who do you mean? W-wait, that’s not me, is it?”
Sang-hyeon, hoping it wasn’t him, pointed at himself with a trembling finger.
“Why did you announce the engagement? To me, who was at Baekwoljeong. You knew how important that meeting was, yet you still told me. You did it on purpose, didn’t you?”
“Oh no, Department Head. I’m a terrible person.”
When Baekwoljeong was mentioned, Sang-hyeon bowed deeply in apology.
Upon hearing it, he realized Do-heon’s words were not entirely wrong. Baekwoljeong was Chairman Jeong’s residence, where a monthly breakfast meeting was held. Sons in charge of subsidiaries, grandsons, and executives gathered there to eat, discuss company matters, and solidify their positions within the group.
Even if the schedule was busy, or even if they were on overseas business trips, they would return temporarily to attend the meeting. It was an important gathering. And Do-heon had known that.
He hadn’t expected Do-heon to leave Baekwoljeong before the meeting ended and head to Hye-won. Although it was still unclear why the normally level-headed Do-heon had done so, he bore a heavy responsibility for not informing him about this development.