FLASHBACK

Yerin kept herself alert as she stiffly sat on the chair in the middle of an empty room. There was a table in front of her and placed above it were; a glass of water, a portfolio, and an envelope. Then there was a man standing by the door holding a gun, looking like a drug pusher. He wasn't looking straight at Yerin but she could feel that all his attention was on her. She just bit her lower lip as she pushed away the glass of water. She might not know, it contains poison.

She was still trembling and she couldn't help but to feel worse every time the image of unconscious SinB flashed inside her head. Thankfully, she slowly calmed down and somehow felt relieved thinking that SinB was in Yuju’s care and that the latter would surely do her best to save the girl. What she only needed to do was to confront whoever devil who ordered to shoot her wife and make sure that she’d go out of that place alive.

"Hi there, pretty lady."

Yerin was too engrossed with her thoughts that she didn't notice a man had already entered the room and the guy who was with her earlier was already nowhere to be found. As she looked up, her eyes widened as they slowly darkened.

She gritted her teeth. "You..."

"You didn't expect it, did you?" The man grinned as he leaned against the wall in front of Yerin. "Well, we only met once anyway."

Yerin prevented herself from standing up and rushing to punch him knowing she wasn't capable of knocking out a man who's probably an experienced fighter judging from the built of his body. She remained seated on her chair, silently sending daggers through her eyes.

"Ohh... You are still as fierce as ever." He stood straight and took slow steps towards her. "I still remember how you dissed at me for looking lustfully at your wife back there in Europe." He grinned and stopped his tracks midway. "I wonder where she is right now?"

"Damn you, Mr. Tan." Yerin slammed both her hands on the table as she tried to control her rising anger. "Just tell me what you want already!"

"Woah, calm down Miss Jung. You're with how fierce you look right now." He his lips as he started walking towards her once again.

"D-Don't come near me!"

Tan let out a small laugh as he raised both his arms before stepping back. "Don't worry, I'm not the type." He then went to grab a chair from the corner and placed it three meters away from the table which was placed in front of Yerin. "Neither the sadist type. I won’t hurt you."

As he smiled once again, he took out a box of cigarette and immediately lit a stick. "I want you here because I need to discuss some few important matters, Miss Jung." He looked over his wrist as if he was counting something. "This is gonna take quite some time, do you want some drinks? I can provide any." He then raised his hand and snapped a finger. Within seconds, someone entered the room. "So?" He raised his eyebrow at Yerin as he waited for her answer. But the latter just kept her neutral stare at him.

"I don't want anything." She flatly said.

"Are you sure?"

"Can we just make this faster?"

The young man chuckled seeing how annoyed Yerin already was. "Okay then. It seems like my guest has no patience here. You can go." He motioned the guy to leave the room as he threw away his cigarette and stomped on it.

"Don't worry too much about your wife. I personally told my gunman to not instantly kill her. She'll survive, I can feel it... Unless that girl isn't fast enough to bring her to the nearest hospital, she'll bleed to death." Yerin's hands formed into fists. "Who's that girl by the way? Yuju, right? Your friend...? Or should I say, ex-girlfriend?" His lips slowly curled up to one side as he intently looked at the girl in front of him who was utterly shocked hearing his words.

'He knows about us.'

"You seem so shocked Miss Jung. Didn't expect someone to find out?" His smirk widened. "Tsk. Tsk. Maybe the four of you just weren't careful enough... Anyways, enough of that, I know you're dying to see your wife already. I don't want to be mean here so I'll be considerate and make this fast." He gestured Yerin to open the portfolio as he crossed his arms in front of his chest and made himself comfortable on his seat. While Yerin reluctantly obeyed and read the portfolio's content.

"That's our family's company. I inherited it a few years ago after my father decided to announce his retirement. You see, it has been really successful and was dominating the market." He started, staring at Yerin who was focused on the papers in front of her.

"Wait, during that business meeting. This isn't the compa—"

"The company I represented during that business meeting we had in Europe is owned by my friend. I'll explain about that later." He smiled at her and stood up to stretch his body. "As what I've said, my company was dominating the market and it almost looked like a monopoly… Our market share was so high...” He then walked towards her and stopped in front of the table. He took the portfolio Yerin was holding and flipped the pages before giving it back to her, showing a specific page. “However, it all changed when you entered the European market three years ago. That was when the crisis started for us. I had the whole company on my shoulders, I didn't know what to do. I was too young and inexperienced back then, not to mention the expectations my whole family had on me. I was pressured Miss Jung... When you launched your product and started to promote it in Europe, our sales constantly decreased... and within just a quarter, the company's market share decreased by 19%." His eyes darkened as he sat back to his seat. 

"I think you are smart enough to understand it, Miss Jung..." He heaved a sigh and took out another stick of cigarette. "...Hwang-Jung, of course, well-known in Asia. I knew that you were already a threat back then… I just didn’t expect that you would instantly become big in Europe.”

“So this is the reason why you’re doing this to us…” Yerin closed the portfolio and stared at the man in front of her in disbelief. “In a businessman’s point of view, don’t you think this is too pitiful and desperate?” She raised an eyebrow at him. She could not believe that someone would actually threaten their lives just for a business.

“Oh… you’re making me look so evil Miss Jung…” He smirked as he removed the cigarette out of his mouth. “But I wouldn’t go this far if my previous plans didn’t fail nor backfire… I got pissed and become more impatient every time so I decided to just take the brutal p