“I heard that the CEO Jang of Gizem is looking for a wife for his son.”

           “Well it’s about time, his son is nearing forty and still hasn’t found himself a wife yet.”

           “But what girl would be willing to marry that man? I heard he spends at least a few hundred thousand on girls and gambling every month.”

           A couple of the ladies gasped in shock while Haesoo just sighed under her breath as she tried to look surprised. She had known about Jang Minhyun’s gambling situation long before any of the other ladies, in fact, she knew much more than they would ever know. He spent four hundred and twenty-five thousand just this month and he still owed another fifty thousand that he would pay as soon as he sold off one of his villas, or at least that was what he promised to do. Of course, he could always try to run, but there were few men that were able to run away from the secrets that they have given to Haesoo to access Tartarus, the very place where they lost their money.

           Perhaps it would be more correct to say ‘the secrets that they have given to Alastor’ since very few people knew that the mysterious owner of the most exclusive and dangerous club in Seoul was an almost proper upper-class girl with seemingly too much to lose and too little to gain from the endeavor. Tartarus was every sinner’s dream, a place where you could gamble freely with a beautiful or e in your arms, it was a place that existed outside the eyes of the public and outside the law. Tartarus was a place that everyone who was someone wanted to get into but the entrance fee was more than most could afford. In exchange for membership, they needed to tell Alastor a secret, one that was worth enough to warrant entrance to Tartarus. That was what made Alastor, someone who had not shown himself to the members in many years, the undisputed king of Tartarus. Alastor had ruined enough men and women for every member to be afraid of him and the things that he could do with their secrets, yet they could not stay away from the temptation that was Tartarus.

           Only the other operatives of Tartarus knew that Alastor was nothing more than one of the characters that Haesoo had created to protect her identity. She had built Tartarus to be an empire that she and her partners could run from the shadows. They were in control of the elite and while it was often dangerous, Haesoo has spent the last seven years making sure that her people and herself were as safe as possible.

           “Yes, but that just shows how rich he is, any girl that could marry into the Jang family should be thankful.”

           The senseless gossip continued as Haesoo tried to think about anything else in order to save her brain cells from the pointlessness of the conversation. 

           “Yes, but what good is all that money if the husband goes out every night to other women?

           “Well any good woman would be able to keep her husband from doing such distasteful things, wouldn’t you agree Miss Haesoo?”

           At most tea parties Haesoo could remain quiet and pretend to follow along with the conversation since many of the the other ladies (especially the older ones) had too much to talk about without her joining in, but Lee Jina would always try to drag Haesoo in to conversations in hopes of ridiculing her in some shape or form. Lee Jina had insisted that everyone call her Mrs. Lee in order to flaunt the fact that she had managed to marry Lee Jaeyoon (the director of one of Korea’s many hospitals, Haesoo couldn’t remember which one). Mrs. Lee looked much older than she actually was (maybe early forties?) and she always carried herself with an air of being better than anyone else, in fact, it wasn’t just Haesoo that Mrs. Lee seemed to have a problem with. From what Haesoo could remember it seemed that Mrs. Lee liked to ridicule anyone that was younger than herself. Perhaps to try and chase back her escaped youth, Haesoo thought as she gently set down her teacup.

            “I’m not sure how to answer Mrs. Lee, I clearly don’t have much experience in any matter having to do with husbands,” Haesoo spoke with an innocent smile on her face as she masked all feelings of irritation in an attempt to seem like a proper upper-class lady. Haesoo would much rather be at Tartarus where she was in control and could really put Mrs. Lee in her place but in the current setting, Haesoo needed to pretend to be agreeable.

           “That’s right but I thought that given your age, you should already be thinking about these matters. You should ask your brother to find you a husband soon or you’ll end up as a spinster, you’re already twenty-five and you’re not even engaged.” Mrs. Lee spoke in a kind voice but there was an obvious cold glint in her eyes. A couple of other ladies snickered at the word spinster while a few of the older girls just sighed.

           “I thank Mrs. Lee for your advice, I’m grateful that an elder such as yourself is willing to advise me on such important things,” Haesoo spoke trying to sound as sincere as she possibly could while still managing to emphasize the word elder. Haesoo did not want to make trouble while attending these stupid upper-class events (most of the time because it wasn’t worth her while) but she also would not back away when being so directly insulted.

           Mrs. Lee froze for just a couple of seconds before she seemed to collect herself. She shot a glare at some of the other ladies who could not hold in their giggles and started to speak again, “Yes I suppose it is only right for me to give you advice since your mother can no longer advise you. Although given her history I’m not sure if she would have been able to give anyone any proper advice.”

           A few of the ladies gasped while Haesoo masked any sort of reaction that she might have otherwise had. There it was, she thought, an outright attempt to slander her poor mother. Her mother who had forgotten her place as a maid and fell in love with the master of the house. Her mother who had given birth alone, afraid and without any money to support herself or a newborn baby. Her mother who had done everything she could to ensure that Haesoo could survive even if it meant her own health failing. Her sweet mother who was the laughing stock of the upper-class society even after being dead for many years.

           Haesoo had to stop herself from thinking of her mother in order to ensure that she did not punch Mrs. Lee in the throat...or do something even more drastic. It was fine if Haesoo did not handle Mrs. Lee here, she would handle things tonight when she had more power and more control. With a plan already formed in her mind Haesoo smiled sweetly at Mrs. Lee not wasting another word with the woman.

           Seeing that Haesoo refused to say another word Mrs. Lee clearly felt that she had won as she switched her target one of the other ladies. The conversation was cut short when a soft male voice cut in from the doorway, “I’d hate to interrupt you ladies but I have come to pick up my sister”. Haesoo immediately perked up when she heard the voice, she smiled on the outside but immediately started cursing in her head while she wondered what took her brother so long to come and get her.

           “Ah, Mr. Kim are the men already finished with their discussions?” One of the older ladies asked, her voice sickly sweet as she stared almost predator like at Haesoo’s brother.

           Haesoo rolled her eyes while her brother kept a very polite and professional smile on his face. Haesoo had to admit that her brother was handsome, he had a very clean look that made him look professional, reliable and approachable. He wasn’t too tall but he had fairly good proportions and although his face sometimes looked a little dorky (to Haesoo), it was a face that attracted a lot of female attention. Especially when he was dressed in a full piece suit like he was today. This paired with the fact that he ran EXO, one of the largest business conglomerates in South Korea, meant that there were many women (married and unmarried) that wanted to throw themselves at his feet form a connection with him.

           “Not quite, Mrs. Moon, I have a meeting and sadly must leave a little earlier.” Haesoo’s brother spoke as he helped Haesoo up from where she was sat, “I hope you ladies have a wonderful afternoon.” The siblings left the room before anyone could say anything else.

           “What the took you so long?” Haesoo asked as soon as the two siblings were in their car. She could finally drop the ‘proper upper-class girl’ act when she was around her brother and the close servants of the family, in fact, she could see their chauffer smiling as she complained. The Kim family only trusted a few people and those that they did trust were treated like family. A real family, not the bull upper-class version of a family where everyone wanted each other dead.  “Stop smiling Chen! I was about to ing punch Mrs. Lee if Junmyeon took any longer to show up.” Chen chuckled under his breathe while Junmyeon just closed his eyes and leaned into the car seat.

           “I understand that you don’t like attending these events but can you please consider that I don’t take any pleasure from these outings either. I would have come for you earlier but Mr. Lee insisted on not letting me leave until he’s finished telling me every single thing that he did on his recent trip to New Zealand,” Junmyeon said as he massaged his temples.

            “Mrs. Lee didn’t mention anything about a trip to New Zealand…”

            “How could she when every picture Mr. Lee showed us had him hugging a scantily clad woman that he called, ‘a new business partner’. Honestly, I’m not sure if he wanted to brag about the trip or about this supposed ‘business partner’ of his.”

            “Now that is the first piece of good news that I’ve heard all day.”

            “You’re going to make his life living hell?”

            “No, I’m going to make Mrs. Lee’s life living hell.”

            “What has she done to you this time?”

            “She insulted my mother.”

            “Oh… she’s as good as dead,” Junmyeon said with a faint smile on his face. Haesoo knew that he liked the Lee family about as much as she did which reminded her of an important question that she had forgotten to ask Junmyeon earlier.

            “Why did we even have to attend their stupid tea party anyway?” Haesoo whined as she leaned her head against Junmyeon’s shoulder. The siblings would have usually made up some sort of excuse in order to not attend such a frivolous event but Junmyeon had specifically placed importance on going to this specific tea party.

            “Remember when you told me to try and see if I could get any information on who Siwon had been meeting up with?”

            “I see, you were trying to find out more about the mysterious stranger,” Haesoo straightened up as the topic of the conversation became serious. Haesoo spent most of her nights dealing with corrupt upper-class men and leaders of gangs but Choi Siwon was the most dangerous man she had ever met. Siwon was the CEO of SuJu enterprises and was known to commit fraud, murder, poison and steal in order to get his way but there was never quite enough evidence to legally do anything to him. Haesoo remembered when Siwon had his people break into and set Junmyeon’s office on fire in order to delay the signing of a new deal between EXO and the Seoul Tourism Department. Haesoo managed to pull some strings behind the scenes in order to lessen some of the bad publicity while getting Siwon to suffer by making it so that a couple of the manufacturing companies that he signed with backed out of their contract.

           Of course, she couldn’t always use her identity as Alastor to help out Junmyeon, it would become too suspicious, but she did make it her mission to make sure that Siwon and those too close to him would not be able to join Tartarus. The downside to that was that it made it nearly impossible for them to collect information on Siwon. He was as smart as he was cruel and he was always plotting something which was why both Haesoo and Junmyeon had people watching him. Since last month one of Haesoo’s people had managed to collect information that stated that Siwon had secretly begun routinely meeting up with someone. None of Haesoo’s sources was able to provide an identification of that someone and so both Haesoo and Junmyeon had been trying their best to collect information on who Siwon was metting up with.

            “Well since you couldn’t find any information at Tartarus, I thought I’d try to engage in some mindless gossip in hopes of trying to find something out.”

             “And what have you managed to find?”

            “Nothing other than the fact that Siwon had said that he will be bringing a guest along to this year’s gala.”

            Haesoo stared at Junmyeon in shock, the gala was a special party thrown every year by a collective of the most powerful families in Seoul in order to show off their wealth. Haesoo personally thought that most of the people in charge had a strange obsession with trying to emulate a certain feeling from the movie, The Great Gadsby but it was their money to waste. For as long as she had been attending, she had noticed that Siwon usually came alone, the fact that he was bringing someone meant that something was defiantly going on.

“So, we’ll finally meet this mysterious stranger?” Haesoo asked as she tried to think of anyone else that Siwon could be bringing. “Maybe he finally found himself a lover?”

            “If that were the case, I’m sure you would have heard about it from Mrs. Lee,” Junmyeon said in a much less serious tone. Haesoo once again leaned her head against his arm, she knew her brother long enough to know when a topic had reached its end. There was nothing that they could really do for more information except wait and see what Siwon had planned.