Byul is quietly looking over documents that each of their departments have sent her as a review of their whole year. She has to study and sign-off on annual appraisals, next year's budget, artist evaluations, and such. She groans a little, the year-end is tiring with so much to do every year.

Her attention is taken away from what she's doing by a soft knock on the door and Wina walking in, carrying a few more documents with her. She can't help but slouch on the chair, rolling her eyes and groaning loudly.

"It's that time of the year isn't it?" she says with a slight annoyance in her tone.

Wina laughs softly, "The time of the year where we work twice as hard as we did the whole year? Yes."

Putting down the documents in front of her, she lists them down one by one, letting Byul know what needs to be done with each of them.

"Files in blue folders are contract renewals for artists, they go hand in hand with the artist evaluations. I've already created draft proposals if the terms of their contracts need to be changed so you just need to review and approve. The black folder has award evaluations for employees. I've already reviewed those as well as the merit behind them and all you have to do is sign so I can award them to the employees. And these..." She says while holding up a handful of smaller envelopes in her hand. "Are invitations for a few more parties."

Wina hands her a specific invitation.

It's bigger and more elegantly packaged than all the other invitations and this is the most important party to go to.

Taking the invitation slowly, she stares at it and sighs. She's been wondering when she'd get her invitation to The Grand Artists Ball, and now that it's here, all she could do is stare at it.

The Grand Artists Ball is an annual new year's celebration for artists, their agencies, and the investors behind them. This is a great place and opportunity to talk to different agencies and broker beneficial collaborations between each agency's artists.

This is also the party where Byul and Hyejin met for the first time.

Every year they go to this party, and even when they're fighting, they'll still enjoy meeting with all these people. Some are old friends, some are colleagues that they've both worked with previously and some are new artists that look up to them. It's an easy-going party where they enjoyed the company of others.

But this year is going to be harder for Byul than in previous years. They're going to be surrounded by people they call friends, colleagues they've worked with multiple times, people who are very invested in their relationship.

"Do you want me to call Yoona and give her the details of the party?" Wina asks, breaking her train of thoughts.

Yoona is Hyejin's assistant. She's what Wina is to Byul and if they want to reach Hyejin for anything, Yoona is definitely who you'd want to talk to, mostly because Hyejin doesn't want to talk to either Wina or Byul.

"Yeah. Ask her how Hyejin wants to arrive at the party and all the other details, then just let me know." Byul says dismissively.

Wina nods and takes note of it in her little notebook. "Okay. So, when do you plan to talk to her? To your wife, I mean."

Byul slouches on her chair again and looks up at the ceiling, "I don't think she wants to talk to me."

"Byul, you guys can't keep avoiding and ignoring each other."

Byul snaps her head down and her eyebrows scrunch up in irritation, "I'm not avoiding her. She's avoiding me!"

"And you're not doing anything to win her back." Wina, firing back, just as annoyed.

Exasperated, she threw the invitation on the table and rolled her eyes. "Why should I? She cheated on me!"

"You can't keep blaming her for that! What she did was wrong but you can't deny that you had a hand in making that happen."

"Whose side are you on?!" Byul angrily says, her voice rising in pitch.

"No ones! I am not siding with either of you! You both made mistakes." Sitting down on the table, in front of Byul, Wina sighs and then shakes her head slowly.

"Byul, you don't think I know why it was her you asked to marry in this sham marriage? You could have had anyone else, but you insisted, you INSISTED that it had to be Hyejin."

Byul slides away in her chair and then stands up to look at the view outside of her window, "Because it would make the most impact if it was her."

"That's bull and you know it! You wanted to marry her so you can have an excuse to be with her. You loved her and knew she loved you just as much and you didn't want to be in this sham with anyone else."

"Okay, so maybe I was biased. that doesn't change anything!"

"Yes, it does! Byul, you're already married to her. And I know that despite all that's been happening between the two of you, you still love her. You wouldn't be so ing hurt about her finding someone else if you didn't. All you have to do is to not give her a reason to go through with the divorce after the contract ends."

Wina runs her hand through her hair, getting slowly annoyed at Byul and this conversation but someone has to give her the cold hard facts.

"Well, that's kinda hard right now isn't it? She doesn't even see me anymore."

"And do you even try to see her? Do you even try to talk to her? Do you even try to reach out to her? To apologize for the fact that you're a crappy wife who doesn't treat her right?"

Byul turns to face Wina, her anger written all over her face. "Well, I'm sorry that I don't know how to act like a good wife seeing as I don't have a good example of one because my mom ing died too soon!"

"Don't you dare use that excuse, Byul! That has nothing to do with you making an effort to be good to Hyejin!"

Frustrated, Wina stands up and looks at Byul in the eyes before speaking again.

"Byul, you're married. Your wife comes first before anything else. That's what marriage is about. If I were married to you, I would have left you a long time ago. Neglecting her, not talking to her, putting your business before her, putting the mob before her, that would never make her feel loved. That only makes her feel like a trophy. A trophy you proudly show off to everyone at parties. And she's more than that."

She stood up straight and folded her arms in front of her chest.

"I'm gonna make it clear to you, Byul. I will do anything and everything I can to make sure you and your wife are clean in everyone's eyes. Your relationship with the mob will never be known to anyone and her affairs always be a secret. But just because I'm protecting your name and this family, doesn't mean that I agree with either of you. Especially not you. You're supposed to be the head of this family Byul, but you're just too weak."

"I am not weak!"

"Really? Well, you sure have a very twisted way of defining strength. A strong person admits their mistakes and strives to be better. All you're doing is pushing the blame on your cheating wife. You don't even acknowledge the fact that your incompetence in your marriage is what's pushing her to look for other people to care for her."

Byul stalks back to her seat and sits down, sliding the chair back in front of her table to finally get some work done. "That's not it. She's just not loyal.", she says.

"Byul! Loyalty is a two-way street! You can't expect her to be loyal to you if you're only loyal to everyone else except her!"

"I am loyal to her! I have never, not once, ever thought of cheating on her!" She sprang to her feet and stares at Wina, the anger returning in her eyes, her voice no longer modulated, she shouts back at her. Clearly, she doesn't appreciate where the conversation was going.

"Loyalty is not just choosing not to cheat on her Byul! Loyalty is choosing her over everything else, every day, and any day!"

Wina lowers her voice, just a little and stares at Byul intently, gauging her reaction.

"If the mob asked you to kill her, would you? If my brother asked you right now to shoot Hyejin and kill her, would you?"

Byul falls silent, shocked at the question. She looks down on her hands not knowing what to say or how to respond. The mob is the reason her business is even off the ground and she's loyal to them, but she doesn't know if she could kill Hyejin for them either. She knows she couldn't hurt Hyejin that way but she also knows what the mob could do if she defied a direct order. She doesn't know the right answer between choosing the mob and her business over her wife.

This is sad and maybe she is weak.

Wina rolls her eyes and shakes her head.

"The right answer is no. You wouldn't. Because she's your wife. That's loyalty, Byul. And the only loyalty you have in your body right now is with the mob. And that's ing sad."

"And what's so wrong with that?!"

Wina sighs and shakes her head again.

"Byul, in the mob, we are loyal to family first. We put our family first. The people who are close to us, the people who love us. We protect them above anything else. If someone threatened my family, my brother, I wouldn't care who it was, my first instinct would be to protect my family. You have to learn that, Byul. That's true loyalty. You? You're just blindly serving people who you think made you who you are. You don't have a mind of your own. You can't even decide on your own if you should save your wife or not in a hypothetical question. You don't deserve your seat right now. And frankly, you don't deserve your wife either."

With a heavy sigh, she stalks off to the door of the office and pauses before leaving.

"Sometimes, I regret ever introducing you to my family Byul, you obviously don't have the guts or character to be a made member. I'm done talking with you. Don't call me for the rest of the day."

Hyejin wakes up to the loud ringing from her phone. She opens her eyes slowly and adjusts to the light while she reaches f