Black, Blue, and Gold (Book 2)

One Step at a Time (Part 22)

The whole room stared at the man sitting calmly next to Yunho. No one seemed to be able to say anything in the past fifteen minutes after Jisoo had told them to gather in the conference room.

"This must be quite a shock to you," Himchan finally spoke, breaking the silence.

"That must the understatement of the century," muttered Chaeyoung under her breath.

Himchan turned his head, looking at the tall Inspector with an apologetic smile. "I'm sorry for lying to you, Inspector Park."

"Then kindly explain everything. From the beginning," said Jisoo.

"Very well, Captain." Himchan straightened up in his seat. "My real name is Jo Himchan. I assume that everyone here knows who I am, what I used to do and what my relationship to Jo Chadol is?" He looked around the room, at the impassive faces staring back at him. "O-kay then. Let's just skip to after I resigned from being Yongbak's accountant."

"I didn't even realize that he's accepting resignations now," commented Lisa. Although she had had her suspicions about this man, she couldn't help but feel lied to as well.

"Well, considering the circumstances and my staged arrest, he considered it alright to cut down on resources."

"Maybe so but why did he let you live then?" replied Lisa. "Why didn't he just get rid of you like he did his other men?"

"Simple. I used his own method against him. I blackmailed him, told him that I have hidden condemning evidence that would be sent to the police should anything happen to me."

"And he actually bought that?"

"Of course, because that's the truth. I do have condemning evidence against him and if anything happens to me, our side would have reason to charge him with murder of a cop. He won't be able to escape that one. Besides, I know he trusts me. I'm confident enough to say that he trusts me more than he ever trusted his own nephew."

"Now that's cocky," remarked Seulgi.

"It's fact, Inspector Kang. Hate to admit it but Seungjin's recklessness is the reason why I'm still breathing, why Yongbak preferred me," said Himchan calmly. "Anyway, back to my explanation. I went back to Suncheon to see my brother. I needed to tell him that I'm okay and explain what had happened. But unfortunately, I found him dead instead. Hanging by his phone charger, from a beam in his living room."

They saw the man tensing for a second before relaxing once again as if nothing happened.

"He left a short note, an apology to me and to my parents and a plea to Yongbak to leave our family alone. He died without knowing that this was all a set up, that I did this because I wanted to and that I was a cop."

Himchan took a deep breath. "At first, I blamed myself. I was going to let it go when I heard that Seungjin was planning to escape from prison."

"Where did you hear that?" Lisa interrupted.

Himchan looked at the inspector. "I befriended a lot of Yongbak's men during my undercover stint, Inspector. One in particular suffers from more or less the same fate as myself. He was the one who alerted me."

"He knew where you were?"

"Yes. I'll explain more about him later. Allow me to finish my own story first. After I heard that, I decided to take matters into my own hands. I knew that my brother never fully recovered from his gambling problems. Partly, it was my fault - our fault. We needed the connection to Yongbak, I realized that. But even after he was banished by my parents, he could never really kick it off. I found his bank statements, strewn all over his bedroom floor. He had no money and he was depressed." Himchan paused for air. "So I also cast the blame on the person who dragged him into this mess in the first place. Ji Seungjin."