Chapter 64.1

Chapter 64.1

“What are you doing here without even calling first?”

Lee Yi-taek looked up from the newspaper at his study desk, a puzzled expression crossing his face as he spotted Goyo standing in the doorway.

“I doubt Director Kwon sent you here… So what brings you?”

“…Haa… haa…”

Goyo stood by the door, chest rising and falling with ragged breaths, unable to respond right away.

Sensing something was off in the way she stared blankly ahead, Yi-taek asked again.

“You’re not going to answer?”

His tone sharpened as he lowered the newspaper onto the desk, visibly annoyed.

Goyo, expression vacant, slowly stepped inside the study. She walked with effort, as if each step weighed her down, and came to a halt in front of the desk—the very place she used to stand, head bowed, trembling.

The desk was neatly lined with morning and evening editions of every major newspaper. Yi-taek still subscribed to all the national dailies. Reading them after breakfast was his longtime habit.

Goyo swallowed dryly and finally spoke.

“I saw the movie.”

“The Redeemer, you mean?”

“So you knew.”

“Didn’t Director Kwon invest in that film?”

“Yes. It premiered today, so I figured you wouldn’t have seen it yet. But… it’s incredibly violent. And terrifying.”

Her own voice rang in her ears, strangely muffled, like it was echoing underwater. She wasn’t sure if she was fully awake. The whole thing felt unreal.

“The male lead gets shot… in the semi-basement where he lived as a child.”

She was still shaken by the unexpected words of Prosecutor Ma Soon-jin. Maybe that’s why, while watching The Redeemer, old memories she had long buried suddenly surged to the surface. They didn’t match what she thought she remembered. Her mind was spinning.

“I assume you didn’t come all the way here just to tell me a movie synopsis.”

Yi-taek clearly couldn’t make sense of Goyo’s unannounced visit or her sudden talk about a film.

“I was watching the movie… and I started wondering about something. Something I couldn’t ignore.”

Goyo’s voice was calm as she looked directly at Lee Yi-taek. On the way here, she had tried to recall that day. She tried to claw her way back to a memory from over a decade ago, when she was just six years old. It wasn’t easy.

She couldn’t tell anymore what she’d actually seen, what she’d only heard, or what her mind might have made up. Her memories were a tangle of contradictions. Sometimes it was her father who said the words; other times, Yi-taek. Sometimes both of them spoke in the same voice, saying the same things.

There was no way for her to sort out what was real.

“What are you talking about?” he asked.

“Congressman…” she said, slowly. “…Did you lie to me?”

Goyo closed her eyes, then opened them again, deliberately. The Yi-taek in her memory looked different from the man standing before her now. It had been fifteen years since they met. The streaks of gray in his hair and the fine lines on his face made him look older, heavier with time.

“What the hell are you talking about?” His voice was clipped, his expression stiff.

Goyo pressed down the surge of emotion that threatened to erupt from her chest, forcing each word out one by one.

“Why… Why did you do it…? Why did you lie?”

I need to know the truth. Even if I have to crack open both our skulls to get it.

“Goyo. Get to the point.”

Yi-taek’s brows drew together in a sharp, impatient scowl.

He didn’t seem the least bit concerned by the state she was in—unsteady, barely holding herself together. His expression said only one thing: I’m angry. Don’t overstep.

In the past, his fist would’ve already flown. Maybe politics had taught him a sliver of patience. But it wasn’t that he had changed.

No, it was Goyo who had.

She was too old now to be beaten or forced into that little chair of punishment.

When she lived with her father, there was no such thing as discipline by violence. They’d had no time for that. They were too busy surviving and looking after each other.

But in Lee Yi-taek’s house, control through punishment had been the norm.

On days when something outside had pissed him off, he’d call her in and make her sit in that “reflection chair.” And then he’d read the newspaper aloud for hours until his mood improved.

It was its own kind of torture. She had to sit still, back straight, expression neutral. No signs of boredom, no wandering thoughts. At any moment, he might pause and ask her a question about an article.

Answering wrong meant immediate punishment. The physical abuse had stopped once she became an adult—but the bruises it left in her mind had never faded.

“If I tell you… will you give me the truth?”

A tight ache bloomed in her chest.

“So you want to play word games with me now? A few days with Director Kwon and you think you’re bold?”

Lee Yi-taek slammed his fist on the desk with a loud bang.

Once, that sound would’ve made her flinch, recoil in fear. But maybe Yi-taek was right—after spending a few days with Kwon Jae-heon, something inside her had changed. She wasn’t trembling anymore.

After seeing the way Jae-heon toyed with Lee Yoon-gun like he was nothing more than a spoiled brat, Goyo started to wonder: maybe the people she’d feared all her life weren’t as powerful as she’d believed.

“It wasn’t… kidnapping, was it?”