Chapter 3 - THE MAN TAE TRUSTED MOST HAD BEEN WATCHING LEILA FOR A REASON
Joon Park did not look like a criminal.
That had always been one of his advantages.
At sixty-one, he wore conservative suits, donated publicly to Korean-American cultural organizations, and spoke to reporters with the patient smile of a man who expected to be photographed.
He had taught Tae to play baduk.
Taught him how to read a balance sheet.
Taught him that the person who speaks first in a negotiation is usually afraid of silence.
After Tae’s father died, Joon stood beside him at Park Meridian’s board meeting and told men twice Tae’s age:
“My nephew speaks for this family now.”
Tae had never forgotten it.
Which was why he did not summon Joon to the mansion.
He asked outside counsel to schedule a formal audit interview at Park Meridian headquarters.
Neutral conference room.
Attorneys.
Minutes.
No threats.
Joon walked in and immediately understood.
“You’re investigating me.”
Tae sat across from him.
“I’m investigating transactions.”
Joon smiled.
“You sound American now.”
“I was born in Illinois.”
“You know what I mean.”
Tae did.
He also refused to take the bait.
Outside counsel began.
Lake Meridian Property LLC purchased Leila’s workshop building eighteen months earlier.
The purchase itself was legitimate.
The seller wanted out.
Tae had approved acquisition to secure the building after nearby criminal activity.
That was intrusive enough.
Then Joon added additional security contracts Tae never saw.
One vendor billed $18,000 per month.
For what?
“Threat assessment.”
Joon answered.
“Against whom?”
“Anyone approaching Mrs. Park.”
“Her name is Leila Grant.”
Joon’s eyes changed.
Tiny correction.
Huge meaning.
“Fine.”
“Ms. Grant.”
Tae leaned forward.
“What threat?”
Joon shrugged.
“You have enemies.”
“Name one connected to her workshop.”
Silence.
Tae waited.
Joon finally said:
“Your wife moved through the city without understanding what your name meant.”
“She understood enough.”
“No.”
Joon’s tone sharpened.
“She restored furniture for strangers.”
“She worked late.”
“She met clients privately.”
“She refused drivers.”
“She treated your security protocols like suggestions.”
Tae heard his own old arguments in Joon’s mouth.
It was like listening to a recording of the man Leila had left.
“What did the surveillance collect?”
“Nothing improper.”
“Answer.”
“Visitors.”
“Vehicles.”
“Patterns.”
“Who ordered photographs?”
Joon’s mouth tightened.
“I did.”
“Why?”
“To know who was around her.”
“Why?”
Joon stared.
“Because somebody had to think clearly.”
Tae’s hands remained still on the table.
Outside counsel asked:
“Were any photographs taken inside the workshop?”
“No.”
“Audio?”
“No.”
“Electronic access?”
“Only building systems.”
Then the forensic accountant spoke.
“There were queries into Ms. Grant’s client list.”
Joon looked toward him.
“What?”
The accountant turned a screen.
One of Joon’s security vendors had cross-referenced Leila’s clients against Park Meridian vendors, rival businesses, and people of law-enforcement interest.
Tae went cold.
“Why?”
Joon said nothing.
Then Tae noticed one name.
Michael Cho.
A collector who had brought Leila an eighteenth-century Korean chest for restoration eleven months earlier.
Michael Cho was also a federal prosecutor.
Tae remembered Leila talking about the chest.
She said the wood had been repaired badly in the 1970s.
She had spent three weeks stabilizing one side panel.
She never mentioned Cho’s job.
Probably did not know.
Joon did.
“What did you think she was doing?”
Tae asked.
“Nothing.”
“Then why investigate the client?”
“Because federal prosecutors do not accidentally hire the wife of Tae Park.”
The old paranoia.
The old world.
Tae’s voice lowered.
“Did you tell me?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because you were already distracted.”
The room went still.
“By my wife?”
“By wanting to be a husband.”
Joon leaned back.
“Do you remember what your father told you?”
“No family survives if its leader has two loyalties.”
Tae remembered.
He also remembered Leila waiting on birthdays.
Anniversaries.
Hospital nights.
Joon continued.
“You started going home earlier.”
“Cancelled dinners.”
“Refused certain partnerships because she asked questions.”
“She never asked me to refuse anything.”
“She changed you anyway.”
There it was.
Not surveillance for Leila’s safety.
Surveillance because Joon saw intimacy as contamination.
The audit continued.
Joon had reviewed Leila’s workshop visitors.
Her travel.
Her contacts with attorneys.
Even her therapy appointments had triggered “movement reports” because a security driver noticed repeated visits to an office building.
Tae’s stomach turned.
He had built a system designed to detect threats.
Joon used it to treat Leila’s privacy as a threat itself.
Outside counsel asked:
“Did you access privileged communications?”
Joon answered immediately.
“No.”
That mattered.
No evidence showed he had.
Still, the rest was enough.
Tae suspended him from Park Meridian operations pending full audit.
Joon stared.
“You’re removing family because your ex-wife is upset.”
“No.”
“I’m removing you because you used corporate resources to surveil a private citizen without authorization.”
“She was your wife.”
“That is not permission.”
Joon laughed bitterly.
“She ruined you.”
Tae became very quiet.
“No.”
Joon looked almost triumphant.
“You cry now?”
Tae’s eyes changed.
Apparently somebody at the mansion had spoken.
Mrs. Han?
No.
Never.
A guard.
A driver.
It did not matter.
Joon leaned forward.
“Your father buried his wife and went to work the next morning.”
“My mother spent twenty-eight years married to a man who thought showing grief would weaken him.”
“Do not use her to insult your father.”
“I’m not.”
Tae stood.
“I’m using myself.”
The meeting ended.
Joon left under temporary access restrictions.
No physical confrontation.
No threat.
No men followed him.
Tae considered that progress.
Leila did not care about his progress that afternoon.
She was busy moving.
Her new workshop was smaller.
Less beautiful.
More expensive.
And completely hers under a lease held by Grant Restoration Studio LLC, a business she had finally created in her own name.
She signed every page herself.
Her attorney reviewed it.
When the landlord asked whether her husband would guarantee the lease, Leila said:
“I don’t have one.”
The words hurt.
Then felt clean.
She hired two movers and one assistant named Nora Bell, a recent conservation-school graduate with a talent for wood inlay and absolutely no fear of telling Leila when she was wrong.
By Friday, half the furniture was inside.
Leila stood amid boxes eating noodles from a paper container when her attorney called.
“Tae’s lawyers disclosed something.”
Her body tightened.
“What?”
The surveillance.
Leila sat down slowly as she listened.
By the end, anger had become nausea.
“He knew?”
“No evidence says he knew the extent.”
“He bought the building.”
“Yes.”
“He created the system.”
Her attorney paused.
“That is a fair distinction.”
Not innocence.
Not equivalence.
A distinction.
Leila closed her eyes.
“What happens now?”
“Joon Park has been suspended.”
“External audit continues.”
“Park Meridian is offering to provide you the complete file collected on you.”
Her eyes opened.
“They have a file.”
“Yes.”
“Do I want it?”
“That is your choice.”
She hated the phrase now.
Everything was choice after five years of too little.
“Send it.”
The file arrived through her attorney.
Two hundred thirteen pages.
Photographs of her entering the workshop.
Leaving.
Meeting clients.
Having coffee with her sister when she visited.
One photograph showed Leila sitting alone in her car after therapy.
Head bowed over the steering wheel.
She remembered that day.
She had spent fifty minutes explaining to a therapist why Tae missing her birthday should not matter because he was dealing with a security problem.
Then cried in the car because she knew she was lying.
Someone had photographed it.
Leila slammed the folder shut.
The next photograph made her stop.
Tae stood outside her workshop.
Eleven months earlier.
2:13 a.m.
She had been inside finishing a restoration deadline.
He stood across the street beside his car.
Not entering.
Not calling.
Just watching the lights.
She remembered that night too.
He had texted:
Come home. It’s late.
She replied:
Soon.
He never came inside.
She had thought he went home.
Instead, he had waited outside.
For two hours.
The surveillance caption read:
Principal maintained observation until L.G. departed at 4:06. No contact.
Leila’s eyes filled.
That was the tragedy of Tae.
He had loved her.
Sometimes deeply.
Often invisibly.
He would stand outside in snow for two hours to make sure she was safe—
and then forget to tell her he missed her.
A knock sounded at the new workshop.
Leila stiffened.
Nora looked toward the door.
A man stood outside holding a long cardboard tube.
Courier.
Leila signed.
Inside was a rolled architectural drawing.
No return name.
She spread it across the table.
A floor plan.
Her old workshop.
Rooms marked.
Entrances.
Camera locations.
Her private office circled in red.
Nora whispered:
“What the hell?”
Then Leila saw the message written at the bottom.
YOU SHOULD HAVE STAYED MARRIED.
Her blood went cold.
This was not Tae.
She knew immediately.
Which meant whoever had been using his security system to watch her was no longer satisfied with watching.
Leila called police first.
Then her attorney.
Only after both were on the way did she call Tae.
He answered instantly.
“What happened?”
She stared at the red circle around her old office.
“I need to ask you something.”
His voice changed.
“What?”
“If I say I need security tonight, can you send someone without taking over?”
Tae did not hesitate.
“Yes.”
That answer mattered more than she wanted it to.
“Then I need help.”
Twenty minutes later, an independent security company arrived.
Not Marco.
Not Moretti men.
The firm Leila herself had previously selected from the list.
Tae paid nothing without her agreement.
Police took the drawing.
Forensics began.
Tae did not come.
That surprised her too.
At 10:40, he texted:
I’m at home. I will stay here unless you ask otherwise.
Leila stared at the message.
Then typed:
Thank you.
She did not invite him.
He did not come anyway.
And somewhere across Chicago, Tae Park sat with his phone in his hand while every instinct screamed to break the rules.
He didn’t.
By morning, police had found a partial fingerprint on the cardboard tube.
It belonged to a former Park Meridian security contractor named Daniel Seo.
May you like
Daniel had worked directly for Joon Park.
And he had disappeared three days after Joon was suspended.
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