Ian had gone home to pick up a few things he needed, but after returning to the hospital, he couldn’t bring himself to go upstairs. He sat on a bench in the lobby instead.
If he went straight into his mother’s room now, he didn’t think he would be able to hide what was on his face.
The mailbox had been stuffed with payment demands and seizure notices from all over, along with an official termination letter from the company.
Both Haemyeong Industries and the banks were pressuring Ian to take responsibility for the debts his father had incurred. The house registered in his father’s name, along with his other real estate, had also been placed under seizure.
Even if his mother’s condition improved enough for her to be discharged, that created another problem.
Where were they supposed to go?
Even basic living expenses suddenly felt overwhelming.
He could renounce the inheritance and avoid inheriting his father’s debts, but doing so also meant giving up the house they had been living in, since it was in his father’s name.
Should he at least find a studio apartment for now?
His own bank accounts were still under provisional seizure. It would take time to complete the inheritance-renunciation process and have the restrictions lifted…
Reality had descended on him before he even had time to grieve his father’s death or properly worry about his mother’s health.
His thoughts were so tangled that he didn’t even know where to begin.
Whenever he tried to sort things out calmly, his train of thought kept running into a wall, as though a massive boulder had been dropped directly in its path.
His phone vibrated in his pants pocket.
Ian checked the caller and saw that it was the hospital nursing station.
He had asked them to contact him immediately if anything happened while he was away.
“Hello?”
[Are you the patient’s guardian? Where are you right now? I think you need to come to the hospital immediately.]
Ian’s heart dropped.
Had something happened to his mother?
“I’m in the hospital lobby. I’ll come up right now.”
He jumped to his feet and hurried upstairs.
Something felt wrong even before he reached the room.
A group of people had gathered outside his mother’s room, whispering among themselves.
The moment a nurse spotted Ian, she gave him a troubled look and urgently gestured for him to come over.
“You ought to have some shame!”
Before Ian could even see inside the room, a shrill voice rang out.
“CEO Seo caused this disaster, so obviously his family should take responsibility! If you have any conscience at all, transfer them!”
Two men and a woman stood around his mother’s bed, berating her while pointing accusing fingers in her face.
His mother looked terrified and couldn’t say a word.
“Just sign here! Then we won’t hold you responsible for anything else.”
They shoved documents toward her and forced a pen into her hand.
His mother nervously glanced between them before reluctantly reaching toward the papers.
“Mom!”
Ian pushed through the crowd and snatched the pen from his mother’s hand.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
The people pressuring her were executives from the company.
They were also his mother’s maternal cousins.
“Ian, you’re no better. How can you act like the company has nothing to do with you? Your father is the reason the whole company is on the verge of collapsing. Don’t you think you should take some responsibility?”
As though they had been waiting for him, their attacks immediately shifted to Ian.
Ian first checked the papers they had placed in front of his mother.
A share-transfer agreement.
The very first sentence printed at the top of the first page made his stomach turn.
Immediately after his father’s suicide, the company and the banks had moved to seize the shares and assets registered in his name.
Assets and shares registered to Ian and his mother had also been placed under provisional seizure, but no immediate disposal order had been issued against those.
If Ian and his mother renounced the inheritance, they would not have to inherit his father’s debts. At the very least, they would then be able to protect the assets registered in their own names.
The executives couldn’t stand the thought of that.
So they had come to Ian’s mother and were threatening her into handing over everything she owned as well.
“There is no reason my mother should transfer her shares.”
Ian rejected them flatly.
The woman—his mother’s younger female cousin and an executive director at Haemyeong Industries—scowled.
“Listen to him. The company can barely contain the mess your father created, and if you had even the slightest conscience, shouldn’t you at least contribute something?”
“You’re the one who told me the company didn’t need any help from me and ordered me out immediately.”
She had been the one to throw Ian out and make him clear out his belongings the moment the scandal broke.
“That was only natural! Your father may have caused the scandal, but with what face were you supposed to keep showing up at the company?”
There was no reasoning with them.
When they had driven him out, they had insisted they wanted nothing from him.
Now they were using the exact opposite argument to threaten Ian and his mother into surrendering every asset and share registered in their names for the sake of the company.
“How did your mother raise you to make you this rude? We’re still your elders. How dare you glare at us and talk back like that!”
His mother’s older male cousin, a managing executive at the company, raised his voice.
When he lifted a hand as though he might strike Ian, Ian’s mother screamed in fright.
Then she clutched her chest.
Her breathing immediately turned ragged.
“Mom!”
Ian called for a nurse in alarm.
But the executives were blocking the way, preventing the nurse who had entered the room from getting close.
“Step back.”
Ian warned them in a low voice.
At the same time, a chill seemed to pour off him.
Ian almost never deliberately released his alpha pheromones, but his mother looked as though she could stop breathing at any moment. He had no room to worry about anything else.
The threatening force of Ian’s pheromones finally startled the executives into stumbling backward.
“I’ll come to the company. If you have something to say, say it to me there. Don’t cause a scene in a hospital.”
The pressure radiating from Ian grew even stronger.
The executives exchanged uneasy looks among themselves.
“D-Don’t think you can brush this aside! We’ll use every legal means available to make you take responsibility!”
After throwing out the empty threat, they left the room.
Only then did the onlookers begin to disperse.
A doctor who had been called finally arrived and administered emergency treatment.
“You know better than anyone what condition the patient is in! If something like this happens even once more, we can’t guarantee anything! She’s barely holding on as it is!”
The doctor scolded Ian with a deep frown.
When he added that she wasn’t even receiving the full treatment she needed right now and that subjecting her to this kind of stress could be dangerous, Ian could only bow his head in silence.
Once the commotion finally died down, Ian placed a chair beside his mother’s bed and sat.
She was asleep.
He drew her hand into his own and held it.
Demanding that she hand over her shares was outright robbery.
It was absurd.
But as long as she still owned those shares, those people would keep coming back to harass and threaten her whenever they pleased.
And Ian couldn’t stay beside her every minute of the day.
He needed to find work—any work—to cover the hospital bills and their living expenses.
That meant leaving his mother alone at the hospital.
If those people came again while he was away, there would be no one to stop them.
What if another shock like today’s caused something irreversible?
His mother was the only family Ian had left now.
After everything that had happened, he had learned painfully well that distant relatives could be worse than strangers.
If something happened to his mother too…
His heart seemed to tear apart from the thought alone.
He had no idea how he was supposed to protect her completely.
He desperately wished someone would simply tell him what to do.
But lately, Ian was learning that the more desperately one wished for something, the more likely it was to remain nothing but a futile hope.
“Guardian, could I speak with you for a moment…?”
A man wearing a hospital administration badge entered the room and called Ian over.
Ian followed him into the hallway.
The man held out an interim bill.
“This includes the medication used during today’s emergency treatment and the hospitalization fees through today. We’ll need you to make an interim payment…”
Even he seemed uncomfortable saying it, and his voice trailed off.
“You’ve never asked for an interim payment before.”
“Well… that was because she was staying in the VIP ward before. She’s no longer Madam Seo of Haemyeong Industries, and Madam Han specifically told us not to make any exceptions anymore…”
“I understand.”
Dragging the conversation out would only make things awkward for both of them.
Ian accepted the interim hospital bill and let out a sigh.
It seemed he needed to see a lawyer immediately and begin the process of renouncing the inheritance.
Only then would he be able to access the money in his own accounts and dispose of the shares registered in his and his mother’s names.
“Ian…”
Ian turned at the weak voice.
His mother was standing at the entrance to the room.
“Why are you out here? You should be lying down.”
Ian immediately worried that she had overheard everything.
The last thing he wanted was for his mother to start worrying about the hospital bills too.
“You’re having trouble because of the hospital expenses, aren’t you? Use this for now.”
His mother held out one of her cards.
She normally used his father’s cards, so there had never been much reason for her to use a card in her own name.
Ian couldn’t bring himself to take it.
He merely stared at it.
His mother extended it farther toward him, urging him silently to accept it.