Chapter 299: Side Story, The Marquis (5)
The annual charity event hosted by the Marquis Foundation. On the surface, it claid to support public good, arts, and culture. In reality, it was a stage to gather the upper class in one place, flaunt the Marquis family’s influence, and signal their future direction.
‘If I could... raise the final toast at that event?’
It was only natural that greed stirred within him. The symbolism would be beyond words. It wasn’t rely raising a glass. It was like a dieval king summoning his knights and lifting a goblet high. In front of all the powerful families and allies, it would be the mont to proclaim who the true master of the Marquis family was. In other words, it was Gerard’s chance to engrave in the world’s mind that he was the successor.
Of course, there was no way his uncles would willingly hand over such a precious role. Until now, they couldn’t yield to one another, so they insisted on giving a joint toast every year.
But.
‘If I use this issue well... maybe it could work.’
Still, no concrete plan ca to mind. Think about it. Even with the President involved, would his uncles just hand over the “host” position? They didn’t care about cherishing Gerard—they were desperate to drag him down.
But then. As the frustration peaked, Gerard instinctively thought of soone’s face.
‘If it were him, maybe…?’
The harbinger of calamity. Ha Si-heon. The mont Gerard realized that, he violently shook his head.
‘No, I can’t let myself be tainted!’
He couldn’t allow himself to be influenced by that man’s immoral, underhanded, shaless thods! And yet… No matter how much he scolded himself, whispers kept echoing in the corner of his mind.
‘Still, if it were him, he would have found a way, sohow...’
It was true. Ha Si-heon would definitely know how to toy with the uncles. When it ca to exploiting hostile figures, he was nothing short of a genius. And Gerard knew that talent better than anyone. Because he had suffered from it firsthand. Even when he first t Ha Si-heon, it was the sa. At first, he only thought of destroying the man at all costs.
And the result? Not only did he end up pouring in massive investnt funds, but he even connected him with his own father.
‘How on earth did I let myself be played that far?’
Gerard quietly picked up a notepad and began retracing the past step by step.
As he wrote each line, the reasons for his defeat beca clear.
‘I was obsessed only with the trap I had set.’
The one who sets traps easily falls into arrogance.
‘I’m the hunter, the other is the prey.’
Being trapped in that binary mindset made him blind to other variables. So he never imagined. That inside the trap he had set, Ha Si-heon had hidden an even more elaborate snare.
‘Then... what if I apply this to the current situation?’
If he could also create a Ha Si-heon–style “psychological blind spot” for his uncles...?
Scratch, scratch.
Gerard’s pen moved busily as he carried on his calculations. And finally, when he reached the ultimate conclusion.
“...This could work?”
Astonishingly... The blocked path opened! A hot surge of emotion rose from deep within his chest.
“Did I... just do it? By myself...?”
For a mont, a face flickered across his mind. But Gerard quickly shook off the thought.
‘This is... not his influence!’
At least this ti, he hadn’t simply copied that man’s thods wholesale. He had drawn a conclusion on his own, using the bitter failures he’d experienced as lessons! It was just that, sowhere in the process, Ha Si-heon’s shadow lingered. After convincing himself of that and drawing a clear line, Gerard fixed his gaze on the paper again. He could see the very first step he had to take to put this plan into action.
***
The next day.
“You’re fired.”
Gerard coldly delivered the notice to the R&D Center Director. In so ways, it was the obvious decision. Despite repeated orders to “launch a groundbreaking new product,” the director had maintained an extrely uncooperative stance. He always put forward excuses like marketability, cost ratio, and production facility compatibility—doing nothing but blocking Gerard.
He should have been dismissed long ago, but Gerard had kept him until now for a reason. The R&D director had entered the company through his eldest uncle Rupert’s connections—what you’d call a “parachute appointnt.” As soon as Gerard fired him, the director called Rupert and vented his fury.
“H-how could you do this to ! You know how much I’ve devoted myself all this ti...!”
Rupert, suddenly made to look like a fool who couldn’t even protect one subordinate from his nephew, had lost face. Enraged, he stord to the company. And the mont he saw Gerard, he shouted with a face red as fire.
“Is it true you fired the director?!”
Of course, Rupert didn’t actually have any special affection for the man. But this was a completely different matter.
“You knew he was my man, and you dared to fire him on your own? Are you declaring that you’ll treat as useless from now on?!”
This would make him look, in the eyes of the company, like a “has-been” who couldn’t even protect his own man. There was no way Gerard didn’t know that. But when Rupert yelled at him like that, Gerard widened his eyes and pretended to be innocently surprised.
“? Oh, co on, Uncle. I can’t believe you’d misunderstand like that. I’m hurt.”
Gerard went a step further and even added a wounded expression.
“Do you think I had no doubts? But I had no choice, thinking about the future of the company. From now on, survival depends on SNS virality, and the director had absolutely no understanding of that field...”
“To fire soone over a passing trend like that—what utter nonsense…!”
Rupert was so flustered he stumbled over his own words. But Gerard shook his head as if in regret.
“Uncle, this isn’t a passing trend. The tis themselves have changed. You can’t keep soone in such a key position if they can’t even grasp a shift this monuntal, can you?”
“W-what…?!”
Rupert’s face flushed bright red. On the surface, Gerard’s words criticized the director as “soone who couldn’t grasp even the most important trends.” But taken further, they also implied that Rupert, who dismissed it as a re fad, was likewise unfit for a key position. Seeing Rupert’s nacing expression, Gerard flinched in mock surprise and waved his hands.
“Of course, I was talking about the director. Everyone’s entitled to their own views on social dia, but the executives have to think differently.”
The anger surged inside Rupert… But even so, it was hard to lash out over such a statent. It was clearly aid at him, yet Gerard always slipped in that clever little qualifier—“I’m only talking about the director.”
‘He’s doing this on purpose, isn’t he?’
These days, Gerard was like this. He refused to listen, and when soone tried to correct him, he used this twisted rhetoric to mock and jab at people indirectly. And on top of that, he had the gall to act humble, as if to say, “Uncle, why get upset? I wasn’t even talking about you.”
How could that not make one furious?
‘As I thought… he must have fallen in with the wrong friend…’
It was obvious whose influence this was. There was soone whose tone and attitude overlapped perfectly with Gerard’s. But. Now was not the ti to nitpick his manner of speaking. If Rupert wanted to restore his authority, he absolutely had to get the director reinstated.
“Anyway, cancel the dismissal! That man has been working here since you were in diapers!”
In tis like this, Rupert always brought out his weapon—“experience.” The authoritarian stance of, “I’ve been working at this company since before you were born, so shut up and listen.” Naturally, he expected Gerard to spin his words back on him.
But…
“You’re right. Just looking at his career, he’s certainly soone worthy of respect.”
“…?”
For once, Gerard unexpectedly agreed. Rupert faltered in surprise, and in that brief pause, Gerard pressed on.
“But tenure isn’t proof of ability. By that logic, the longest-serving person at our company is Ben, the janitor… yet we don’t entrust Ben with executive decisions, do we?”
Gerard shrugged, as if to say, “What can you do?”
This ti his words carried even more poison than usual. Taken to extres, it was no different than putting Rupert on the sa level as a janitor. And Gerard didn’t stop there.
“In fact, maybe results would’ve been better if Ben had been in charge. The director botched every product he launched, and for the last six years, he abandoned new product developnt entirely—basically neglecting his duties.”
He even went so far as to declare the director worse than a janitor.
“That’s not re incompetence. That’s a devastating failure. You can’t keep soone like that around.”
He had, without hesitation, delivered a verdict of “complete failure.”
“Y-you…!”
“Oh, don’t misunderstand. I was talking about the director, of course.”
Once again Gerard hid behind the excuse of “just talking about the director.” But that wasn’t the truth. The director had only ever acted as a puppet following orders. The one truly responsible for that “devastating failure” Gerard spoke of—was Rupert himself.
But.
“If you keep shielding soone like that, Uncle, it’ll poison you as well. Distance yourself. The one responsible should take responsibility.”
If Rupert defended the director here… He would, in effect, be admitting that he himself was the one responsible. It was a clever trap. So, left speechless, Rupert could only jab a finger at him furiously without a retort.
Bzzzzt! Bzzzzt!
Gerard’s phone began to ring. And strangely enough… He glanced down at it, almost as if he ant to put it away. But then he froze, and instead looked at Rupert apologetically.
“May I take this call for a mont?”
Normally, Gerard never answered calls in front of Rupert. That alone was suspicious. Rupert frowned and scolded him as usual.
“We’re in the middle of an important conversation! Don’t you dare be so disrespectful!”
“Forgive , but it’s Rachel. I’m worried sothing might have happened.”
And here, Rupert felt a strange sense of wrongness.
‘That brat… takes Rachel’s call like this?’
Usually, he coldly ignored her. But what was even stranger was what ca next.
“…Well… I’m busy right now, so I’ll call you back.”
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