My Webtoon Hero Is the CEO Next Door novel · Chapter 21 of 24

Chapter 21: Friday

The shareholders' hall held two hundred people, and every seat was taken by ten o'clock on Friday.

Cameras stood in a row at the back.

Yeo-reum sat in the front row at the left, in the gray dress, with Soo-ah on one side and an empty chair on the other.

Jin-woo stood at a lectern on the stage with Hye-jin at his left.

A large screen behind him ready to spell out whatever was said.

Dong-hwan sat in the first row on the right, with his gold pen, and his lawyer, and a small black speaker on his knee.

Yeo-reum did not like the speaker.

"Good morning," Jin-woo said.

It came out loud and flat, and the room went still.

"I will speak first, before any question," he said. "I am nearly deaf, and I will not hide it today."

The screen behind him wrote the words in white letters.

He looked out at the faces, one by one, as he had in the boardroom.

"If you ask me a question, please face me," he said. "If you cannot, my secretary will repeat it, and Ms. Oh will repeat it too, in the first row, where I can see her. Ask me anything."

A rustle ran through the hall.

Dong-hwan rose.

He did not wait for the microphone to come.

"If I may," he said, in the smooth, heavy voice.

"The shareholders deserve to hear for themselves what kind of chief executive they have. Not what he says in front of a crowd. What he says when he thinks no one is listening."

He pressed the speaker on his knee.

A man's voice came out of it, small and tinny, and Yeo-reum knew it before the first sentence was done.

It was Jin-woo's voice.

"I miss most of what they say in that room," said the recording.

"Most of it."

"I nod."

"I do not know what a third of the board votes on, I only know how they look when they vote."

The hall made a sound like wind.

Cameras swung.

Yeo-reum's hand clenched on her bag.

"That was recorded in the boardroom," said Dong-hwan, "last Monday."

"After the vote."

"It is the truth that this man will not admit."

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