SKZ Modeling Company

chapter forty

Chapter 40: Well.. That Was Something?

"Seonghwa, please tell me Wooyoung has finished with his search and verification."

Seonghwa sighed, rubbing his temples. "Hongjoong, you know I can't control how long it takes him to process tasks I give him." Hongjoong did not like that answer. Something was making him uneasy, especially when the suspect would disappear after causing trouble and evading the police. 

"Have you asked him how much longer?" Seonghwa almost just ignored him. He had asked Wooyoung about it all in fact, but he didn't need Hongjoong's permission to do so. As much as Seonghwa liked to mess around and get on the sheriff's nerves, this was exactly why they don't work on cases together. "Hongjoong, seriously-"

"Seonghwa!!"

Both the said male and Hongjoong turned to see Wooyoung rushing in with a file in his hand. "Wooyoung? What's wrong?" Seonghwa asked, brows furrowed in concern. "I-I found the person who bought the masks a-and something else-" Wooyoung looked nervous, especially under the scrutinizing eyes of Hongjoong.

"What is it? Spill it, Woo." Seonghwa pressed. "Well.. Okay so, you were right, rich people are weird. This certain rich guy, Park Junyo, hired someone to stalk and overall scare Minho specifically, but that's not all. He also hired someone to get themselves hired at SKZ Modeling and in some way quietly harass staff."

Hongjoong recognized that name immediately, "I knew it.." He mumbled to himself. "Did you find out his motive and reasoning?" Wooyoung nodded and handed him the file. "He runs his own brand or magazine and it used to be a smashing hit, but... Allegations about employee abuse shows on the record and the magazine was shut down."

"Now he's trying to start another one under another name, but it seems he's completely threatened by other magazines. There's reports from other companies like MIROH or Prism stating they had gotten restraining orders against Junyo and many of his hired men and women who have tried to attack them."

Hongjoong looked puzzled, "But how could they have learned about SKZ's magazine when they haven't even gone public with the promotion yet?" Seonghwa showed Hongjoong a paper, there were several images that were hacked from the SKZ security system. Minho and Jisung in a studio, a meeting with Minho and Chan, and many others.

"They have videos of conversations, where they learned Minho was the front runner for it all. Apparently, Junyo had always felt threatened by SKZ ... The reason for that, I could not find." Wooyoung got stuck in his never-ending calculating mind again, trying to decipher a reason, until Seonghwa cleared his throat.

"Oh! Right, well, maybe Chan could tell us? Either way, I did more digging and found that there's a tracking network for his employees. That includes the two who have infiltrated SKZ! I found whole maps too of where they'd previously been and what time." Wooyoung then dug into his pocket and pulled out his phone messing around with it before showing his screen.

"Then, I tapped into the tracking network, which was a piece of cake really, you'd think it'd be better protected!" On the screen was a glowing red dot, the person was walking around SKZ. "This one just walks around SKZ, goes to what I presume to be home, and other .. normal people things. He goes by Shownu in the office."

"So is he the one who has been scrambling the security system?" Wooyoung made the so-so hand sign while shrugging, "Kind of? Theres a couple phone calls here to a burner phone and in one call he mentions dropping off the code for the cameras. I think he's just the one relaying information from SKZ to Junyo."

Hongjoong checked the time and looked at the screen again. "It's almost 12am.. What is he doing in the building right now?" Wooyoung shrugged, "This is the first time he's been there so late, but isn't there security there right now?" Hongjoong picked up his phone and walked away to make a call. He had to make sure he was okay.