Dogs Among Withered Roses - Chapter 16

Just when exactly….

Was it when she accidentally stepped on it a little too hard under the desk? Is he the type who gets excited when someone steps on him? Or when he suddenly grabbed her mouth to stop the hiccup? Is he the type who gets excited when he’s tormented?

Of course, toward the end, he gently soothed her, so it wasn’t only painful for her either… but still. Getting that blatantly hard seems a bit much, doesn’t it? Though, unless he wrapped himself tightly in a thick coat, there probably wasn’t much of a choice besides getting blatantly hard….

And yet his expression was so calm, like he’d already indulged himself and finished to his heart’s content, that if she hadn’t been this close to him, she might never have realized he was erect at all.

“Don’t look at it like that.”

Moving his thigh, Erkin lightly nudged her knee and drew Berenice’s lowered gaze.

“I’m finally getting it to calm down, and if you keep prodding like that, it won’t help at all.”

“How did I even prod you?”

“With your knee. With your eyes.”

“….”

His heated gaze settled thickly on her rigid knee before slowly lifting away.

“And this hand too.”

At the end of the sentence, Erkin grabbed both his tie and Berenice’s hand at once, pulling his own tie down as he tilted his head.

“Even if you pull back now, this thing isn’t going to settle down.”

“…Then what do you want me to do?”

“Just pretend you don’t notice. Don’t show it.”

Her thoughts began tangling in every direction. Unable to bear the strange feeling of being cornered, Berenice hardened her gaze.

“…You sucked my tongue like you were going to rip it out by the root just to stop my hiccups. I guess you enjoyed it?”

“I’m not sure.”

Did he enjoy it? Letting the ambiguous answer fall away, Erkin slowly slipped the tie from Berenice’s hand.

“I don’t think that’s the important issue right now….”

“….”

“As you ordered, I’ll forget it. Everything I saw and heard.”

The compliant answer made Berenice blink in surprise. Erkin, who had been staring down at her as if pressing her into place, added shortly, “However, there’s a condition.”

“A condition?”

“One wish.”

“…?”

A wish. It was a word that sounded more suited to a child waiting for Christmas. Narrowing her eyes at the somewhat unexpected demand, Berenice leaned back slightly.

“What kind of wish? Let’s hear it.”

“That will come later. Little by little.”

Erkin casually postponed the answer and braced his hands on either side of Berenice.

“It would be a waste to just forget it, and there’s nothing I want right away. In times like this, it’s safest to leave a wish hanging.”

“…That sounds reasonable.”

If he was willing to set his own condition just to keep her quiet, Berenice had no reason to refuse.

“But what kind of wish are you planning to make?”

“I told you there’s nothing I want right now.”

As if telling her not to rush, Erkin smirked and leaned his body closer. A large hand covered Berenice’s knee, leaving her no space to retreat backward or slip away to the side. The back of her knee and her calf tightened with a tingling pressure, forcing tension all the way up the inside of her thigh.

Erkin gripped the spot where his erect cock had touched and whispered near her ear, “How can you press me like this when you don’t even know what kind of wish you might face?”

“…Hey. Don’t push your luck.”

Pretending not to care about Erkin’s subtle provocation, Berenice lowered her voice in warning, almost as if she were about to bite his ear.

“Just because you set one condition, you think you’ve got something on me?”

“Don’t worry. I won’t ask for anything unreasonable.”

“So what? Am I supposed to be grateful?”

“Well.”

As if their business was finished now, Erkin straightened his body and roughly wiped away the lipstick marks that had remained on his face the whole time with a handkerchief.

“Then get some rest. I’ll come back in thirty minutes.”

Berenice stared at Erkin as he turned his body and left the bedroom, her face full of disbelief. Earlier, she’d been too busy slipping into the bedroom to notice, but his steps were noticeably slower than usual.

Before the bedroom door closed, Berenice confirmed that Erkin was heading toward the bathroom and frowned as if she understood.

Ah. Letting out a groaning sigh, Berenice clutched her stomach as if she were really about to get a stomachache and collapsed onto the bed. Checking her wristwatch, she groaned in disbelief.

She thought at least two hours had passed.

Not even two hours. Barely one hour had gone by. If she excluded the time they hurriedly spent eating, the time she stayed in the study was even shorter than that. She couldn’t believe the mess she and Erkin stirred up in the study only lasted a few minutes.

All the strength drained from her entire body.

It was ridiculous enough that he picked the lock and followed her into the study without even having a key. Then he pulled her into an embrace under the desk, squeezed that large body in there, wiretapped a wiretap, and after that came the series of improper contacts that happened again and again….

Listing them one by one made it feel even more absurd and outrageous. It wasn’t as if she ever thought her daily life was peaceful or ordinary. Staring blankly at the ceiling, Berenice weakly closed her eyes and dragged a hand down her face as if washing it dry.

Tracing back through the conversation between Ricardo and Chiara that she hadn’t heard properly, Berenice soon gave up. The request, the marriage proposal, whatever it was….

For now, it was difficult to continue any line of thought that might actually be useful.

Really, if she kept sticking close to Erkin and repeated something like today again, she might not even die a natural death.

***

A café employee with a gentle, easygoing face handed over a cup of coffee along with a muffin baked to a golden brown. As always, he only asked for a cup of coffee, but the muffin that naturally came with it wasn’t particularly welcome.

When the shop became quiet, the employee leaned toward Erkin with a knowing smile. The volume of the outdated jazz music softly echoing through the café rose a notch as well. It was one of the easiest ways to interfere with possible wiretapping or eavesdropping.

“They say to continue approaching the key figure.”

The Federal Bureau of Security contact assigned to Erkin whispered quietly enough that only he could hear. The breath scattering against his ear felt unpleasant for some reason, but Erkin simply gave a heavy nod without showing it.

It was an unsurprising result.

For two years now, he’s never expected the people receiving his regular reports or intelligence to offer a different opinion. The unsolved cases division and the organized crime division of the Federal Bureau of Security had long identified Berenice as a major figure in the Valentiera Family, nearly on the level of a caporegime.

Separately from that, the surveillance seemed to have been in place for quite a long time, perhaps even before Erkin infiltrated them. However, Erkin never reported that Berenice had already noticed their surveillance.

Even if the Federal Bureau of Security made their surveillance more covert, Berenice wouldn’t restrain herself or reduce her activities, and there was no need to sharpen her already keen senses any further here.

That woman needs to lower her guard a little.

Thinking of Berenice naturally, Erkin took a sip of the strong coffee. From last weekend until today, after several days passed, the woman had been strangely trying to keep her distance.

He didn’t fail to understand how she felt, but acting this ambiguously wasn’t good. While habitually sipping his coffee, the man who worked as both a café employee and a contact asked if there was anything else he needed.

It was a routine procedure to check whether there was any major information or other details to report that he learned while serving as Berenice’s bodyguard, but Erkin shook his head.

“Nothing in particular.”

There was more than enough to report.

Illegal wiretapping of a senator, extortion disguised as protection, land speculation, aiding and abetting aggravated theft with clear negligence, and so on. Even setting aside the wiretapping between siblings, there were quite a lot of illegal acts Berenice admitted with her own mouth.

With just one phone call, it wouldn’t be strange if both the National Tax Service and the Federal Bureau of Security rushed over, arguing over who would slap the cuffs on first. But that kind of situation wasn’t something Erkin wanted any more than Berenice or the Valentiera Family did.

What he wanted was the evidence of the murder from fifteen years ago that Ricardo and Berenice possessed or still remembered, or decisive testimony they could give in court, not an arrest over charges like tax evasion or aiding theft.

Of course, arresting them first for tax evasion and illegal wiretapping would make it easier to uncover additional crimes, but who started this whole operation just to catch one Valentiera for something like that?

Not a chance.

The only legal means to approach both the Federal Bureau of Security and the Valentiera Family was this one method, so he infiltrated the Family under the identity of an investigator. But just as he didn’t trust mafia scum, Erkin didn’t trust the Federal Bureau of Security either.

His family was murdered on the same day, and before even a month passed, the case was classified as unsolved without a proper investigation.

The reason given was a lack of evidence and suspicion of accidental death.

As if that wasn’t enough, due to a sudden leak, building relocation, loss, and theft at the Belloc branch of the Federal Bureau of Security, the case files and the few pieces of evidence that existed all disappeared as if the incident had never happened.

No matter how powerful the Valentiera Family was in Belloc, this wasn’t something they could have done alone.

Whether it was the mastermind who commissioned the murder or the accomplices who helped destroy evidence and cover up the case, the signs were clear that people who joined hands with Valentiera had infiltrated the Federal Bureau of Security itself. Even if it was the organization he officially belonged to, trusting it completely would be foolish.

“Ah, by the way, the orders for expensive liquor have increased lately.”

Despite saying there was nothing to report, Erkin’s lips parted as if introducing a topic. If he wanted to pass the time until the next contact without unnecessary trouble and endure it, it was best to toss out at least a small morsel to chew on.