Dogs Among Withered Roses - Chapter 21

“Well. There wasn’t anything that came up even after investigating.”

“Then it probably means there really isn’t anything. And if there’s nothing suspicious, isn’t that a good thing? It means he’s trustworthy.”

“It is, but….”

Berenice tilted her head back as if looking at Erkin waiting outside the tennis court, then lowered it again.

“What do you think, Cecilia?”

“Erkin? He’s handsome. Tall. Quiet.”

At the answer that came out as if she’d been waiting, Berenice tilted her head.

“I liked that he didn’t try to talk to me when we went into the office together earlier. I hate talkative men. His shoulders are straight and nicely squared. I haven’t seen him naked, but I’m sure he’s good….”

“Cecilia! Not that.”

“What do you mean, what do I think? What I know isn’t any different from what you and Ricardo know. I didn’t even know he existed before he became your bodyguard, so what would I know?”

John Baker was the same, so why did everyone say there was nothing? Berenice finished the rest of her water and asked casually.

“I heard his grandfather was a consigliere. Villanueva.”

“Yeah, Alessandro Villanueva. I’ve heard the name a few times before. Maybe the previous bosses knew him?”

Berenice had heard of him for the first time while investigating this, but Cecilia seemed to at least vaguely know who he was.

“Rumor says one of his children wanted to live a life unrelated to the mafia, so they left as soon as they became an adult. Apparently it wasn’t just a temporary runaway like Alberto.”

“I heard that too.”

Usually the woman takes the man’s surname when they marry, but in this case it was the opposite, and the man took his wife’s surname and completely abandoned his brothers and father.

“So they probably removed him from the Security Bureau’s main surveillance list.”

Cecilia shrugged as if that was all she knew. Berenice pouted once more, looking deflated.

“Why, did you want something else to come up?”

“It’s just, I don’t know anything….”

He knew almost half of who she was, what she did, what kind of person she was, but on the other hand, Berenice barely knew anything about Erkin. Just as Cecilia said, his good looks and an unremarkable past were everything.

“Does it make you uneasy because you don’t know?”

“Rather than uneasy, it’s more that it bothers me….”

Berenice trailed off, rubbing her sweat‑damp hands roughly over the towel for no reason.

“Bothers you?”

“Yes. It bothers me. I don’t like the look in his eyes.”

Is that so? Cecilia recalled the Erkin she ran into earlier in front of the gym and stared at the ceiling for a moment. Unless he switched out his eyes for something else only when looking at Berenice, she must have seen the same eyes as Cecilia and even exchanged greetings with him.

Berenice didn’t know what standard she was using when she said he bothered her, but at least the Erkin Cecilia encountered had been neither excessive nor lacking in politeness. It was enough to make her think for a moment that Ricardo had attached a fairly reliable guy as a bodyguard for his younger sister.

“So is that why you’re being cold to him? From what I saw earlier, the chill in the air was no joke.”

“Me? That’s not true.”

As if it isn’t. Seeing Berenice deny it with wide eyes, Cecilia suppressed a laugh.

“I don’t know the reason, but it looks like Erkin seriously did something wrong to our young lady.”

Berenice, wearing a calm expression, just kept turning the rosary ring on her index finger. It wasn’t so much that someone had done something wrong….

“Don’t you have anything, Cecilia? The lawsuit’s all finished, right?”

She hurriedly changed the subject as soon as her voice trailed off, and Cecilia went along without any particular objection.

“Ricardo even tells you things like that?”

“I told Ricardo.”

“….”

She’d divorced long ago, but because her ex‑husband, who was after Cecilia’s assets, kept filing pathetic lawsuits, Cecilia had to keep going back and forth to court until early this year. Because Cecilia absolutely refused to divide her assets with him, Berenice, who had helped conceal those assets, also had to lie low for a while.

“He said we should have a meal once the lawsuit ended. I figured I’d also use the chance to check up on the Family bosses and exchange some information?”

Cecilia flicked Berenice’s forehead with her finger and let out a short laugh as she stood up from the bench.

“You little brat knows too much. Stay out of grown‑ups’ business.”

Little brat? Is there such a thing as a little brat who’s nearly 170 centimeters tall…. How long are they going to keep treating me like a kid? With an uneasy expression, Berenice rubbed her forehead and shot Cecilia a glare. Meanwhile, Cecilia packed her water bottle and towel into her tennis bag and handed over a few photographs.

“A gift because you’re cute. Take them to Ricardo.”

“This is….”

“You recognize all the faces, right?”

Trailing off at the end of her sentence, Berenice slowly licked her lips with a rather intrigued expression. Cecilia, wearing a faint, knowing smile, gave a small nod.

“Recently, there have been frequent meetings between the Ministry of Justice and Belloc city council members. The lobbyists aren’t moving normally either. It looks like they’re going to propose a bill targeting us.”

“Hasn’t that been going around for years already?”

“I wish that were the case, but this time it’s real.”

“Ah….”

Berenice glanced at Cecilia, whose playful expression had disappeared at some point, and let out a troubled sigh.

This is getting irritating.

For years now, talk of the federal government proposing laws to punish organized crime and drastically strengthening penalties for major crimes, including drugs, would come up just often enough to be forgotten before disappearing like smoke. So she hadn’t paid much attention, like listening to a boy who cried wolf. But now they were actually moving forward with it.

If that wasn’t a rumor but the truth, it would be a problem.

“I’m also hearing that Jonathan Weaver plans to officially acknowledge our existence.”

“Has he lost his mind? We wouldn’t be the only ones taking the hit.”

“Who knows what’s going on in his head. So you should also take it easy.”

“Me? What did I do?”

Startled, Berenice shot back without thinking. Cecilia, who had slung her tennis bag over her shoulder, spoke in a flat voice devoid of emotion.

“What else. Director Weaver goes to your restaurant often.”

“I thought it was something serious. That’s just because the chef is skilled.”

“That’s good, then. But Berenice, the deeper a trap is, the harder it is for the one who dug it to escape.”

“….”

“Don’t make things hard for Ricardo.”

At first glance, it sounded like a sincere concern that was pleasant to hear, but if one thought it over once or twice, it was a warning laced with a threat.

Recognizing that warning, Berenice simply raised her eyes as if telling her to say everything she wanted here before leaving. And Cecilia did not refuse.

“If the Ministry of Justice starts moving in earnest, the first person in Valentiera to be targeted won’t be Ricardo; it’ll be you, Berenice. You’re a woman, and young. Compared to Ricardo, you lack experience, yet you manage the money? You’re too tempting a target.”

To Valentiera, Berenice was precious, someone to be cherished and protected, but to outsiders she was nothing more than a single flower easy to snap. Whether it had thorns or not.

“I know.”

“Just knowing isn’t enough. Money laundering and tax evasion are perfect excuses to tie you down. Just as following the flow of money leads to answers, once the money is bound, you won’t be able to do anything. You need money to lobby, and to smoothly pave your way out, don’t you?”

“That’s true. But you know as well, Cecilia.”

Berenice lightly smoothed the pleats of her workout skirt that rose just above her knees, then slowly stood up. A dim shadow fell across Cecilia’s face.

“What?”

“That I didn’t just learn how to count money from my father.”

“….”

Standing with the bright lights of the tennis court at her back, Berenice smiled brightly.

“And. Do you think it’d be satisfying to catch just one person with a trap you went to the trouble of digging?”

Not only would it not be satisfying, it wouldn’t even balance the books.

If you’ve dug it big and deep, you press everything down and bury it all.

You drag them all in and climb up over the piled corpses inside.

That was the use of a deep trap.

***

After playing tennis like her life depended on it and wrapping things up, Berenice headed straight to the locker room. She didn’t like showering outside, but her whole body was sticky with dried sweat.

Even if she could tolerate it since the weather outside was still chilly, if she got into the car like this, Michele’s nagging would surely rain down like a bombardment.

You’re getting sweat on the expensive leather seats, that’s disgusting, I can’t let someone in this condition ride in this car, you go back on foot with Erkin, and so on….

Just imagining it made her feel like her eardrums were about to burst. That wouldn’t do. Intending to quickly wash off the sweat and protect her precious eardrums, Berenice hurried her steps, then suddenly came to a stop.

She thought her footsteps sounded a bit loud because the hallway was empty, but that wasn’t it. As she quietly listened to the echoing steps, she sensed someone approaching quickly from the stairs.

The moment she listened properly, she knew. It wasn’t Erkin.

He didn’t walk that hastily, nor did he drag his heels in such an untidy way. And no matter how close his protection was, he couldn’t enter the women‑only area.

Judging that it wasn’t Erkin, Michele, or Andre at the very least, Berenice rummaged through her tennis bag, and at that moment, with the sound of someone kicking off the ground, someone grabbed her wrist roughly.

Before she could even open her mouth, a hand clamped over it and a force shoved her mercilessly against the wall. The rough, violent grip made her swallow a scream, and Berenice’s eyes widened in shock as if they would tear apart.