Dogs Among Withered Roses - Chapter 25

“Michele, this is a bit….”

“I know. It’s strange.”

As Berenice lifted her head with a serious expression, Michele, as if he had been waiting, handed her a few more photos.

The one on top showed a man with an unmarked, intact face. Berenice’s lips parted slightly as she stared at the neatly combed pomade hair and the precise, well‑proportioned features.

“You recognize this face too, don’t you, Berenice?”

When she’d only seen the face mangled and soaked in blood, she’d wondered, uncertain, but that ‘what if’ turned out to be true.

Recalling one of the soldatos who had been moving through Castillo territory with one of their capos, Berenice’s brow furrowed as if she couldn’t believe it.

“Why would we… a Castillo soldato, ah—”

Unable to finish her question, Berenice flipped through the photos one by one, and her face stiffened in shock.

Michele quietly watched Berenice, who had gone rigid with a single breath of disbelief, like she’d turned to stone. When he first saw the photos, he’d been no less shocked than she was.

“What is this? What the hell is this bastard?”

Barely coming to her senses, Berenice waved one of the photos rapidly, her expression mixed with confusion and anger.

“It’s exactly what you see. Don’t get worked up. You’re a patient.”

“Do I look like I can stay calm right now?”

The man in the photo had the same face as before, but he was wearing clothes that someone Berenice knew should never be wearing.

“Even if you ask like that, it doesn’t change what you’re seeing.”

“So this bastard is a cop?”

The photo of the man in a police uniform crumpled mercilessly in Berenice’s good left hand.

“Gordon Kramer. More precisely, he was a police officer who transferred to the Federal Bureau of Security as an investigator.”

“Gordon, what? Kramer? He’s not from Linferno?”

Not just his origin. Even his name wasn’t one Berenice recognized.

“He was in the organized crime task force. Three years undercover.”

“He lived a double life for three whole years?”

“He started as a picciotto, so it’s not that surprising.”

Michele looked like he’d already gone through all the shock and gathered his emotions while Berenice was washing up with a caregiver’s help. Following Michele, Berenice steadied her uneven breathing and bit her lip.

Now it makes sense.

‘…You know who he is, so no one will object, but aren’t you worried about the aftermath? Even if this whole matter is wrapped up perfectly, it won’t really be over.’

That’s what that meant.

Cecilia, having realized the identity of the investigator who infiltrated the Family, formally requested the killing, and Ricardo, who received the request, wouldn’t have dared oppose eliminating him.

As if he’d only passed information about the Castillo Family.

Chiara’s mention of his identity, and the meaning of the aftermath that had felt off from the moment she heard it, now she understood it all. But it didn’t feel good. Even after finding the last missing piece and completing the puzzle, there was no sense of relief at all.

“…So that’s why the case was handed over to the Federal Bureau of Security.”

A moment ago, she’d thought Jonathan Weaver or the Belloc branch head had pulled strings to get a poorly handled case onto the front page, but she was wrong. This was something that would happen even without someone at that level stepping in.

Thinking ahead to what would follow, Berenice pressed her unbandaged temple with her left hand as if her head were about to split.

“Did everything get laid out like this because I was out?”

“Why are you asking me about company matters? How would I know?”

It was a question asked out of sheer frustration. Muttering to herself, Berenice frowned even more as she looked at the particularly chaotic crime scene photos compared to other cases.

It wasn’t as if the mafia had simply left alone people who interfered with their ‘business’ or police who stubbornly insisted on investigating to the end.

Even when they acted, they’d poured in money or used corrupt officials in government agencies to handle things so they could solve problems without dirtying their own hands.

Especially when dealing with people from federal government agencies, it was common to eliminate every piece of evidence that could cause problems later, and even stage things as disappearances so that the body could never be found at all.

So even when they took on an assassination job, even if they erased all traces that could identify the culprit, like fingerprints or footprints, leaving behind a murder scene this brutally cruel as if to show it off….

“Anyone can tell it’s a warning, but it went a bit too far.”

It was an unmistakable warning. A warning sent to the one who planted the spy.

When she lightly flicked her intact left index and middle fingers together, Michele placed a glass of water in Berenice’s hand. Even after taking a sip of the lukewarm water, the crease between her brows showed no sign of easing.

With her head drooping low and her face ruined, and those hands stained with blood where fingernails should have been, Berenice stared for a long time before letting out a small, pained groan.

She thought it would be fine as long as she didn’t get directly involved.

So even after tumbling down the stairs and ending up in this state, she’d thought at least that part was good. But one way or another….

With an unsettled expression, she roughly gathered the photos, but seeing her clumsily using only her left hand, Michele stepped in and organized them for her.

“…It’s almost time for Erkin’s shift change. You’ll just be sleeping anyway, but even if you run into him, don’t mind it.”

Michele glanced at the clock on the wall and added the reminder. Berenice, who had been leaning comfortably, straightened slightly and widened her eyes as if asking what that meant.

“What would I be minding?”

“You’re minding Erkin right now.”

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

Mind you, she times it to sleep around his shift because she’s conscious of him, and even that doesn’t satisfy her. Michele clicked his tongue as he neatly stacked the photos.

At his expression, as if her immediate denial was absurd, Berenice narrowed her eyes and asked, “…Was it that obvious?”

“Did you expect it not to be?”

“I expected you to give me the answer I wanted.”

“You’re asking for a lot.”

What exactly she found so displeasing? Despite his blunt reply, Michele’s hands were calm and gentle as he adjusted Berenice’s pillow.

“It feels bad. You remind me of when you were a kid.”

“….”

Berenice’s eyes widened, not expecting to hear something like that.

“This time, you getting hurt is on us. We weren’t planning to take back the protection money from Russo, and it’s true we got careless, thinking we couldn’t possibly find someone who’d deliberately run away. Even if we hadn’t been careless, could we have predicted how far a cornered man would go?”

“….”

“Of course, Ricardo was wrong to hit them in front of you.”

Michele paused, lips parting as if suppressing pain that had built up over many years.

“No matter the situation, he repeated exactly what the previous boss did to you. So he deserves to hear that.”

“….”

“Erkin doesn’t know your situation, and he doesn’t need to, but he won’t like seeing you act like that, so just act the way you usually do.”

After laying Berenice down comfortably, Michele pulled the blanket up to her neck and added one last remark.

“Erkin won’t regret taking on your protection either, just like Andre and I didn’t. He won’t leave, either. So don’t worry about it.”

“…Enough. Call a nurse and give me a sedative.”

As if she didn’t need any more opinions, Berenice cut him off curtly, closed her eyes after adding that she didn’t want lunch brought in.

***

Erkin, his fedora pulled low, wrinkled the bridge of his nose.

A salty, fishy stench, an even colder metallic smell, and the rancid odor of long‑oxidized oil filled his lungs. Maybe because it was a scrapyard near the port, all kinds of smells stabbed at his nose.

As Erkin looked around the scrapyard for the first time, a soldato standing beside him tapped his shoulder. Following him to a container set deep in a corner of the yard, Erkin took out a pair of black leather gloves.

With a grating, unpleasant scrape, the scene opened before him, and Erkin’s temple twitched slightly, as if it was somewhat unexpected.

Under dim, reddish flickering light, two adult men wearing nothing but their underwear were hanging from the ceiling with their wrists bound by chains.

Their arms were stretched high toward the ceiling, their heads hung forward at sharp angles, and their bodies dangled without touching the container floor, like plucked chickens stripped of their feathers. Unlike what he’d expected, there were no obvious wounds on them, and as he stared at them, a man seated behind them rose to his feet.

It was Armando Colletti, the caporegime who had worked alongside Erkin before he was assigned to Berenice’s protection.

“You heard?”

It was a question with everything cut off, but Erkin answered without a hint of doubt on his face.

“I heard on the way here.”

At the plain reply, Armando nodded and gave a signal. The soldato beside him grabbed the heads of the two hanging men and forced them up.

Even without being shown, Erkin already knew who they were. He looked at Russo Gucci, trembling in fear, and Tony Pecci, a soldato of the Marino Family, with a flat, unimpressed expression.

The Marino Family soldato had appeared a couple of times in photos Berenice took while digging into Russo Gucci in the past. Now he was so terrified he’d apparently wet himself. Amid the musty, sour smell of sweat, the stench of urine drifted up as well.