Try Begging Novel - Chapter 86

“Ah, I forgot to mention there’s a hound in the room.”

The inspector’s face darkened at Leon’s flimsy excuse. Could it be that this man, who looked like a bulldog, was afraid of dogs? Leon had, by chance, stumbled upon a pretext to drive out the unwelcome guest.

“Who keeps a hound in their office?”

His tone was quite displeased. He seemed to think Leon had unleashed the dog to chase him away.

“Don’t worry. I’ll hold him tight.”

His pride wounded by being treated like a coward, the inspector stood with his hands clasped behind his back at the door, glaring at Leon. Leon smiled, walked past him, and approached the desk.

“Bella, quiet.”

As soon as Winston sat in the chair, he plunged both hands under the desk. One might have expected him to clamp a hand over her mouth, but what he seized was not Grace’s face, but the collar of her blouse.

Rip, rip. The fabric tore open, and the few remaining buttons snapped off. It was a warning: Go ahead, appear before another man in such a state of undress if you dare.

While she glared at the unseen face, the blouse was roughly stripped off and stuffed into Grace’s mouth.

Leon, having gagged the woman, pulled the leash upwards. As a sturdy iron chain, fit for a vicious dog, appeared on the desk, the inspector’s face, which had been scanning the office, grew even darker.

“Please, have a seat.”

He offered the chair opposite the desk, but the inspector did not comply. He slowly paced the office, then abruptly flung open the door next to the entrance. The back of the fool’s head, as he checked inside the washroom, looked utterly dim-witted.

A detective dog worthy of retirement. He didn’t even know the woman he sought was just beyond a thin wooden wall.

The inspector was quite stubborn. He seemed intent on thoroughly searching the office, which offered few hiding places. The man, who had been examining the bookshelves as if searching for a secret compartment, moved further into the office.

Two more steps. Then he would see the woman under the desk.

Leon kicked the chain dangling from the woman’s ankle, making it clatter loudly. He bent down towards the desk and, feigning to calm a struggling dog, stroked the half-naked woman who glared up at him.

“Bella, no. You mustn’t bite people.”

The inspector, who had been approaching, paused.

“Just recently, he tried to kill an intruder who came into the annex. Of course, I killed him first.”

Leon lifted his head and smiled. Still clinging to his pride, the inspector didn’t order the dog out. Instead, he pretended to examine his surroundings, then subtly retreated.

Ultimately failing to find the woman, the inspector sat across the desk, his face etched with defeat. Leon conspicuously gripped the leather strap of the leash in his hand. But the inspector was staring not at him, but at something else.

A woman’s button, fallen in front of the cigar box.

What kind of evidence could that be? Leon’s smile vanished from his face as he was about to laugh it off. His thoughts had drifted to what was inside the cigar box that had contained the button.

That box.

The letter ordering the woman to die.

And the capsule containing cyanide.

Damn it.

“Would you care for one?”

Leon opened the cigar box, feigning to offer one to the inspector. Outwardly calm, his insides churned.

The box Little Jimmy had sent was in its place. But it was too early to feel relieved.

Leon first took out a cigar and offered it to the inspector. When the inspector declined, he placed the cigar back and took out a small box.

He hid the box in his palm so it couldn’t be seen from the opposite side and opened it with his thumb. The letter was folded exactly as he had uniquely folded it. The poison capsule was also in its place.

Leon put the box into his jacket inner pocket, once again donning a faint smile.

“I am not here for idle chatter. Since you aren’t bothering to hide your purpose, which goes beyond a simple inspection, I can’t help but wonder what your business is.”

Though he already knew the purpose, Leon feigned serious alarm, playing the innocent. The inspector rested his chin on his clasped hands, staring intently at him, then spoke in a monotone voice.

“A report came in.”

“A report… Do tell.”

Grace, utterly unaware of the situation, felt suffocated by the tension that permeated even under the desk.

Her hands were not bound. She could have easily removed the cloth gagging her mouth, but Grace had no reason to provoke Winston by doing so.

Not until she heard the strange man’s words.

“The captain is hiding a rebel in the torture chamber. A woman.”

Pfft, a scoff echoed from above the desk.

“And he’s using her for private purposes, without reporting to the military. That kind of report.”

Grace’s heart galloped.

The inspector came for me.

Grace made a swift decision. Naked or not, she had to get out. It was a sure, perhaps the only, chance to escape Winston’s grasp.

“So, does that report seem accurate to you?”

“If you hand over the rebel now, your disciplinary action will be lighter.”

“A tempting offer, but unfortunately, there’s no rebel to hand over.”

The two men engaged in a war of nerves, with the rebel between them.

“Competent people are bound to attract swarms of flies, their bellies filled with black jealousy. The putrid stench of jealousy is as foul as the smell of a rotting corpse. It’s surprising that a competent inspector like yourself couldn’t detect that smell from a baseless report.”

Baseless, he said. How laughable.

Grace listened to the conversation, slowly and quietly spitting out the blouse she had been holding in her mouth.

Whether she screamed, or bolted out, or at the very least, pounded on the desk. She just needed to create a commotion that couldn’t be blamed on a dog.

Had he already read her intentions? The rough, jagged sole of a military boot lightly pressed on Grace’s ankle.

Break it then. Do it if you’re confident you won’t get caught.

But having missed several opportunities, Grace decided to be cautious.

She would wait for the right moment. The moment he became careless.

“Well, a foul stench, you say… I smelled a foul stench in the captain’s attitude towards me today.”

Leon nodded as if acknowledging it.

“If my attitude was rude, I apologize. I, too, have heard rumors of your meddling. That’s why my nerves were a bit frayed.”

“If you have nothing to hide, there’s no reason for your nerves to be frayed.”

“Because it’s a world where if you have nothing to hide, they’ll create something for you.”

Just like his employer.

“Please tell His Excellency that the report will be submitted soon, and to wait a few more days.”

The inspector’s eyes narrowed.

“What are you talking about?”

He genuinely seemed not to understand. Leon lifted the first page, boldly marked with the name Sinclair, as if to hand over the report, but the inspector’s gaze remained unchanged.

It was amusing.

The man didn’t know the King’s true intentions and was pressuring Leon. He was completely unaware of the rotten stench emanating from the royal family’s covert oppression of civilians, yet he acted as if he knew everything.

How contemptible.

Leon smiled and moved the hand he had hidden under the desk.

Gasp…

Grace held her breath. A black hole in the center of a rectangular piece of metal stared at her.

It was a barrel that would spit out a bullet.

Grace froze, staring at the muzzle pointed at her face.

As the military boot pressing on her ankle loosened, perhaps due to his focus on the conversation, she tried to scream and bolt out. Her hands moved, but touched nothing, and she didn’t even make a sound.

But as soon as she began to move, Winston, who had been holding the leash, moved his hand. He drew a pistol, which she hadn’t even known was hidden under the chair, and aimed it. All these actions happened in an instant, without warning.

The thumb resting on the back of the pistol slowly pulled back the protruding hammer. It was the action of preparing to fire.

The blood drained from Grace’s face as she realized this was no mere threat.

“Bella. Stay. Sit.”

He covered the click of the pistol’s hammer with a chilling voice. Grace couldn’t tear her terrified gaze from the pistol, which, with a single pull of the trigger, would embed a bullet in her head.

Was he saying he’d kill her rather than lose her?

Her belief that this man would never kill her shattered into pieces.

Another hand abruptly appeared under the desk. It roughly gripped the back of her head, which was damp with cold sweat, and pulled her between the man’s legs.

Leon clamped his palm over the mouth of the woman who obediently rested her head on his thigh. As the muzzle traced her neck, where the carotid artery lay, the woman trembled like an aspen leaf. He felt a thrill.

How long had it been since this insolent woman had been so terrified?

Suddenly, the woman began to grope between his legs.

Utterly vulgar.

Leon leisurely enjoyed her unspoken plea not to kill her, and the corners of his lips curved upwards.

Grace, darling. This gun is empty.

Leon easily subdued the woman with the pistol, which was no more than a toy, and smiled at the inspector.

It was like catching two dogs with one empty gun.

The inspector seemed to have mistaken the clattering sound from under the desk and Leon’s hand movements for him calming a struggling dog. When the fierce dog moved, he couldn’t hide his discomfort and even uncrossed his tightly bound legs, as if ready to flee at any moment.

Both the pathetic detective dog before him and the foxy mongrel in his hand were equally contemptible.

“Do you like dogs?”

“……”

“I do. Especially hounds. The fiercer, the better. There’s a thrill in taming them.”

Leon smiled. He recalled, one by one, the things the woman had done before she was tamed—the woman who, if he were to unbutton his trousers now, would willingly take his member into her mouth.