Ugly Ronney: mafia romance [English]

Chapter 7-2

His gaze slipped and ended up on my red Converses, which weren't really red anymore. Yeraz was sitting behind his desk, putting away files that he had piled up in front of him. I tried to imagine him with his accountant. How had things gotten out of hand? Did they just stay there? Or... I pushed my deviant thoughts out of my mind. He didn't look embarrassed. His long-sleeved black shirt was perfectly buttoned up. Maybe he had only pulled down his pants, or...

"Miss Jimenez!" repeated Yeraz. "I'm talking to you."

He had just called me by my last name, which was a bad sign. I stammered some incomprehensible words to apologize while putting the newspapers on his desk. Yeraz tried to put on a friendly expression, but his tone was inflexible.

"What happened to you? You're in a pitiful state! Even worse than usual."

I detected impatience and exasperation in his voice. My brain started to work again, juggling several possible scenarios to finally come up with the most appropriate one.

"I fell in the yard, in the grass. In front of your house."

In the end, I didn't know if it was the best scenario, but I couldn't talk about the gardener. I didn't want Yeraz to fire him. He whispered a swear and handed me a green cardboard folder.

"The presentation file. It concerns the payment of commissions to an intermediary in the context of public contracts related to Roskuf. My accountant validated the figures."

"Yes, with her mouth."

Damn, my comment had flown from my lips without me being able to hold it back. I hoped he hadn't heard it. I flipped through the presentation folder, my cheeks on fire. I didn't want to raise my face. Meeting his eyes had suddenly become unbearable. I cleared my throat and said, still looking down at the sheets, "The true nature of the payments hasn't been properly recorded. All the ones I see do not comply with the rules and legal requirements of the internal accounting control system."

Silence. I raised my head to question Yeraz with my eyes. Surprised by my quick introspection, he spoke with a serious tone.

"You have potential, Miss Jimenez. For someone who didn't go to college, you do pretty well with numbers."

"I have to, to run my parents' restaurant."

Yeraz nodded and sank back into his seat. His right hand was nervously playing with a pencil. His dark eyes darted to mine, searching for something that seemed to be beyond him.

"Indeed, as far as these payments you see listed are concerned, you can categorize them as brokerage fees, giving the Roskuf oil group an illegal tax deduction in the eyes of the law. Does this answer your questions?"

I closed the file and adjusted my glasses.

"Aren't there other--more legal ways--for you to be associated with this group?"

Yeraz stood up and leaned on the edge of his desk right in front of me. From here, I contemplated his features with their perfect regularity. In front of his not inconsiderable beauty, I resisted with all my might to support his glance, which was filled with anger. His taciturn mood never left him.

"Miss Jimenez, I'm not asking for your opinion. Your job is to report to my mother, not to come up with menial solutions on how to control my firms and recycle the dirty money that comes from them."

His dry and very aggressive voice destabilized me. A shiver of panic ran through me. Nothing destabilized Yeraz. Every day, I discovered a little more of his darkness. I opened my mouth and asked in a barely audible voice, "When did you lose your soul?"

His intense gaze disintegrated. He seemed suddenly disoriented. For the first time, his self-confidence vanished. He recovered very quickly and stood up straight in front of me.

"When I stopped being afraid of the dark," he articulated with deep irritability in his voice. He paused and scrutinized me with disdain for a moment before concluding, "Miss Cooper has just arrived. Get changed and join me at the meeting!"

I was no longer Miss Jimenez. And how did he know that Ashley was supposed to bring me clothes? Even if they were sleeping together, Yeraz wasn't the kind of man to send sweet nothings all day long to his conquests.

Frozen in place, I watched him leave the room. That was when I saw the butt of his gun sticking out of the back of his pants. A wave of visceral fear swept over me. Yeraz represented the darkness. How could Camilia still believe that there was, deep in her son, a flame not yet extinguished?