Chapter 534: Chapter 535: Are you torturing the dog?_1
A few minutes later, Aiden tidied up the luggage he had brought back with him.
Tony suddenly asked, "Mr. Gallo, do you really live here alone in this apartment?"
"Yes, why do you ask all of a sudden?"
"Just that it seems a bit spacious for one person, do you have a partner?"
"That’s not the kind of question you should ask so bluntly," Aiden said with a helpless smile. "I just rent such a suite because my income can afford it, and a bigger room is more comfortable to live in."
At that moment, someone knocked on the door.
"You have a visitor," Tony reminded him.
Aiden turned toward the door in surprise. Who would come to visit him at this late hour? He had been away for so many days and had only sent a notification letter to the prison. Before he left, he had entrusted Veronica with the task of handling his correspondence.
With that in mind, Aiden went to open the door.
"Chief, welcome back!!" Outside the door, Veronica’s eyes lit up as soon as she saw his face.
"Veronica, how did you come over?" Aiden blinked.
"Well, there were some things I wanted to report to you as soon as possible, and then..." Veronica looked down, embarrassed, her voice lowering, "I personally wanted to see you sooner, so I took the liberty of dropping by."
"Is that so?" Aiden maintained the smile on his face, glanced at Tony inside the room, who had been watching intently and turned his head away as soon as their eyes met.
Honestly, it was pretty awkward being stared at in such a scene.
"Um... Are you busy right now?" Veronica cautiously raised her head and asked.
"Not busy, come in and sit," Aiden said with proper courtesy, welcoming Veronica into the room, then noticed she was holding something in her hand, "What’s this?"
"Just a small gift, lemon liqueur from the north, not sure if you like it." Veronica carefully handed over the bottle wrapped in exquisite fabric.
"Thanks, I actually quite like these sweet liquors with a fruit juice flavor," Aiden said with a smile as he accepted the gift, "Care for a drink?"
Aiden didn’t particularly like to drink, finding both beer and distilled spirits bitter and astringent, but he could handle these fruity cocktails—in fact, he strictly enjoyed fruit juices and sodas only.
It wasn’t suitable to drink coffee or tea at night, but it also wasn’t polite to offer guests just plain water.
"Sure," Veronica responded happily.
As Aiden turned to pass the bottle to the mercury alloy golem, she looked around the room with interest, then inhaled sharply through her nose in surprise.
There was a faint animal scent in the room, which would have been hard to detect without her level of sense of smell.
"Chief, have you got a pet?" she suddenly asked.
"Hm?" Aiden looked around and realized, to his surprise, that Tony had vanished without a trace.
It seemed he had hidden away before Veronica had stepped into the room.
"Tony, there’s no need to hide on purpose," Aiden called out loudly.
Tony then timidly poked his head out from under the sofa.
"Chief, you got a dog!" Veronica’s eyes brightened.
"Due to some reasons, I’ve let him stay here temporarily. I’ll explain in detail to you later," Aiden said, watching the mercury alloy golem in the kitchen taking out glasses to pour the liquor.
Tony’s situation was complicated, not something that could be explained in a sentence or two. He planned to sit down and start from the beginning.
"Good boy, good boy, good boy." Veronica tried to pat Tony on the head, and then turned back to Aiden, "Chief, do you like dogs?"
Tony glanced at Aiden, then at Veronica, not daring to utter a sound. He felt that it was safer to continue playing the role of a dog until Aiden had explained the situation.
"I suppose I rather like it," Aiden gave an honest reply.
"I could actually transform into one too..." Veronica muttered without thinking.
Werewolves, aside from their half-human, half-beast form, also have a completely beastly form where lycanthropy is fully unleashed, and Veronica’s full beast form was a white wolf.
"What did you say?" Aiden hadn’t heard her clearly.
"Nothing!!" Realizing she had accidentally spoken her mind, Veronica quickly denied it.
She really wanted to knock some sense into her head now; her mind had been getting weirder and weirder lately.
"Woof!?" But Tony, who was currently getting his head petted, heard her loud and clear, and looked up at Veronica with a gaze of surprise and even a bit of awe.
Wasn’t it agreed that there were no strings attached?
The adult world truly is both profound and incomprehensible.
Although technically an adult, Tony, due to his lack of social interaction, believed he was somewhat behind his peers in understanding.
"Here, have a drink first," Aiden offered a glass of wine to Veronica.
Only then did Veronica sit down on the couch, took the glass, and clinked it with Aiden’s.
After both sipped their wine, Aiden suddenly remembered something.
"Ah, right. Since you’re here, I need to give this back to you," said Aiden as he took a picnic basket he had unpacked from his luggage and placed it on the coffee table.
"You actually brought it back!" Veronica was obviously delighted, "That thing I made..."
"Was really delicious," Aiden nodded.
"That’s great, I’ve been worried that it wouldn’t suit your taste. It felt awkward to ask in a telegram, so I was conflicted for a long time..." Veronica sighed with relief.
That was from days ago... Aiden smiled helplessly to himself.
This girl is really getting cuter by the day.
Sure enough, such matters weren’t fitting to discuss in a letter. Their communication these days had been mostly through secret police telegrams that were then relayed.
Tony looked back and forth between the two, staying silent.
Why did he suddenly feel oddly full?
"Anything noteworthy going on in the prison lately?" Aiden naturally shifted to the topic of work.
"Well..." Veronica lowered her head, immediately thinking about the lady with the flowers, her eyes flickering, "Boss, what kind of girls do you like?"
"Hm?" Aiden was taken aback by the sudden change in topic.
Why did the conversation about work suddenly turn to this topic?
Finally, Tony could no longer hold back. Feeling that his presence would only disrupt the two, he got up and headed for the door. Under their astonished gaze, he jumped up, pushed down the door handle, went out, and considerately closed the door behind him.
"This dog, he can open doors himself?" Veronica said in surprise, "What is he going to do?"
"He probably... just wants to take a walk by himself," Aiden laughed.
At that moment, the teasing voice of the goddess of vengeance rang in Aiden’s head, "Kid, I don’t want to meddle in how heated things are getting between you two, but try to keep it down, will you?"
