A / N: At this point I would like to add that similarities with living, dead or fictional people are purely coincidental and not intended.

@ Itachi91: Thanks again!

Have fun while reading!

Episode 2: The devil wears pinstripes

I'm starting to get seriously worried. The DeVito male has been with him for two hours and still not back. Kimiko and I have decided not to take a break until the unfortunate one has come out of this office.
She wrote a short circular to all colleagues and postponed our appointment - indefinitely.

~ 3rd Person View ~

John Howard, the KC's chief accountant, sat nervously in front of his boss. The sweat had been streaming down his face for a long time. Hurriedly, his eyes kept glancing at his counterpart. He looked like the rabbit before the snake.

Kaiba, on the other hand, was the calm itself. At least in appearance.But inside he was seething. Exactly two problems plagued him. Problems of the magnitude of a medium to gigantic catastrophe. Some would also call it the visitation, the end of the world and all kinds of hardships.

For one thing, there was a leak in the development department. For some unknown reason, top secret data leaked out. An American-German rival company, which it appeared to have sprung up overnight, carried out the majority of the new projects.
Then funds disappeared. Again and again small amounts. But that also added up at some point. Nobody had seen anything and nobody knew where to go. Either someone had managed to hack into the central computer of the KC, which Kaiba rigorously ruled out, or an employee had covered his tracks so cleverly that not even a Seto Kaiba could figure it out.
This gave the young man a stomach ache and a headache.

He rested his elbows on the table and rested his chin on the back of his hands.With his blue eyes he fixed his employee precisely. Despite his youth, Kaiba had enough experience reading other people's body language.
Howard gazed from one corner of the room to the other. He just couldn't meet the gaze of the young man in front of him.
He had been sitting on this, for him, almost uncomfortable chair for almost 20 minutes and his boss hadn't said a word. Just eyed him constantly.

"M-Mr. Kaiba, sir ...", the fat accountant tried to start the conversation.

"Well, Howard-san. How long have you been working for me?" Kaiba sounded unusually gentle.

Even someone like Howard was bound to notice that something was up.

"F-Almost z-ten y-years, S-sir." He swallowed. "I-your V-father ..." Howard broke off.

Kaiba's gaze suddenly turned ice cold.

“Yes?” But his voice had lost none of its friendliness.

"He h-h-e-then, but that was before her time, sir," the chubby accountant hurried to finish the sentence.“So you have enough accounting experience for a large company like Kaiba Corporation, don't you?” He was now sitting in front of his employee with his arms crossed over his chest.

Howard nods vigorously.

"And why, if I may ask, did you fail to notice that over the course of several months, small amounts were repeatedly transferred to foreign accounts in Switzerland?" Kaiba's voice took on an increasingly cutting tone.

"II ... T-That must have been done over my K-K head."

"Interesting."

Howard winced. Was that all? No thunderstorm, no termination without notice?

“Go back to your work.” With that, Kaiba turned back to the documents in front of him.

His accountant got up quickly and waddled out of the office as fast as he could.

~ Maeves View ~

Howard-san hurries past me. He looks like a panicked penguin. I'm slowly wondering what Kaiba did to him.I can already hear his voice.

"To my office."

I get up, take my pad, and plunge into pleasure.

After not getting an answer to my hesitant knock, I just step inside.

"Sit down," he says and points to one of the chairs in front of his desk.

Oh dear, I surely won't have made a mistake? That would be extremely embarrassing on the first day.

“Have you already gained experience in controlling?” He stands at the window, his back turned to me.

"Only in training, sir."

"Congratulations, you now have the opportunity to brush up on your knowledge." He turns around, grinning. But it's not a friendly, but rather atake care-of-me-or-I'll-eat-yougrin.

I nod. Kaiba goes back to his desk and takes a black folder from the pile on it.

"You are not yet operationally blind. Look through these documents. If you notice anything, let me know. - But not about the system. In person."He can be very emphatic even though his voice sounds neutral.

"Yes, sir."

"Maeve, these documents are strictly confidential. Nobody is allowed to see them. Do you understand?"

“Of course, sir.” I wonder what's going on now.

"You can go."

I get up and am already halfway out the door when he speaks to me again: "Bring me another coffee."

"Yes sir." This is getting on my nerves!Yes sir. No sir. Of course, sir. I urgently need to think of something else.

A well built, no![i]Extremely well-built, middle-aged man enters. With his left hand casually tucked into the pocket of his jacket, his body language expresses only one thing:[i]I'm a womanizer, the Don Juan of the 21st century.

He's coming right up to me. Kimiko inhales audibly. Apparently he knows exactly how it affects women. He leans nonchalantly against the counter and shows his snow-white teeth. He has a warm deep voice with a pleasant timbre.

"Bonjour, Mademoiselle Muldoon.[1]My name is Jaques Delacroix. I take it you have already signed me up?" No trace of an accent. I melt away, want to lose myself in the gray eyes of my counterpart.

"Of course, Monsieur[2]Delacroix." He should calmly notice that I am able to speak his language. “Please.” And then I walk ahead of him to Kaiba's office and ask him inside.

It's not as bad as Kimiko thought ...

~ 3rd Person View ~

Kaiba loathed Delacroix. Since thedisappearanceof the Big 5, he has held their position and he has proven to be a worthy successor. In a good as well as in a bad sense. Kaiba had long suspected that the French were working against him.Just wait when I'm of legal age, my friend ..., the young manager rumbled in his mind.

Then the door opened and his secretary brought him in.

Dark blonde hair gelled back, a narrow mustache and a constant Blendax grin. There were a few things that made him particularly disliked Kaiba.
And the mandatory pinstripe suit he wore. -Like today.

It seemed to him as if the blonde Frenchman was parodying him and his fancy dress style. One more item on the list of unsympathies. And as his secretary looked, Delacroix seemed to have more than one stone on her board. That made another point.

"I heard from Howard-san. Terrible thing."

“So, really?” Kaiba's voice was like a sharp sword. There was arrogance and arrogance on his face. As almost always, he played the self-centered, spoiled successor to Gozaburo Kaiba. A mask that fit perfectly."What do you intend to do about this, mon ami[3]?"

Kaiba fixed him coldly.

"I have to report to the board of directors," said the Frenchman apologetically.

"Do what you can't help doing, Delacroix."

Delacroix's eyebrow twitched imperceptibly. An unmistakable sign that he felt caught out.

“You're going to do something about this, aren't you?” The Frenchman leaned forward, neither voice nor demeanor betrayed anything.

Kaiba thought he was about to throw up. What did this frog-leg-eater think he was looking at? A naive teenager? If he said, Seto Kaiba, wouldn't see through this little game, then he was wrong!

Well, this game can also be played in pairs.Kaiba crossed his arms in front of his chest and looked challengingly at the French.

"I think you can get back to work now, Delacroix. I will attend to this matter personally, be sure of it.""I was hoping so, Kaiba-kun." He rose from his chair, turning.

If Kaiba's self-control hadn't been so exemplary, then he would have gone to the ceiling after Delacroix's last statement at the latest. Nobody, but really nobody, had the right to add this suffix to one of his names. It sounded so familiar, so incredible ... He couldn't define it himself.

Delacroix strode to the door, confident of victory. Oh yes, he had noticed. He knew how to piss off the young general manager. He just had to treat him like the child he actually was.

Shortly before the Frenchman reached the office door, Kaiba said to him casually: "Oh, one more thing. Stop flirting with my secretary. This is still my company."

And with that, Seto Kaiba made his first move.