The Mist and the Lightning. Part VII. Ви Корс

he also behaved normally,” Kors muttered.

      “Here you see! When a person is treated in a good way, he behaves appropriately! I knew this, he wasn’t at all some kind of a moron and a drug addict, how you present him. Ruined his soul and became a demon! Nonsense! There is still a lot of good left in him. It's just that no one has ever treated him humanly. He saw only evil. And you were no exception. I am very sad, father, you, who may be the only one who could, who had to support him, seeing his brand and what else, immediately turned away with disgust! I hope he still doesn’t know that you are his father, otherwise he really felt very painful. If I had a son, I would accept him in any way, even demon, at least a thousand times a murderer and a criminal. This is your child! What else can you talk about!”

      “I think he doesn't know,” Kors said.

      “What doesn’t he know? That he is your son?”

      “Yes.”

      “What was it worth talking to him calmly? Just try to find out?”

      “I talked to him! I figured out! Look.”

      “What is it?”

      “Your mother’s engagement ring. It hung on his neck.”

      Karina took the decoration:

      “Lay me like a seal on your heart, for love is strong as death.” She said. “You have exactly the same. I remember this engraving.” She looked at her father’s right hand, Kors never took off his ring, he wore it all his life, and Karina from childhood remembered it.

      “Yes.”

      “So he knows?”

      “No. He believes that this is a ring of his girlfriend.”

      “Rosa?”

      “Yes. If he doesn’t deceive me on purpose.”

      “So mom…” Karina hesitated, and tears appeared in her eyes, “she put her wedding ring on his neck…”

      “Apparently so.”

      “So you find him and recognize him! Do you still doubt it?!”

      “Never mind. Don’t get involved in this anymore. Listen to me and don’t meddle, I beg you, Karina. I ask you in a good way, still!”

      “Father, you're wrong…”

      “Leave me. Go do something.”

      “What?!”

      “Go, talk to Donatella Valerie. She went to the doctor. Clive watched her. Her doctor was questioned and claims that she had a concussion. She was hit with something heavy on the head, but she says she fell down.”

      “I don't care about that! It is not interesting. And even if she was hit. Even if you are hinting that Nikto hit her, then there is a way for her. I will not collect facts against him!”

      “I don’t claim that it is he. So go and bring me evidence that it’s not him.”

      “Will this change anything?”

      “I don't think so.”

      “Then I don't want to!”

      “You have to do your job and my orders! Why is Clive doing his job, and you are not? Do you want me to fire you?”

      “In that case, I’d better go and question Zara, according to agents, a former slave from the farm…”

      “Why do you need her? Because Lis visited her? You are fixated on Lis, and Arel, and now Nikto!”

      “I'm not fixated!”

      “Zara is of no use to us!”

      “As well as Doni!”

      “Why should I argue with you?! To persuade you! You constantly do everything contrary to! I didn’t let you go to the Castle to Arel. I didn’t let you make friends with them. But you wanted to figure it out! You want to figure it out on your own!”

      “But my information helped you, and try to say that it is not so!”

      “How did it help me? You were just trying to find reasons to soften the accusations. They are all victims of circumstances! And Chris Wass, and Vish Cazen provoked Arela themselves, going up to him at the autumn ball, and summoned him to the battle.”

      “Yes!”

      “And in your words I provoked Arel, and because of my words he killed Lamy.”

      “Yes!”

      “And now you don’t want to go to Doni Valerie, because you don’t want to know that your unhappy offended friends beat her on the head.”

      “I just want justice, father. I still don’t know for sure what happened to my maid, and who is guilty of the death of the singer from the “Lower”. I don’t justify them, but I want everything to be fair!”

      “I will remove you from this business altogether! Do you understand me, Karina?”

      Chapter six

      Karina and Dony

             “I'm in a hurry, I have a lot of things to do,” Dony was not at all disposed to host Karina as a guest. She didn’t even offer her tea.

      “I won’t take you much time,” retorted Karina, starting to get angry, she didn’t want to do this job, she was sick of learning something from Dony, because she didn’t see any point in it. This was a meaningless task, which her father sent to fulfill just to occupy her with something else, so that she didn’t interfere with him with her conversations about Nikto. Waste of time. But, unfortunately, Karina had a rule – if she took up work, even it was most uninteresting, she should have done it well. If possible. As best as possible. And so she was sitting in Dony’s living room and was angry. Slaves and servants scurried past with boxes and suitcases, the bustle of moving was in the air.

      “You see what’s going on,” Dony told her nervously, “I haven’t packed anything yet, the move is like a fire or an earthquake. At four my fiancé arrives, but nothing is ready, I still need to make up!”

      “Now it's only half past three,” said Karina.

      “Yes! During half an hour it is impossible to have time to put yourself in order. However, you don’t understand it, you are a warrior, not a woman.”

      Karina silently swallowed a mockery, or what it was. She should just do her job well.

      “You look beautiful without make up as well,” she said as good-naturedly as possible, not at all sure that her words sounded really sincere. And not because Dony looked bad without makeup, but simply because Karina didn't give a damn about it.

      “Ah, don't talk nonsense!” Dony turned away from her, peering attentively at the surface of the mirror. “When I am without make up, I look ill, pale and tormented.”

      “But you really were sick recently,” Karina remarked, glad that there was something to cling to in the conversation.

      And Dony froze with a snow-white puff in her hand.

      “I am absolutely healthy. And if I was sick, it was a very long time ago,” she said in an icy tone.

      “I just have to do my job well,” thought Karina once again and said:

      “You had a concussion.”

      “Is this an interrogation? You follow me!”

      “What is it about my simple question? Why are you so nervous?” Karina shrug her shoulders.

      “Have you come to ask me about this?”

      -Dony, we were hanging in the same company, we were almost friends. We could be close friends if you wanted to. What is strange that I came to find out howyou are doing