Chapter 18

Hatred is when you fall in love with someone else's pain.

- Sir, she's outside, we have to bring her inside? One of my men asks me.

I got up and walked to the bay window that stood behind my desk.

I looked through and after my sight had adjusted to the darkness I peered into the darkness.

She was standing near the fountain in pajamas. It looked as if she had just woken up and, pushed by the call of the moon, she had gone out without worrying about her outfit.

- Leave it there, it does nothing wrong. I said waving a hand to tell him to dispose.

My eyes were still fixed on his silhouette bordered by darkness. His gaze was lost in contemplation of the reflection of the moon.

She remained standing like this for a long time as if nothing else existed but this fountain.

I found myself wondering what she could be thinking. What did this water remind her of, which, like a canvas, imprisoned the moon among its irregularly calm waves?

It was strange for me to see this girl who used to be a flame, powerful that threatened to burn everything around her, calm almost dead.

I had inquired about her. She looked like an ordinary girl at first sight.

Married mother and father, in the last year of study, not known to the police, rarely sanctioned in her school where she also had average results.

At first sight she could have been embodied by any 17-year-old teenager. But I had seen something this morning when she had entered my office. I had seen in her a surplus of determination.

I who used to rub shoulders with a lot of people I used to identify them at first sight and often it turned out that my opinion was far from being wrong.

In his case, I was sure that so much assurance was just camouflage.

Said like that, it certainly seemed out of the ordinary but it was actually rather typical. The nicest were often the nastiest, the happiest were the saddest and those who were always smiling depressed at night.

It was the story of hundreds, what am I saying, millions of people.

But with her it was different.

I knew she had built a wall and I wanted to blow it up.

I wanted to see her suffer. I wanted to destroy her. I wanted to see her weak at my feet, me whom she had dared to provoke.

I wanted her to pay.

I was so absorbed in my ideas of revenge, in the idea of restoring my honor, that I did not see my brother approaching.

He put his jacket on his bare shoulders, victims of the night wind.

Alala, my brother what a gentleman!

I went to pour myself a glass of vodka. I poured the ocher liquid into my crystal glass. When it was half full, I went back to my observation post.

As I sipped my drink, I got annoyed to see that they were still there, together, sitting on the edge of the fountain.

- What a great soul brother! I exclaimed, my voice full of sarcasm. You have always been the savior of these ladies.

I don't know why seeing this scene disgusted me.

I didn't want to see her with my brother's jacket over her shoulders.

Not that I felt any jealousy towards my younger brother, I was sure, I just wanted to see her sad and not cheering her up.

I pressed the red button on the intercom. Immediately one of my guards answered me.

- Call me brother.

- It's almost one o'clock sir...

- Do I look like I don't give a fuck? I asked coldly.

- No no of course not Mr. Ivanovich

- Then call me my brother

- Very good sir

I cut off communications with my henchman and peacefully sipped the booze while waiting for my brother to come.