Just looking into Lith’s eyes had covered Crefas in a cold sweat. He had met enough criminals to recognize someone who had no qualms to hogtie him with weights, throw him into a well, and make a wish.
‘Vastor, instead, looks like a man desperate enough to chase someone who could be his daughter and stupid enough to do anything to keep her by his side.’ Crefas thought.
“Not much, just a couple of years.” Vastor said with a warm smile. “Yet it took me less than one hour to notice the abuses she was subjected to. I always wondered how could you miss it or why you didn’t stand in court by her side when Zinya fought for her children’s custody.”
Vastor’s act was so perfect that Clefas stuttered in embarrassment the excuses he had repeated from the day Zinya had become a widow. Otherwise he would have noticed much sooner that the Professor neither listened nor believed a word Clefas said.
Vastor’s gaze held a list of promises of pain that got longer the more bullshit he had to listen to.
“Is everything fine?” Kamila’s quick return relieved Orpal’s wounded ego and saved her father from a “sudden” heart attack.
“Peachy. Your mother and I were just telling Zinya how lucky she is to have found an outstanding man like Professor Vastor. Taking care of two children born from another man speaks volumes about your noble character.” Clefas said.
The carrot and the stick was one of his favorite negotiation tactics. Sucking up to Vastor would curry his favor while reminding Zinya of her failed marriage and of her baggage would make her submissive.
“Dad, Zogar and I are not in that kind of relationship.” She blushed up to her ears, too embarrassed to even met Vastor’s eyes.
Clefas knew that Zinya had never been with a man besides Fallmug. She knew nothing about love except for what her parents had told her, making her easy to manipulate.
“Just like ignoring your daughter and your two grandchildren for ten years speaks volumes about yours, mister Retta.” Vastor’s reply made it clear that one out of two was the best result that Clefas could hope for.
“That’s not true, Zogar. My mother came to visit every time she could and she did try to help me. Sadly, between the gap in status between the conflicting households and my father’s economic issues, Fallmug always had his way.” Zinya said.
She was too happy for being finally able to see her parents after being blind from birth to question their words or their honesty.
“I hope you are right.” Vastor had tried and failed to find any evidence that the Retta had reported Fallmug’s abuse or of their attempts to take their daughter back so he assumed that didn’t even try to.
“By the way, how did you meet with Meln?” With no evidence, however, the only thing he could achieve by expressing his suspicions was to hurt Zinya’s feelings so he moved to another unclear aspect of that situation.
“It happened by chance at Lutia’s only inn. Mister Narchat was about to leave when we arrived.” Clefas didn’t miss the allegations hidden in Vastor’s question and rushed to clear his position.
“We heard the innkeeper talking to him after recognizing mister Narchat as a member of the Verhen family and we naturally became friends.” Clefas said with a huge smile on his face.
Not only it was the truth, making it impossible for Vastor to dig more dirt on them, but it also helped Orpal, making him feel indebted.
Clefas had left out the part where, after calling Orpal several unpleasant names, the innkeeper had refused to give him a room, claiming that he could only stay in the stables if the beasts stooped so low that they would accept his company.
“Indeed.” Orpal nodded, grateful for that moment of respite. “We both had issues with our respective relatives so we decided that for our next visit we would visit together.”
The Retta couple were victims of Orpal’s manipulation as well. He had timed his return so that he would meet his parents alone and that when Kamila’s parents arrived, they would strike the iron while it was still hot.
He didn’t trust the Retta couple farther than he could throw them and Orpal couldn’t risk exposing to them his real goal or nature. He considered them as a disposable means to his end.
The destruction of everything that Lith had built.
Tearing down Kamila’s life as well was just a lucky coincidence.
“It makes sense.” Lith came out of the bathroom while dabbing his still wet hair with a towel. His white shirt was partly unbuttoned and he wore the elegant clothes that he had liberated from the Night Court during the mission in Othre.
He was blatantly overdressed and together with his studied entrance that came straight out of erotica, it made all the women with no blood relation with him blush in arousal.
Orpal clenched his fists so hard that his knuckles popped. He was well dressed, but having come to play the part of the prodigal son he had to appear modest and remorseful, not like a dandy.
Lith had no such problem and he knew that with Orpal everything was a competition. Night wasn’t the only one who had planned that meeting for a long time and Lith had no qualms poking his brother in every conceivable way.
He wanted Orpal to lose it and reveal his real nature to their parents. No matter how much Lith wished to use violence and kick Orpal’s sorry ass into oblivion. Without a good reason to do it, he would be the bad guy.
‘I didn’t make him a martyr back when we were children and I’m not going to make that mistake now. His pride will be his downfall.’ Lith thought.
“Cover yourself. We have guests.” Kamila tried to button up his shirt but the Adamant obeyed only to its master and her hands trembled in excitement too much to succeed anyway.
‘I’ve still got this effect on you after all this time?’ He asked her via a mind link as he allowed her to fix his shirt.
‘I told you many times that I’m a pervert for you.’ She replied. ‘Don’t you dare to show yourself in such a way in front of another woman again, let alone my sister!’
‘It’s all part of the plan, babe.’
‘I’d tear your stupid plan off along with your cloth-‘ Kamila blushed wildly at the thought and ran into the bathroom to cool off.
“What business do you have here, mister Retta.” Lith ignored his brother again, pretending to not care about what Orpal had been doing during all those years nor about how did he get a noble last name.
‘I see what you are doing, but it’s not going to work!’ Orpal thought, yet he kept clenching his fists and twisting his face into a grimace of rage that scared Elina.
“No business, just family.” Clefas shook his head, in his best impression of a concerned father. “I know that I’m not a perfect man and that I’ve made so many mistakes in the past that my daughters are now estranged from me, but I always cared for them.”
