# 24
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“My kid, let the leader do whatever he wants,” Ivan said excitedly, interrupting Balin who tried to stop Victor from continuing to beat the unconscious Evel.
“This man is going to be killed! Please, brother, help stop him!”
“I respect Miss Pleasure.”
“It's going to be a problem for the commander!”
Victor Domfelt was a man who lived his whole life for honor. Even when choosing his marriage partner, he chose a woman who did not appear in social circles to avoid gossip. So, as strange as this situation was, it wouldn't cause him much trouble. As Palin said, it may be annoying, but it will pass as just annoyance.
Scarlett looked at the scene without raising her eyes, and muttered: “Rubbish.”
Victor, who was about to violently push Palin, stopped and turned towards her.
Balin took the opportunity to quickly pull Evil away. Victor approached Scarlett, climbed into the car next to her, and closed the door. Scarlett stepped back until her back touched the wall.
Victor leaned towards her sarcastically and asked: “Who?”
"What?"
“From the trash?”
“Uncle”
Victor smiled at her response, then continued: “What made you laugh?”
Sometimes, when they were alone, Victor would call her “you” instead of the formal “you.” Scarlett muttered as if talking to herf: “My uncle is getting beaten.”
“Seems like I have to do this whenever you're depressed.”
Scarlett wanted to feel guilty, but she couldn't. She should have admonished these violent elites who acted as if the law was at their feet, but she couldn't either.
All I felt was laughter. She wished his promise to do this whenever she was depressed wasn't a joke. She felt disgusted with herf.
“This... shouldn't.”
Victor didn't realize how hard those words were coming out of her, she thought.
Victor raised the corner of his mouth, grabbed her chin with his black gloved hand, and said sarcastically: “Are you a saint? Your heart is like the sea.”
Scarlett tried to push his hand away, but he held it tighter and added, “If I hadn’t found you, what would have happened if you had died there?”
Scarlett stared into his eyes and said, “He's not the one who's going to kill me.”
“What does not mean?”
"I was locked in the basement a lot. He didn't want to kill me. Just... tame me."
“Punishment. To use me.”
Victor's lips curled in a strange way.
Scarlett looked at him calmly.
Victor was fair and cruel. An eye for an eye, tooth for tooth. Sometimes it was like a scale. Because she betrayed him, he did not forgive her. Betrayal is like broken glass, right?
As the tension wore off, Scarlett felt her eyelids grow heavy.
I closed them, and suddenly fell. Victor pulled her into his embrace.
Scarlett lost consciousness as if she were asleep, and the carriage headed to Domfelt Palace.
***
Scarlett woke up and got up quickly.
Looking out the window, she saw Domfelt Palace. Victor apparently brought her after she fainted. She didn't intend to blame him for saving her and treating her, but she worried that Andrei would scold her for missing work.
Scarlett sighed and got out of bed. She stood in front of a large mirror, and saw herf wearing a light pink nightgown with wide sleeves.
She thought she lost all her belongings after the divorce, but it seems that was not the case.
The room was in the main mansion, not the wing where she lived with Victor, but the room of Marina Domfelt, Victor's mother, who had visited her once or twice.
She got out of the bed covered with canopy curtains, and there was a sofa, and on the wall was the crest of Irene's royal family, Victor's mother's family.
“I'm not supposed to be here”
She muttered as she sat on the couch, holding her shoulders with her arms, feeling the pain.
“Cool...”
The heater was burning, but her body was trembling.
The large door in front of the sofa opened, and Victor entered with the servants.
When their eyes met, Victor frowned and approached the sofa.
Scarlett looked away after hesitating: “Thank you.”
The servants put medicines and lukewarm water on her, greeted her and left.
Victor usually took out a cigarette, but he remembered that there was a patient, so he went out to the balcony. He did not smoke, but rather crushed the cigarette.
Scarlett looked inside the glass door and said, “Why don’t you smoke?”
“Because there is a patient”
“This is new”
Scarlett leaned her head on the door frame and said, “How did you know you came?”
Victor didn't answer. Scarlett gave in and added: “Thank you for your help today, but don’t do it again.”
“Shall I leave you?”
“If you don't show up around me, you won't know when I'm in trouble, you can't help me. So, do it.”
“You need help”
Scarlett laughed sarcastically: “I know, that's what you think. That I'm in big trouble. But no. You may come from a great family, but that doesn't mean I was born in trouble. I've grown loved enough.”
Scarlett lived to be twelve, clinging to the memories of the love she received. Those memories were precious and sparkling, so much so that she thought Victor would rejoice in a similar love.
She recently realized that she couldn't give Victor what he wanted. He wanted her to be useful to him, but her love was not the kind he wanted.
Scarlett felt even colder, so she pulled the blanket tighter around her.
"Anyway, I'll manage on my own. My thanks today are sincere."
Victor did not respond for a while, making the atmosphere awkward.
Scarlett tried to change the subject: “Did you come to sleep here?”
"did not?"
“Because that's all you want from me.”
Scarlett mumbled, closing her eyes in exhaustion, looking like a wild animal that had surrendered after being captured.
Victor's annoyed voice was heard: “You seem to think I'm doing this to sleep with you?”
Scarlett looked at him with sad eyes: “Yes.”
The people of Salantir believed that a child born before a spouse's twentieth birthday would be weak.
Victor was like that, so he took birth control cautiously until Scarlett's twentieth birthday. But his request to sleep with her from time to time was not just to have children.
Victor felt surprised by her words, and his face contracted: “If only this were the case, you are not the only woman in the world.”
Scarlett stopped, and Victor laughed and said: “I’m not that petrified.”
He looked at her dry lips as she leaned against the door, then came closer and leaned in to kiss her.
Scarlett hesitated and turned her face: “Don’t.”
“You asked if I would sleep here. Didn’t you allow that?”
Scarlett bit her lip.
Victor turned her chin to look at him and asked, “Or was it a reward for saving you?”
“I thought about that if it would be considered a reward.”
“Ah, that's how you offer the reward.”
Victor sneered, then kissed her.
He thought her sudden trembling after her words was both frustrating and tempting.
He placed his large, cold hand on her back.
After a light kissing sound, Victor pulled away and asked from nearby: “Are you going to reward others like this too?”