There was a sneer on the other end of the line. And he said, “You can choose not to come, but I can’t guarantee that you’ll ever see her again.”
Threats, obviously.
I wondered what kind of person Mario was. After all these years, I still couoldn’t figure out whether he was good or not.
That was stupid of me. How could people be simply divided into good or bad?
Well!
I paid and got off the taxi. The driver was worried and he said, “Miss, it’s not not safe!”
I nodded, raised my umbrella, looked at him and said, “Call the police for me on your way back.”
With Mario, I couldn’t figure out what he wanted.
The driver looked at me, confused, but drove away.
I entered the factory under an umbrella. The muddy road left footprints of different shades, which looked messy.
The factory was empty, but fortunately I had been there once and didn’t feel so horrible.
I went into the factory on a hunch. I saw Mario, but I didn’t see Clarie.
Our eyes met and he sneered. “You have a lot of courage!”
I looked at him and wondered what this man was like inside. What was his attitude towards Dennis?
“Are you going to murder me?” I looked at him, not as scared as I expected, just confused.
He looked at me, sitting comfortably in his old chair, looked at me and said, “Aren’t you afraid?”
I asked, “Should I be afraid?”
He raised his eyebrows and said significantly, “Aren’t you going to ask anything about Clarie?”
I said, “Where’s she?”
He looked at me, annoyed and bored. “Clara, what does Dennis see in you?”
I pressed my lips and said nothing more.
I thought to myself, if I died here, what were the chances that someone would find me?
In other words, how many days after I was dead before someone found me?
As I looked around in a daze, he fiddled with his cell phone and then said as if he were talking to himself, “Clarie is safe. Nova just took her to another location. So, you don’t have to worry.”
I nodded and looked at him with a sigh, “You put on a good show.”
When I first saw him, I really thought Clariana was lost.
He raised his eyebrows and smiled. “Thanks. You wouldn’t believe me if I didn’t pull it off, would you?”
I looked at him and said nothing. Clariana was his own daughter, so he wouldn’t want to kill her.
So I just waited to see what he was going to do next.
After a pause, he said, “When she jumped out of a building, she had scars on her face. Why don’t you copy that?”
I pressed my lips together and thought who was that jumper he was talking about?
Seeing my indifference, he raised his hand, pointed to the old table that resembled an infusion bottle, and looked at me, “Do it yourself.”
I looked back at him and asked, “Sulfuric acid?”
He nodded calmly, “It might hurt a little, but it’ll pass.”
I didn’t move. I just looked at him.
He said after a pause, “She was 17 when we met. She left at the age of beauty. I won’t give you a hard time. Do it yourself.”
I looked at him and asked, “You should at least let me know who she is and why you chose me?”
He looked up at me, his eyes calm. He was too calm, even cruel, and cold, “Irene George, Dennis’s cousin. Clara, I don’t want to hurt you, but there is a hole in people’s heart, and once a devil was hidden there, no matter how long you put up with it, it will kill you.”
“So, I became the victim between you two?” I couldn’t understand the devil inside him. I looked at him and I couldn’t believe it.
He played with the mobile phone in his hand and said simply, “Not a victim. You’re just in love with Dennis. He and I are still brothers, just to be fair, what I lose, he will lose it, too. Without empathy, he may not know what it’s like to lose a loved one.
I looked at him, and I couldn’t understand him. Jackie said that uncle George had a daughter when he was young, but she died in an accident many years ago, so he never had another child.
I also knew that Dennis had a cousin who dated Mario when she was younger.
But I had never been a part of that past, and I certainly didn’t know what it was like.
I didn’t know how he felt about Dennis, but I did know he probably had a broken heart to get to this point.
He looked at me with a mixture of compassion and emotion. “Sometimes, I think you look a lot like her. I saw her in you when you handed me the clothes at T Villas. You have the same kind of heart. And then, I tried to help you get away from Dennis, so you could be free. Why didn’t you leave him at that time?”
He asked me, looking at me with extraordinary compassion. I pressed my lips together, not knowing what to say. Nor did he seem inclined to expect an answer.
He looked at me and smiled, as if he were laughing at himself. “You know, if you left Dennis, maybe your life would have been different. I wouldn’t hurt you, I wouldn’t have met Diana, and you wouldn’t have gotten into this with your birth parents…”
He looked up at me and smiled with a kind of violence, “So, you see how damn Dennis is! He hurt the people he loved the most. He surrounds you under the banner of love. No matter how you break down inside, he’ll tell you he’ll always be there for you, and he’ll take care of you. He says he will take good care of you, so good that you hate him but never have the heart to hurt him.”
He smiled with coldness in his eyes, “Clara, actually I’m the same as you. You are the lover, and I am the family. He hurt you, but loves you more, because of this, you are not willing to hurt him, and even willing to press the inner tangled contradictions, willing to continue to be with him. So am I. He indirectly caused me to lose my love, which made me miserable, but he pulled me out of hell again. I hate him, but I don’t want to hurt him. Do you call this complicated?”
What made us human was that we all had feelings. And these feelings never exist alone, they all crossed and complemented each other.
I looked at him, unable to tell whether I felt pity or sorry. I just said, “So, you want to kill me and make him suffer?”
He looked at me and smiled and nodded, “Yes, you’re right.”
Looking at the sulfuric acid on the table, I said, “If I die, you two will turn against each other.”
He nodded, and his eyes were sad. “I know. It’s for the best. When we become enemies, we won’t have to worry so much. No one has to feel guilty, and no one has to bury the scars in his heart.”