# 11
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While the twins were chattering that they weren't stupid and that Scarlett wasn't either, the drivers were looking at her worriedly.
After calming the two children down, Scarlett took her dress out of the bag and put it on. In order not to look like a technician, she came wearing lace gloves and a hat, so it took time to change her clothes.
Meanwhile, the drivers spoke to forget their fear: “Who was that marine? If it weren’t for him, it would have been a disaster.”
“When he entered, I felt that the storeroom suddenly became illuminated.”
Their voices were still trembling.
Powell's wife, Amanda, approached to help her change her clothes.
“Miss, are you okay?”
“I'm fine”
“Go home quickly. We brought tea, have it.”
Scarlett smiled instead of replying, and took a sip of tea as Amanda grumbled loudly for everyone to hear: “How can these men be unable to fix a single thing and call in a delicate miss like her?”
“I'm really fine. The tea is very delicious.”
Amanda did not calm down, and continued to scold the drivers, pointing at them.
While she was drinking tea, Amanda cleaned her face, and the drivers brought a heater and placed it in front of her.
Scarlett quickly regained her calm, and declined offers of a ride home. She patted the twins, whose eyes were puffy from crying, and returned to the store.
Andrei was waiting for her without leaving, and when he saw her face, he started arranging his bag and complaining: “Where have you been until now? I can’t leave!”
“Why didn't you go? Sorry.”
“Should I leave knowing you are doing something dangerous?”
Andrei grumbled as he picked up his bag, then quickly left, perhaps embarrassed that he was worried about her. Scarlett felt grateful and amused, so she relaxed a little and laughed.
The fire was burning in the stove.
Scarlett closed the door and sat on the customers' sofa to warm herf. On the table, there was soup and salmon fried in butter that Andrey had left behind.
“It looks delicious”
Andrei was sarcastic, but he was the one who knew her well and cared for her.
She placed the soup and salmon on an iron plate over the stove to heat them, and began her late dinner.
After calming her empty stomach, she lay in the hot tub for a while.
As she relaxed, the image of Victor's eyes as he looked at her came back to her. She thought they might meet one day, but not like this.
“I owe you today...”
I mumbled, then heard a knock on the door.
Scarlett twitched, quickly wiped away the water, and hurriedly put on an underdress. When she opened the curtain of the glass wall, her body froze.
There was a vehicle bearing the Navy logo, and in front of it was her ex-husband, Victor, with some of his men.
The Rubid Navy, which he commanded, included a ect elite of the Naval Academy, dressed in black uniforms and black coats, distinguished by their lineage and appearance.
She tried to close the curtain and pretend it wasn't there, but she heard moaning.
Confused, she opened the curtain and saw Victor looking at a masked man forced to kneel.
Their eyes met as he smoked a cigarette.
He moved his lips to command, “Open.”
It was natural for Victor to be different at work than at home, but the gap was particularly large. Even though they had lived together for two years, the Victor she saw today was monstrous enough to upend everything she knew about him.
She reluctantly opened the door, and Victor took a long puff from his cigarette, threw it on the floor, and entered the store.
Scarlett blinked, folding her hands over her chest defensively.
She knew he approached her and looked at her, but she couldn't raise her head. The smell of blood was coming from the masked man outside.
“Who... is this man?”
She asked in a trembling voice. Victor took off his leather gloves and said, “It’s been a long time.”
“Who is he?”
At her trembling voice, Victor gestured, and one of his men, Palin Redford, took off the man's mask. Seeing his face, Scarlett almost sat in shock, covering her mouth.
Victor grabbed her arm, pulled her forcefully to get up, and then sat her on the sofa. The man's face was covered in blood, but she recognized him.
The priest Delfio was from the monastery of Melin.
Victor spoke: “Several believers were killed, under the pretext of expelling demons.”
“The policemen asked for our help, so we caught him. When he saw me, he confessed everything about you.”
He smiled sarcastically and continued: “It seems that he thought I was arrested because of you.”
He turned around, went to the door, closed it, and locked the locks one by one. He said, “I checked the room you were in. It was worse than prison. Is that why you had a fever?”
“Yes... I told you I was sick.”
“You didn't tell me why you had a fever, or that you almost died.”
The sound of the metal lock mixed with his voice, and Scarlett felt anxious.
Victor approached and asked: “It never occurred to you to tell your husband?”
Scarlett's gaze strayed to the priest Delfio outside the door, then turned to the side.
Victor's mission was to eliminate pirates, which was not an appropriate task for a young officer leading a new unit. But he succeeded in it. The pirates surrendered to him like a tidal wave.
Perhaps Delfio confessed out of fear.
Scarlett opened her mouth with difficulty: “Yes, I didn’t.”
“Why?”
Victor asked again.
Scarlett remembered Gregory Domfelt, who forced her to hold a pen as she lay dying of fever.
His son's success was his own.
Once known for ruining the princess, he is now the father of a hero, enjoying high society as he wished from his youth. He made her sign a confidentiality agreement out of fear of his son. You couldn't break the agreement.
“You were the one who sent me to the monastery in the first place,” Scarlett said quietly.
Victor's face, even in the dark, frowned noticeably.
Scarlett saw, as she watched his expression change, that he was not entirely cruel.
Her ex-husband was cold. Scarlett thought she might have fallen in love with him because of the joy of escaping her miserable situation. Maybe she just loved his pretty face.
He was not a loving person.
His love was like giving the world's treasures to a dead person. He gets no response, and is only hurt. It was her fault for giving him what he didn't ask for, but is it so bad to hope for a little love between the couple?
Scarlett continued: “In those circumstances, what would I expect from you?”
“Is that why you asked for a divorce?”
Scarlett laughed and shook her head: “I loved you for the two years we lived together, but at the same time, I wanted a divorce. It was just a chance.”
There was silence.
Scarlett wanted to end the conversation, so she added: "Why now? It's over. You didn't ask about the reasons for the divorce then. If you had asked, I would have told you. Didn't you want a divorce too?"
“I wanted it?”
"Yes. I signed the divorce immediately. You wanted a divorce, didn't you?"
Before filing divorce papers, Scarlett prepared answers to any questions Victor might ask.
But he didn't ask anything. Although he knew about her illness, he did not ask about the nature of her illness.
Right when Victor signed the divorce, Scarlett laughed because she thought Gregory had spent money in vain.
Her husband was never interested in her, so why did his father force her to sign a confidentiality agreement for a large sum?
Victor remained silent, and the sound of the ticking of several clocks filled the place.
Moments later, he said, “I didn’t ask because you blamed me.”
“You...don't ask sometimes?”
“Of course, you're the only one interrupting me.”
His words sounded a little joking, and Scarlett eased her tension. But he continued: “Was my father involved?”
Scarlett flinched and looked at him, and he added, “Melline Abbey is five hours away from the Domfelts. If my father sent you to such a deranged sadist, he must have known something.”
Scarlett held out her trembling hands and said, “You...”
Victor interrupted her: “Did I send you to the monastery to die?”
“You knew your father hated me.”
“So, is this all my fault?”
"Yes, your fault. It's all your fault."
Scarlett accused him with cold firmness. She had no choice, she had to abide by the confidentiality agreement.
Victor looked at her without words, then turned around and opened the door.
Scarlett automatically got up to follow him, so Balin asked from outside: “Mr. Commander, what should we do with him?”
“He is executed. He was killed and escaped.”
At the word “to be executed,” the priest Delfio began to struggle desperately.
Palin Redford tried to put the mask back on him, but Delfio got up to escape. Despite his large size, Balin grabbed his neck with one hand and pressed him to the ground.
Scarlett was astonished by the violence, quickly closed the curtain and sat down. Even after the sound of Delfio's gagged crying and the sound of the cart subsided, she couldn't move for a while.