34. Ties

                                    

                                          
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"-and the results?"
The wind is howling over the graveyard, as the setting sun falls over the cloudy sky. It's usually pretty warm and calm at this graveyard. Veronica and Vera requested a quiet spot for their father, and now Veronica herself rests in the same place. But today it's windy, dark and cold. Vera stands alone over their graves, a phone in her hand. She's had a lot of time to think by herself. She's finally come to terms with what happened. Kind of.
"Poisoning, ma'am. Although it is quite easy to mistake for a whole group of diseases." The doctor on the other line of the phone is barely heard past the harsh wind. Vera looks at her sister's full name on her gravestone, and nods once. "The same poison for the both of them? Which one?" She requested a second opinion on her sister's and father's autopsy results, and just as she expected, the doctors hadn't given her the full picture.
They had told her it was a disease that killed them both. They even made her go through checkups every few months to make sure she wouldn't die of it too. Now Vera wonders whether they really thought it was a disease, or whether they were paid by Darian. She paid the doctors a lot, but Darian Elsi has a lot more money than she does. He owns the company that should actually be hers, after all.
The doctor flips through some papers on the other line. He hums solemnly. "Red Rat's Tongue is what it's commonly called. Both reports show the same results."
Vera looks up at the sky. The clouds are getting darker and the wind is getting stronger. It might rain soon. A good, harsh summer storm. Just what she needs. She sighs, and lowers the phone from her ear.
"Send me the results via my secretary."
Vera ends the call, and lets silence fill the loud outside air. Far away from the grave on the dirt road leading up to the graveyard stands her black car, driver and bodyguard. They are apparently expecting rain, because both of them are standing outside the car, smoking while holding black umbrellas with her company logo on them. The smoke from their cigarettes rises up to the sky, and then flows away with the wind.
Their quiet, mumbled talk is different from their previous slightly louder, more expressive conversations. They know that she's acting differently. That she isn't herself right now. They can sense it, and if they can, so can everybody else. She needs to act more like Elena. Be colder, more expressionless. Because this world is a dangerous place. A place where dangerous people smell fear and blood and come running towards you like they've got nothing to lose.
The whole world wants to swallow her up, but she's not going to let them. She is one step ahead now, and she has to use that to be able to win.
"I know revenge isn't fulfilling."
Vera stares at her father's grave, talking to it as if he can hear. Her voice is drowned out by the wind, and the graveyard is empty aside from herself, so she doesn't really care. Vera smiles a bit to herself. "That's what I've been telling Elena this whole time." Revenge isn't worth it. It's never worth it. You must always do something with a real goal in mind.
Elena has always wanted revenge on her stepmother and brothers. But Vera has always told her that revenge isn't worth it. If she must get revenge, then do it with another goal in mind. Like becoming chairwoman, taking that away from the brothers who think it's their birthright simply for being male. Take it from them. Humiliate them. Make them understand, physically, what Elena is capable of. That is good, productive revenge, because revenge on its own isn't satisfying. It isn't fulfilling. It will never be enough.
Vera knows this, and so she'll act accordingly. With a real goal in mind, a goal that she'll reach through revenge.
"But I'll give you your revenge anyway, because he took his life from you and deserves to pay for it."