Arthav came back to the hall.
His mother came from behind and grabbed him by the arm.
She pulled him to the corner of the hallway.
“Have you lost your mind?” Kiara hissed.
“Why did you hit him?”
Arthav calmly pulled his arm away from her grip.
“He disrespected my wife.” His eyes turned cold.
“What do you expect that I watch in silence?”
“Damian will never forget this humiliation,” Kiara snapped.
“We need him if we want the empire back.”
“We don’t need him.” Arthav’s voice hardened.
“His father is the syndicate member. Damian is nothing but a spoiled dog hiding behind his father’s name.”
Kiara narrowed her eyes.
“And after tonight, you still think his father will be on our side.”
“His father is a sensible person, and he is smart enough to know what kind of son he raised.”
Arthav exhaled slowly.
“You don’t need to worry about Damian,” he said.
“I’ll handle him.”
“What does she expect, that she will walk around wearing a dress like this and nobody will comment on her, like at a party full of gangsters?”
“She was looking like a slu—
“Ma.”
Arthav’s voice sliced through the silence of the hallway
“Mind your words,” he said quietly.
“When you speak about my wife.”
Kiara was stunned by his reply; she looked at him like he was possessed by a ghost.
Her face went dark.
“Did you just yell at me? to your mother. How dare you. You little boy.”
Arthav said nothing.
“Do you think you suddenly have power now?” she hissed.
“Power enough to stand before your mother.”
She grabbed his jaw harshly and forced him to look at her.
Her nails dug into his skin slightly.
“Everything you are exists because of me.”
“Listen to me carefully. Either you take my revenge on that girl, or else I will.”
Arthav slowly removed her hand from his face.
“And everything you taught me,” he said quietly, “is exactly why I won’t stand silently while someone insults my wife.”
********
Half an hour later, Reiha stepped out of the study; Arthav’s blazer still rested on her shoulders.
The hall was empty; the guests have already left the party.
Few servants were cleaning the hall.
Reiha inhaled deeply and went outside into the garden to take some fresh air to keep her mind clear from the earlier incident that happened between him and her.
Her feet wandered onto the stone path slit through the garden.
She stopped before the rose bush; the silver moonlight fell on it, making the leaves slightly grayish.
Two thick green rose vines were coming out from down the bush, and they looked very strange.
Those heavy, strange vines had wrapped themselves around the iron garden lamp tightly and were making it rustic.
Long porcupine thorns were growing out from the vines.
Reiha was very strange to see that long and thick thing with thorns coming out of the rose plant.
She looked around at the other rose plants.
They all appeared normal, with medium-sized thorns and thin vines—nothing like this strange, evil-looking bush.
“They maintain the entire mansion, yet somehow this part of the garden was neglected,” Reiha thought as she looked at the overgrown rose bushes that desperately needed pruning.
She lifted her hand slowly and brushed her fingertips lightly on the rose petals.
She frowned faintly.
“And the petals feel rough.”
A twig snapped.
Reiha craned her neck and saw Arthav sitting on the iron bench alone at the end of the stone path in the garden.
Reiha watched him in silence from the distance.
The exhaustion clearly rested on his face.
The moonlight fell on his lips and made it look softer.
He held a cigarette loosely between his fingers, but he wasn’t smoking it.
It simply burned in silence, and ash fell onto the ground beside his feet.
Arthav felt a presence nearby and quickly lifted his head toward her.
Reiha panicked at being seen by him.
“He might think that I followed him here into the garden.” She turned suddenly, but her hand accidentally brushed against the rose thorns.
“Ah—!”
She flinched sharply as one of the thick thorns with a long needle tip pierced deeply into her palm.
She pulled her hand away, but the thorn had already dug into her skin.
A few drops of blood fell onto the stone pathway, and a few drops fell on the soil, which was instantly soaked by the ground without even getting noticed by anyone.
She put pressure with her thumb against the wound and clenched her injured palm tightly to stop the bleeding and hurried back inside.
Arthav looked at her with a pained eye and walked towards her quickly, but by the time he reached her, she had already moved inside.
Arthav looked at the ground; the drop of blood on the stone pathway was still there.
Then he looked at the rosebush.
And narrowed his eyes, his fist clenched into a fist.
He exhaled deeply and walked towards the shed.
He came out from the shed holding a can of gasoline in his hand.
He poured it over the rose bush and walked a few steps back and stood in silence and stared at the bush with smoldering eyes.
He looked down at his pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes from his pocket.
Resting a cigarette on his lips, he lit the lighter.
He took a few puffs from it and threw it on the bush.
Within minutes, the fire spread rapidly through the poison-soaked vines, climbing from branch to branch until it reached the entire rose bush.
Arthav stood there watching it burn with his hand in his pocket.