A high heel and a beige fitted coat, long eyelashes and red lipstick — for her forty, Catherine looked not only good, but great. Actually, she could not have otherwise. Spectacular wife was an integral part of the image of her husband.

With a confident step, Catherine walked out of the porch into the April coolness - and came face to face with a tall middle-aged man waiting for someone at the door of her house.

“Good afternoon,” Catherine greeted her politely. She did not recall this man among her neighbors, and for some reason she was anxious - not altogether anxious.

“To whom is kind,” the man grinned into a graying mustache, “And to whom it is not very, Elena Petrovna.”

He spoke this foreign name with pressure, and, hearing him, Catherine jerked as if from a blow. More than anything, she wanted to return to the porch, slam the door - and with the slam of the door a grinning face disappeared forever, disappeared, like a dream ... Now Catherine recognized this person. Then he, of course, was much younger, but some features are not erased by time.

- What do you need from me? The woman asked coldly, trying for some reason to hide her horror.

- Well, you can, for example, revive my sister.

- I can not. But I can call the police.

Hearing this helpless threat, the interlocutor laughed an unpleasant crooning laugh.

- So call faster, Lena! What are you waiting for? This will be the best news headline of the year.

From this, indeed, a good headline would come out, Catherine had no doubt about that. People love dill. And beautiful women. And so dill with beautiful women ...

- Why now? She asked only.

“Can't you guess by yourself?”

- Elections? But ... are you anyone whose enemy is mine or Andrew?

- Yours, Helen. Your. Marriage is, you know, not an empty sound. Although wait ... let me guess: your hubby is not aware of some pieces of your biography and does not know about the complete set of your enemies?

Filling with paint, Catherine nodded - and immediately hated herself for that rash nod, making her even more vulnerable (if it was much more).

- Where are you now? - the man asked in an everyday tone.

- To the hairdresser.

The man looked at Catherine with an appraising look.

- No need. Your hair and so in perfect order. Come with me.

- Where?

- Find out.

- And if I do not go?

“Right today, one lovely lady will have the day of the revealed cards, for which she, it seems, is not quite ready.

Catherine knew this man and had no doubt that he was not bluffing.

- Ok, I'll go.

He walked over to the car waiting at the entrance and, with mocking gallantry, opened the door in front of Catherine. Not resisting, she went. They both sat in the backseat, and the car began to move smoothly.

The asphalt rustled softly under the wheels, the megalopolis rushed past - and Catherine was silent, and in her head instead of thoughts a thick unpleasant fog swayed. She had no idea where she was being taken - but it was no use calling the police or throwing a text message to her friend. About her husband and out of the question. Although ... Making her way through the fog, memories of her wedding — roses, champagne, white laces, funny pigeons with carefree eye beads — stirred in her head ... "I had no right." What was she thinking about then? About love. Oh happiness. The fact that with a new passport in a new city begins a new life. But it does not begin ... If you believe in the transmigration of souls, then only death can give you a new life. And if you do not believe, then there can be no new life at all.

- Why do you need all this, Karim? - Catherine asked quietly and colorless.

“Do you really want to discuss the concept of revenge one more time?”

- But to me, why do you avenge me? I did not kill!

- Indeed, only the notes dragged, that such and such! - Karim laughed. “Explain it to your husband’s voters now.”

They do not explain - Catherine knew. She, of course, was not guilty of anything, and there was no blood on her hands. But the wife of politics is the same as Caesar's wife! - should be above suspicion. The above arguments about the guilt or innocence of the daughter of the offender; a teenager carrying notes of unknown content — it will open only later, later ... When hell happens on Earth and takes this teenager for himself.

- I will not explain them. But you, why should you torment me? I didn't kill anyone. You killed my mother in front of me.

“She was a gangster whore and died like a gangster whore.”

- She was a mom! My mom! - Catherine cried, and tears still came out in front of her eyes, blurring neat eyeliner.

The car stopped. The metropolis is over, and around was boron. The air was fresh and fragrant.

- Get out, - Karim pushed Catherine in the chest, and she, not long in coming, got out.

- What do you think, gangster daughter, will we kill you here and now or not?

Catherine breathed deeply in the scent of spring pine needles, as if whispering about the endless future and a new life. Some ptahi chattering in the pine branches carelessly.

- To be honest, I do not care.

This was not an honest answer, and Karim knew this.

- Let's go talk?

- As you say, - Catherine indifferently shrugged. The traitorous haze before her eyes was in no hurry to dissipate - it is not every day that your past catches up with you, leaving smoking ruins from your organized and successful life. Catherine's head was spinning, and she had to lean on Karim’s veiny arm.

- Well, well, only ladies' fainting was not enough! - he growled. But Catherine herself was not a lover of women's syncope.

The driver of the car followed them in a few steps - a man-closet with an impenetrable face and a short haircut.

- You asked what I want from you. And you? What do you want now?

“So that you will not be in my life, nor in anyone else,” Catherine replied with cold confidence.

- That I was not! - evil burst out laughing Karim, - Well, your papa knew how to deal with this well, right? So that this time - and there was no man ... What a shame that we fed your daddy fish!

Catherine's father, Petya the Swordsman, kept the Visoyansky district not kindly, not humanly - and when the hour passed, the mob law over him also went out not very good. The eldest son died when they stormed the house - but they took the Metnik itself with their wife and daughter alive. Two days later, the Swordsman died and the mutilated body was thrown into the river. Fourteen-year-old Lena screamed then that she, too, would drown everyone - only alive. And sometimes pulling out to suffer longer. But these were just words, and a cold dark basement, and hunger, and daily violence became a new reality for Lena and her mother. Two years later, my mother was killed, and a year later Lena was able to escape.

- I do not deny that I am the daughter of Petya the Sweeper. And it is quite possible that he really killed your sister and other relatives. But I - I am not him! I have a completely different life, family, daughter ... When I was screaming then, a girl, about revenge - I was not myself. But you know ... your sister certainly did not deserve to die - but you, you deserve everything that I screamed about then ...

- Eck you suffered something. Tired of listening, let's get down to business. It will be very interesting for the numerous voters of your husband to find out that he is married to the daughter of the notorious Visoyansky Mechnik, but you, I suppose, would prefer not to betray the public. So?

- So.

“Then you will go with me now and you will do whatever you are told.”

- And what guarantees do I have that in this case silence is provided for me?

- Yes, no! - Karim spat on the road. - But if you artachitsya, here's my honest word to you: tomorrow everything will be in the newspapers and on the air. But no, it is still too early ... I think I can manage it ...