Half-step Purgatory

Durin stroked the black cat on the armrest of his chair, sitting on the black leather sofa. Through the glasses perched on his nose, his gaze passed over the long table in front of him and settled on the man kneeling on the carpet:
"I understand, you've made money in Naples, your business has been very successful, and you've led a happy life. You've had those secret police, friends in both the law and the underground, and even the Royal Family speaking on your behalf."
"You don't need a friend like me, I know that. You're afraid of owing me a favor, and you don't want to get involved in troubles."
"But now you come to me and say, 'I beg you, Mr. Durin of the Corleon family, please help me seek justice, so that my life and my family will not suffer and sink into despair.'
Yet, in your eyes, I was nothing more than a second-rate artist involved in movies and music. Even at the brink of death, you still show me such disrespect, not even willing to call me by my title... Keeper of Secrets."

Durin's Diary

Other girls may not know, but Anta truly understood what Durin was thinking; in her eyes, Durin's worries were utterly irrational.


"Natalia is still so young, and yet you are already contemplating her future ten years down the road," Anta said as she combed Durin's hair, trying to console him, "You are like an old mother, stubbornly protecting every child in the household, but the problem is Natalia is already five years old, she is exploring the world."


Durin slumped in the armchair, gazing at the candlelight on the wall, and sighed, "Father is gone, and mother might remarry at any time. In recent years, I've relocated my brother away from Farol, binding him firmly to the Austria-Switzerland chair. Do you know why? I don't want the last man of the Corleone family to die in the vortex of power."


Chapter 258: Quagmire