Chapter 19 Katarina
KATARINA
They cleared out Vargas’s office. What kinds of incriminating evidence did they have in those boxes? I wished I could comb through it. Details about their victims? A record of the patients who had “died” in childbirth and whose children had been “stillborn”?
I itched to get my hands on it but was powerless. Instead, I watched them carry those precious boxes outside.
“What do you think?” Tatiana asked me. She was drawing again. Another day and another landscape.
Tatiana had been born here, in Hallow Hall. Alonso had once mused that she had to be the daughter of one of the higher-ups around here . . . because there were no other children.
Just the idea had been terrifying. That would mean that the powers that be at Hallow Hall actually thought the environment worthy for bringing up their own secret love child.
I absently wondered whose daughter she might be as she frowned down at her picture, her features locked in fierce concentration.
Benedict’s daughter? Maybe Pavol’s? She might have been Vargas’s, but I didn’t like to consider that, as it would mean she was currently sitting next to her father’s killer.
But once Massimo does his job, won’t it be the case regardless?
That was true. If I had my way, all three of the powerful men at Hallow Hall would be dead soon. I couldn’t bring myself to be sad about it. Tatiana and all young women would be safer once those men were gone from the world.
I checked the clock and noted it was time for my session with Benedict. I hadn’t seen him in days. Pavol was flitting around here and there, his appearance increasingly awful. Benedict was a mystery. I decided to head there before Sister Vera came and reminded me.
I wandered toward Benedict’s office and abruptly stopped when I saw the horde of men in black suits in the hallway outside.
Before I could back away, the door to Benedict’s office opened.
“I swear, nothing is out of control. The testing is coming along perfectly.”
“You seem erratic, Benedict. You need to get a grip. If you’re going to take over Michal’s responsibilities, you need to step up and get your head on straight.”
Benedict’s face was ruddy in some spots and pale in others. He looked a mess. Worse than Pavol, honestly, which was really saying something.
“How’s the new serum coming along?” The director was there—what had he said his name was? Sergei, that was it.
“Very well, I’m in the last stage of testing.”
Sergei sighed. “And yet . . . you’re behind on all your other performance indicators; don’t think I haven’t noticed. Now that you’re shorthanded, isn’t it only going to get worse?”
“We have Father Lucciano to pick up some slack—” Benedict was saying to Sergei, before the latter turned to see me approaching.
Shit. Was Benedict about to talk to Sergei about Massimo?
Stop him, now!
The voice in my head had been quiet for a good while.
Her sudden cry sent me hurrying toward the two men.
I wasn’t exactly sure why it felt vitally important to help Massimo cover up his presence here, but suddenly nothing mattered more.
He hadn’t explicitly explained his cover here to me, but I could guess that he didn’t want word spread about his presence.
“Director!” I unearthed my voice to call out.
All heads in the hallway, Benedict’s and the five or so security guys’, snapped to me.
Suddenly, I faltered. Shit, what am I going to say?
But Director Sergei watched me, his conversation with Benedict forgotten, which was all that mattered.
I slowed as I reached them.
“I—hi. I don’t know if you remember me,” I rushed out.
Sergei nodded slowly. “Miss Dmitrova. Katarina, yes?”
“Yes,” I confirmed.
“How can I help you, child?”
“I-I just wanted to say hi,” I managed to get out. What the hell?
Benedict glared at me, and an assessing look crossed Sergei’s face as he considered me.
“You offered to let me have dinner with you last time. I’d love to do that if the offer still stands,” I rambled. Great, now I was basically inviting myself to dinner with the director of Centrium Group for no reason. Oh well, let him think I was crazy. That was why I was here anyway.
Sergei watched me for a long while and then turned to Benedict.
“This young woman seems confused and worried. Is that the state you usually keep your patients in? Is that the state you usually keep this patient in?” he asked carefully.
Before I could wonder what the hell he was talking about, he turned back to me.
“Alas, today I am moving on quickly. I appreciate you might be unsettled by the recent events here, but don’t worry, Katarina, you are safe here. It is the safest place for you.”
I wasn’t sure what to say to that, so I just nodded.
“Father Benedict will make you feel better. Trust in him and his therapies and medicines. I am a man who believes in the power of medications and prayer.”
“Okay,” I murmured, nodding to make it seem like I was interested in what he was saying.
“I will see you again the next time I visit, child, and we will have that dinner,” Sergei said, and patted me on the hand.
I fought the urge to recoil. There was something unsettling about the man. I instinctively disliked him.
“Sure, sounds fun,” I said.
He gave me a tight smile and addressed Benedict. “I leave her in your hands, Father. Do not disappoint me.”
Then he was striding off, and Benedict clamped his hand on my arm.
“What are you doing here?” he asked. Up close, he looked even worse than he had only a week ago. His eyes were bloodshot, his comb-over unkempt. His robes were stained with food in places, and he smelled bad. Sour, like old wine.
“Come into my office,” he hissed at me and pulled me roughly through the door, letting it slam behind us.
He threw me down into the chair in front of his desk, then walked to his own. Nerves prickled up my arms as I gripped the chair and watched him warily.
“‘Don’t disappoint me,’ he says. What a fucking joke,” Benedict muttered.
I’d never heard him speak in anger or swear. He seemed to be unraveling.
He started to mess with some white tablets, and my stomach dropped. Was he going to give me my medication himself? Shit.
“Isn’t Father Lucciano coming to the session?”
“What?” Benedict’s head snapped up. “Why do you ask?”
“Just because he said he was coming . . . and he’s been overseeing my medication,” I reminded him faintly.
Benedict’s eyes stared deep into mine, and a rush of unease went through me. Crap. The good father really wasn’t feeling like himself. He was volatile and dangerous.
I wished Massimo was here. Suddenly, I was afraid.
“And? I’m the head of Hallow Hall, as of a few days ago, when some people decided they couldn’t handle the responsibility.
I don’t need anyone interfering with my patients.
” Benedict’s eyebrows drew together. “Come to think of it, all the problems started when Father Lucciano came here. Everything was fine before. Then that man arrived, and now everything is falling apart.”
He glanced around, a wild look in his eyes. He jerked open a drawer and pulled out a bottle and syringe.
Fuck.
“What did Pavol say you called Lucciano when you first met him?” Benedict rambled. “Lucifer?” He chuckled. “Maybe you were right on the money, Katarina. Let’s test that hypothesis.”
“Father, I think you should call Pavol or Massimo. You don’t seem well,” I said, trying to calm him.
His eyes widened as he processed my words.
“Massimo?” he repeated.
Oh no. I’d slipped up and called him Massimo.
Benedict stood abruptly, his chair screeching hard against the tiles. He dropped the bottle into his pocket, as well as the capped syringe, and went back to rooting around his drawer.
My heart hardly had time to calm before he took something else from the drawer.
A gun.
I stared at it in disbelief. Sure—was a gun really that surprising considering Benedict was a man who trafficked babies and sold organs on the black market? Not really. And yet, and yet . . . I was still shocked to see the weapon clutched in his hand.
“I think it’s time to test Father Lucciano’s allegiance.”
My heart seemed to jump to my mouth when he pointed the gun at me. “Get up. Now. You’re coming with me.”
Benedict marched me through the infirmary wing of the institute, and we didn’t see a single soul. Not that anyone could have helped me except for Massimo, and he was nowhere to be seen.
We neared one of the operating rooms, and I came to a stop.
“Go on, go in.”
I shook my head. I had a terrible foreboding that if I went into that room, I’d never come out.
The gun pressed into my back, and Benedict spoke in my ear.
“Now. Or die right here.”
Vargas had told me that I was off-limits and that was why they hadn’t just gotten rid of me. And I’d believed him, because why else would they have kept me here alive for so long? But Benedict wasn’t acting like himself. I had no idea what to expect.
“Father!” a surprised voice said behind us.
Sister Vera. If there was anyone who wouldn’t help me here, it was her.
“Bring Father Lucciano, now,” Benedict snapped at the nun.
Whether or not she could see the gun pressed into my back, considering Benedict’s robes, I had no idea, but she scurried off anyway, presumably to follow his orders.
“Let’s see who Father Lucciano really is,” Benedict said, and pushed me toward the doors.
This time, I let him.
Massimo was coming.