Chapter 40 Katarina
KATARINA
Iate dinner with Tatiana and then was forced to go back to my room while a staff member took her away. I was in my room for two minutes before I tried to open the door, only to find it locked.
My brain felt overwhelmed with all the information that had been dumped in it today, with finding out about Sergei, and Tatiana.
I didn’t know how to process it all. I kept raising my hand to my neck, searching for my necklace that wasn’t there. I missed it.
I flopped down on my bed and stared at the ceiling. Above all, I missed him. Massimo. My devil. I’d been rash and impulsive, and grieving, sure . . . but I’d made a mistake.
Thoughts of my mother pressed in now that I was alone.
I was still processing her death, but oddly, it didn’t hurt as much as it had earlier.
The years of separation had numbed my feelings about her.
The resentment and bitterness, wrapped up with love, had grown twisted in my mind.
I’d loved her but I’d also hated her for allowing them to put me in Hallow Hall.
I’d missed her, but I’d resented the fact that she had listened to my depressed request to stop visiting me.
And now she was gone, and we’d never be able to fix things.
It would always be left unfinished. But then, wasn’t life often like that?
Messy and complicated and not at all like you wished it would be?
Wasn’t love like that? My love for Massimo was no different.
Messy and complicated . . . but none of that made it any less real.
A tear fell, followed by another one, and another. That frozen feeling in my chest loosened more and more with every passing moment. The shock had worn off, and there was only sadness left.
I let myself cry there, in the house of the man who called me his daughter. Just when I’d lost my last relative, two new ones had appeared. It was disorienting. I’d wanted a family for so long, and this was how that simple prayer was answered?
A scraping sound from the door sent me to my feet. Was Sergei back already? The lock turned, and the door swung open.
I stared and stared. It wasn’t Sergei. It wasn’t his fiancée, Rada, or anyone I expected to see.
“Shut your mouth, Katarina, or you’ll catch flies in there,” Sister Vera said, stepping into the room and shutting the door behind her.
I backed away, putting the bed between us.
“What are you doing here?”
“Surprised to see me?” Sister Vera asked, a smile playing around her lips.
“Just disappointed. I thought that maybe you’d died in the fire. I was planning your memorial and everything.”
“Hmm, I’m sure you’d have said lovely things to remember me by,” Vera snapped, as easily riled as always.
She smoothed her expression and stared me up and down.
“I see you haven’t changed into the clothes that the director filled your wardrobe with.
I told him it was a waste, but he is determined to spoil his eldest daughter. ”
“Sister—”
“It’s just Vera now, no need to keep up the pretense. I haven’t worked for the Church for a long time.”
If Vera was dropping her mask of piety, it didn’t seem like anything good was about to happen.
“I see. So, why are you here?”
“Well, now that Hallow Hall is no longer—until it’s rebuilt—Sergei needed a hand with Tatiana. She can’t be allowed to run free around here, and Rada wouldn’t know how to properly discipline a child if her life depended on it.”
Her dislike of Rada was clear in her tone. Dislike and something else . . . envy.
“I can look after Tatiana. I’m here now.”
Vera chuckled. “Very funny. To think that you could look after anyone. You’re crazy, Katarina, don’t forget.”
“I’m not crazy.”
“Don’t forget that I know you. I’ve been there with you for three years. I know you.”
“No you don’t. I’m not the girl in Hallow Hall who you can drug up and abuse anymore.” Heat and anger rose in my chest and spilled out in my words.
“Are you sure about that?” Vera gestured around her. “This looks like being locked up to me.”
Tension filled me, a heavy weight that didn’t seem to move from my chest. I knew what I needed to ask but felt my courage failing me. But I needed to know, for Tatiana’s sake as well as my own.
“Sergei told me he doesn’t know about all the things that go on at Hallow Hall. Like what happened to Mira.” I watched Vera carefully. “Is that true?”
Vera sighed and sat on the edge of my bed. I had to fight my instincts not to push her off. She eyed me up and down again, her expression scathing.
“What does your angel inside your head tell you?” she mocked.
Right. Of course Sergei was involved. He was profiting off it all.
I’d long expected that the company paying the bills for Hallow Hall had been the one running the trafficking operation.
Not to mention the conversation I’d overheard in the hallway between Benedict and Sergei, before Benedict had met his untimely demise thanks to Massimo.
“It tells me . . . that Sergei and everyone associated with Hallow Hall are sinners. And they need to pay,” I said evenly, turning to grip the sideboard sitting just under the window. I needed that hard surface to hold me up. To give me strength for what needed to be done.
“Sinners? People like you aren’t qualified to call me a sinner,” Vera sneered, and got to her feet. “Anyway, I’ve wasted enough time here with you. I have Tatiana to mold in my image. I don’t believe in sparing the rod when rearing a child. I’ll finally get to teach that little brat how to act.”
“No, I don’t think that you will.”
I sensed Vera moving closer in an attempt to hear me. She’d come here for a purpose, and she wanted to gloat and get my reaction. After all our time together in Hallow Hall, it was personal to her.
“I don’t think you’ll be around to teach her a single thing,” I murmured, and then swung around.
The Bible in my hand was a hardback and thick. I put everything into that spin. All the fear and disappointment and regret of three years of imprisonment. I slammed the book into the side of Vera’s face, and she spun around with the impact.
She went down hard, and I was already standing over her. I grabbed her by the hair as she flailed around on the floor and hefted the book again, beating her face with the spine, again and again, until blood dripped onto the carpet. Her nose smashed in, and then her eye.
She let out a gurgling noise. I dropped her bloody head and staggered back, panting. I could barely breathe. The sudden burst of exertion and the anger, thick and suffocating, made my heart pound and my head feel light.
She rolled away from me on the floor, curling in to protect herself. But there was no protection from the karma she had earned.
I drew my foot back and kicked her in her middle once, and then twice.
All the times she’d maliciously dragged me to my BS therapy sessions to be abused and exploited.
All the times she’d locked me in solitary.
All the times she’d smiled when a patient begged her for help, before sending them away.
All the times she’s sniped at Tatiana just for being a sweet little girl and punished her for no reason at all.
“The angel in my head doesn’t exist, Sister, there was only ever me.” I sighed and crouched near her head.
Her face was a bloody mask. I was shocked and intrigued at the same time. After years of inaction, years of torment and feeling powerless, I felt free.
“You reap what you sow. You are going to understand that tonight . . . and so is Sergei.”
She gaped blearily at me. “You didn’t come here to let your father take care of you?”
I laughed. It was funny, really. I shook my head.
“That man isn’t anyone to me. I don’t know him.
. . But I know what he’s done. I came here for Tatiana, and thanks to you, I’ll be going to get her now.
” I fished the set of keys out of Vera’s pocket and dangled them in the air before her.
“Thank you for your help, Sister.” I straightened up and stepped back.
A quick check in the mirror showed me I was a little bloodied, but nothing too drastic.
I made for the door, unlocking it and listening carefully before opening it.
The hallway was empty. I seemed to be in one of the turrets, since there was a perilous, winding staircase to my room that didn’t go anywhere else. Sergei gets his daughter home and locks her in the tower. That seemed on-brand for him.
I reached the top of the stairs and peered down. It was quiet below, and I couldn’t see anyone moving.
I’d just taken the first step when a rough grunt hit my ears. I twisted in time to see Vera barreling toward me.
“You don’t get to win!” she roared at me, or tried to, through a mouthful of crushed teeth.
I didn’t stop to think, I just acted. She went for my middle, and I spun around, throwing myself against the wall. She brushed past me, her momentum carrying her toward the steep stairs. Only one of her hands reached out and snagged my sweater, threatening to pull me with her.
We both came to a stop. I was pressed to the wall, bracing both our weights. She hung by that handful of fabric.
Her eyes met mine, and I saw her fear, and she must have seen my resolve, because her lip trembled and she shook her head slightly.
“Enjoy hell,” I whispered, slowly prying her hand from my dress.
As soon as it was free, she started to fall.
She didn’t have a good enough position on the stairs to stop herself. The shove I gave to her middle didn’t help, either. One second she was staring at me, her face a crimson mess of exposed bone and twisted cartilage, and the next, she was gone.
She fell hard, building speed as she went. The stairs were dangerous, relics of a time before health and safety regulations. She landed halfway down with a hard crack, her neck’s broken angle clear to see, even from where I stood.