“Are you charging me with something?”
“For years there was nothing going on at Hallow Hall, and then you arrive, and the men in charge are either missing or dead.”
“As far as I’m aware, one tragically took his own life, maybe because of the fucked-up shit they’d been doing up there, and that spooked the other two. They ran away, scared of answering for their crimes.” I slipped my hands behind my head and stretched my back. The interrogation room at the small station that Margoni had brought me to wasn’t the most comfortable place.
“That’s a bit too convenient for me,” Margoni said.
“Sure, now you hate convenience, but turning the other way for decades was fine,” I muttered, and tutted at him. “Shame on you, Detective.”
He narrowed his eyes at me. “Whether you have anything to do with the death and disappearances and fire or not, you were still there pretending to be a man of the cloth to fool the patients. We don’t take that lightly here.”
“So charge me with something,” I dared him. I needed to get the fuck out of here, and the sooner they let me out of this room or moved me somewhere, the sooner I could escape.
“I don’t have to charge you with anything until you’ve been held for twenty-four hours.” He pushed back from the chair and stood. “So I’ll see you at the end of that time. Let me know if you want to talk.”
“Margoni! What about a phone call?” I shouted after him as he walked out. Anger and frustration welled up inside me. I had toleave and find Katarina now. Every minute that passed was another that she was with Blackwood. Why had she gone with him? What had he done to make her?
Dark fury like I’d never known filled me as I sat and simmered in it. I’d find my little stray and kill everyone who had touched her. I’d kill everyone who had ever scared her or made her cry. I’d kill everyone who had looked at her wrong. I’d kill every single person involved in Hallow Hall Institute. They were already dead.
The thought that they might have already hurt her played on the edge of my mind, but I couldn’t face it right now. Compartmentalizing was how I’d survived as long as I had. Everything went into a box, only to be thought about when it was relevant. It was how I’d coped with all the things I’d seen and done. One box for what I’d found in a school in a war-torn land. Another for a fellow soldier dying in my arms, his legs blown off by a land mine, clutching a picture of his pregnant wife. Another for the last moments of all the marks I’d killed on contracts. Another for the terrible fear brewing inside me at the thought that I’d already failed to protect the one person I cared about.
Nope. That went into a box with the lid jammed on top. That particular worry would only waste my time when I had none to spare.
First, I’d find Katarina and make her safe and protected forever...
Then, they’d all pay.
Every single one.
28
KATARINA
Lucy left with Nina at her heels. I wandered around the fancy hotel suite, tried watching TV, and finally just sat at the window and stared out over the city.
It hadn’t changed much in the time I’d been away, yet at the same time, it looked completely different.
I’d missed so much. Three years. Three years of life lost to Hallow Hall. It felt like a nightmare I couldn’t wake up from. I’d spent three years half asleep, dreaming, confused; and when I was lucid, following orders, toeing the lines of monsters. I was bereft. I was angry. I was all the things I could feel, all at once.
I still found it hard to process that Vargas, Benedict, and Pavol were all dead. It seemed impossible. They’d grown so large and invincible in my mind, the knowledge that they’d actually died, and right in front of me, no less, was still processing.
Maybe one day I’d wake up and believe it. For now, it was too much to hope for. In a few short weeks, Massimo had come into my life and completely changed it.
Massimo. My heart raced at the thought of him. He was out there in the city somewhere. Searching for me? I hoped so.
What if he wasn’t? What if he felt his job was done here? What if he was hurt? He’d gone into the fire for Tatiana. He was angry. He was brave... He wasn’t as irredeemable as he thought he was. Just the thought that he might be lying somewhere unidentified in a hospital...
I couldn’t even stand to consider that idea. He had to come for me... he had to. We weren’t finished with our deal. At least, I hadn't delivered my part yet. Giving him my first everythings. He'd wanted so much more than I'd thought.
I could only hope he’d track me down. Everything between us felt unfinished. Meeting him had felt like a beginning, not an end.
All morning, my mind turned to him in a never-ending loop. I wondered where he was and what he was doing. Was he injured? Did he find Tatiana? Was she okay?
It was around lunchtime when the doorbell rang.
I jumped to my feet, hope hammering in my chest. Could it be him?
I rushed to the door and put my eye to the peephole.