“Ah, so we’re dispensing with the formalities? How did you find out who I am?”
Blackwood shrugged. “I wasn’t sure until now. You fit the description, and Vargas—he was sure someone had put a hit out on him. That’s why his security was crazy, and he only let his guard down at the institute. He felt safe there.”
“Yes, he did, didn’t he? There in the place where so many young women should have felt safe... but weren’t. He fell for his own PR, I guess. On your knees.”
I jerked the gun down, showing Blackwood where I wanted him.
He sank slowly to the carpet and brought his hands up behind his head.
“You don’t have to do that,” I chuckled darkly. “This isn’t a holdup. There’s no way you’re leaving here alive. If you tried anything, you’d be dead before you could realize what had happened.”
Blackwood was quiet, letting his arms sag back to his sides.
“I have some questions that you will answer, if you want to die in the next hour. I am capable of making your death last all night, all week, all month. You understand?”
Blackwood nodded and blinked nervously.
“Why was Ivan Markovic so determined to marry Katarina? Even after all this time?” That fucking question had been weighing on me. It was all part of Katarina’s mysterious story and why she had been relatively untouched in Hallow Hall compared to others.
“Ivan Markovic. He’s my—he was my friend from school,” Blackwood said, his voice heavy. “Father Vargas’s nephew.”
I sat back and let that sink in. “So, why marry Kat? Was he obsessed with her?” That was something I could easily understand.
Blackwood shook his head. “He didn’t even like her. He was ambitious, though, him and Vargas, and when they learned about Katarina and her mother, they planned how they were going to use them.”
“Use them for what?”
“To get rich and inherit everything.” Blackwood looked up at me. “Katarina wasn’t an ordinary patient of Hallow Hall.”
“I noticed. Why wasn’t she?”
“She was special. Off limits. She was only supposed to be there temporarily, until Ivan could scare her into marrying him. But then she saw what happened to her friend, Mira... That was three years ago. Vargas convinced the director that Katarina was safer in Hallow Hall. That her soul would be saved from the vices of the modern world, and her body would remain pure and untouched. The director is quite paranoid about the state of the world... especially for his family. Once Katarina’s mother died, it wasn’t even in question. Katarina would only leave when the director was ready to have her married and looked after by a husband. She could never live alone and be exposed to sin.”
Blackwood laughed bitterly.
I went over the words that Blackwood had just thrown at me and seized on one particular phrase.
“For his family,” I repeated.
“Katarina is the director’s illegitimate daughter. Her and Tatiana.”
I stared at him. I’d been expecting something along those lines. There was no other explanation for her treatment there, though Pavol and Benedict had hardly left her untouched. I supposed that they thought her medication regimen was enough to keep her confused and not remembering.
“The director,” I repeated. “Sergei Stoyanov.”
Blackwood nodded resignedly.
“How did you come to work there?” I asked, leaning in to look at Blackwood’s face.
“Pavol recruited me. I interned with him when he was still practicing, before the trouble and accusations got his medical license revoked. I found out about the director and Katarina when I was working there. Ivan went out of his way to meet her after that. He thought she was his ticket to big money. He fancied himself boss of the Stoyanov family after Sergei died.”
I nodded. “Okay, fine.” I flipped the safety off the gun.
“Wait! Don’t you want to know more?” Blackwood glanced around frantically, searching for a way to extend his pathetic life.
“Not really.”
“The Stoyanov family doesn’t just run Hallow Hall,” Blackwood shot out.