Sergei frowned at me. “Why not? Hallow Hall is the ideal place to keep a young girl and woman untouched by the foulness of society. She could grow up there with her immortal soul intact and her purity untainted. As my daughters, your safety was of the upmost concern to all who worked in Hallow Hall.”
“Her purity? She’s six.”
Sergei shrugged. “And yet, there are men who would seek to soil her body with their own sick desires.”
“Your business partners, perhaps?” I shot out.
Silence fell around the room.
Sergei frowned at me. “What are you implying, Katarina?”
I swallowed a knot of fear and anger. “Nothing. Just wondering how old Rada is?”
Sergei scoffed and shook his head. “That’s none of your concern. I’m starting to get worried that you lost your sense of decorum during your stay at Hallow Hall. I trusted Vargas to provide for your spiritual and emotional education, but... I’m wondering if he was lacking.”
“He certainly didn’t lack the evil to cut babies out of pregnant teens and harvest their organs,” I spit, standing. Suddenly, I couldn’t take being in the same room as this man.
“What are you talking about?” Sergei demanded.
“Are you honestly going to try and tell me you don’t know what went on at Hallow Hall? You don’t know what they were doing to their patients?”
Sergei shook his head, concern clouding his face.
“What’s she talking about?” Rada said, sounding worried.
“I don’t know, sweetness. I don’t know.”
He moved closer and reached out a hand to touch me, but I pulled back.
“Katarina, if you felt there was something wrong at the institute, why didn’t you say something?”
I opened my mouth to protest. To explain why I couldn’t sound the alarm on the whole operation, but all my words sounded like excuses.
“It’s not that simple. They were all in on it, and I have no way to know that you weren’t, too,” I said, and wrapped my arms around my middle. “I want to see Tatiana.”
Sergei nodded. “Of course, right away.” He gestured to one of his men in the corner, then reached out and touched my arm. “Please, daughter, believe that I mean you no harm. I’ve only ever tried to protect you from the world. When your mother passed,God rest her soul, I knew you needed to stay in Hallow Hall longer, to be safe.”
I just stared at him.
He sighed. “You don’t believe me? Your mother was the one who wanted you admitted in the first place. She’d heard rumors of loose behavior, and she was worried.”
“How easy it is to blame the dead,” I murmured. I knew well enough the sins my mother had committed against me. I didn’t need this guy trying to control our story.
Sergei nodded again. “I know, she isn’t here to defend herself, sadly, but she was just worried. She wanted you to get better from the voices you were hearing in your head.”
I shook my head, not trusting myself to speak. The past was a tangled forest, dark and dense and easy to get lost in. I couldn’t sort through those twisted branches. I didn’t know which way to cut. I had no place to start from.
“I don’t hear anyone in my head,” I ground out. Fucking Ivan had been drugging me. The voices had never been real. I didn’t feel like sharing that particular violation with Sergei night now.
“Then it worked. Your mother would be so happy to know that.” Sergei reached out to pat my hand.
I drew it back out of reach.
“Kat?” A small voice tugged at me from the right.
Tatiana stood in the doorway. I pushed away the fear and anger crowding my throat and coloring my words and reached for her.
“Tatiana, come here,” I called to her.