I dragged my hurt hand across the floor toward me and cradled it.
“Who’s there at this hour?” Vargas called.
A muffled response that I couldn’t make out.
He swore again and turned to me.
“What am I going to do with you?” he muttered, and then pulled his satin fascia off, tying it around my head like a gag. He picked me up and dragged me toward a large wardrobe in the corner.
He stuffed me inside, banging my head off the side for good measure. Once I was sagging down in the bottom, he reached intoa pocket and drew out a rope, quickly tying my hands together. He was good at it. He’d clearly had practice.
“Not a sound, or when that fucker leaves, you’re dead, and your mother is, too. Don’t test me.”
He shut the doors, and his thudding footfalls drifted away toward the door to his apartment. We had to still be in Hallow Hall. I knew that Benedict, Pavol, and Vargas all kept rooms on the top floor; that had to be where we were. Was it the director?
I strained to see, leaning forward despite my aching ribs to peek through the empty keyhole. I could just about make out a patch of the room.
Deep voices spoke, muffled and far away. Dark figures slipped past where I could see. My head ached where Vargas had banged it off the side of the wardrobe, and the drowsiness of the sedative from before hung over me, slowly lowering back over my head like a cloud. I couldn’t keep my eyes open.
The soft murmur of male voices floated to me, but it was too late.
I lost the battle and fell into darkness.
9
MASSIMO
Waiting for a target to move into position was always tedious. Today, waiting for the high-and-mighty Michal Vargas to finally visit the institute had been especially mind-numbing.
I spent the day following up on my other jobs, and the most important thing: researching the steel mill in Castel Amaro, and Fabio Carrozzo, who, the story went, had ties to organized crime. I was no stranger to the Cosa Nostra, though I’d never swear allegiance to any one family. I worked for the highest bidder, and that was that.
Unraveling Fabio’s past seemed paramount to moving my search for my mother’s final resting place forward. If only the fucker hadn’t died so fast. I’m sure I could have tortured something useful out of him. The next questions I had were which family he’d been affiliated with and who else might have helped him organize my mother’s hospital stay. I had a dim memory of a logo on the letter the hospital had sent me with her final effects, but nothing else. Maybe they would remember more about it than he had.
I returned to Hallow Hall when all the festivitieshad died down. I couldn’t afford to be hanging around when the director was here. After all, I wasn’t who I was supposed to be, and the unholy trinity thought I was here at Centrium Group’s request. My cover story was flimsy but would hold long enough for me to get my job done. My business was with Vargas. After tonight, I’d have no reason to stay here in this cursed place.
Except for her.
Last night, holding Katarina Dmitrova as she’d cried her heart out on my lap was stuck in my memory. She was like the stray cats I fed whenever I found them. An unwanted creature. Just like me. Did she feel it, too? Was that why she’d sought comfort from me? Who turned to a devil for comfort? She was distracting.
I put all personal thoughts aside and prepared for work. I checked my bag for gloves, rope, a gag, sedative. All the tools to cover a few different scenarios, should things go sideways. Next, I tucked my loaded gun into a holster at my hip hidden beneath my cassock, and a silencer into my pocket.
Vargas had an apartment on the top floor of the building, and sure enough, when I made my way up there late at night, he was home.
I knocked and waited an unreasonably long time for him to open the door.
Finally, it swung open. He looked flustered, his face flushed and clothes askew.
“I’m not interrupting anything, am I?” I asked when he invited me inside.
“No, no. It’s fine. It’s good to meet you, Father Lucciano. Benedict told me that you’d finally arrived. It’s been a while since Centrium sent us anyone to train.”
“Likewise. I’ve heard so much about you,” I said with a smile,and took his outstretched hand. Where the fuck they thought I was going to go and use their sick and twisted therapy training, I had no idea. This whole place was fucked.
We shook hands, and Vargas looked around.
“Let me fix us a drink and we can talk about what brought you here to Hallow. Sergei mentioned that he has someone here on a day-to-day basis keeping us honest.” Vargas smirked at me like the very idea was an inside joke.
I nodded, playing along. “That sounds ideal.” Luckily for me, my cover was holding. Christoph had been the ideal person to bump off and steal a position from.