Page 43 of Her Cruel Empire
My words seem like stones thrown into still water. Eva’s grip on the gun doesn’t loosen, but something flickers across her face.
Recognition, maybe. Or understanding.
Slowly—so slowly I can barely track the movement—Eva lowers the weapon. She doesn’t put it down, just lets her arm drop to her side.
“This is my father.” Her voice comes out cold and flat. “Zoltan Novak.”
I stare at her. “You told me he was dead.”
“After he was shot in Paris, I let it be known that the hit had been successful, even though it wasn’t. But whoever it was who tried to kill him, they would have tried again and again. If anyone knew he’d survived, he would be hunted. So I buried him away here in the castle, instead of in the ground.” She tilts her head to one side. “How did you get in here? The door is locked, and there is a guard and a nurse here at all times when I am not.”
“I found a way to slip in,” I say guiltily. I feel terrible, now. “Will he…ever wake up?”
Eva’s silence stretches so long I think she won’t answer. Then: “It was a sniper. He was shot in the chest. He was too busy protecting me to worry about himself.”
“Oh, Eva?—”
“The doctors said he wouldn’t survive the first night. Then the first week. Then the first month.” She finally turns to face me, and her eyes are hard, no sign of tears. “It’s been years, now. Years of watching him exist somewhere between life and death.”
I look at the monitors, the IV drip, the man who built a criminal empire and now lies helpless in a hospital bed, hidden in his own castle.
“He looks peaceful,” I say.
“He’s trapped.” Eva’s voice breaks on the word. “Locked inside his own body while I try to hold together everything he built.”
I approach slowly, carefully. “I won’t tell anyone. I promise.”
Eva’s laugh is bitter. “I know you won’t. Because if you say a word to anyone, you’ll die. I’ll kill you myself.”
I meet her gaze steadily. “I know. And I still won’t.”
She stares at me for a long moment, searching my face. Whatever she sees there must satisfy her, because she sinks back into her chair beside her father’s bed.
“You need to understand,” she says quietly. “The moment anyone learns he’s alive, it would be a catastrophe for the Consortium. His enemies. My enemies. They’d come for him. For me. For anyone who knew.”
“The Consortium?” I ask.
She glances up at me and gives a small laugh. “My God. I forget, sometimes, that people like you exist. People who don’t know about the underbelly of this world.” I can’t read the look in her eyes, but she relaxes back in her seat, and when shespeaks again, she sounds as no-nonsense as usual. “The Novak Consortium was built out of the remnants of the Cold War, the collapse of the Soviet Union. But my family, the Novaks, have been around for much, much longer than that. We swallowed up other enterprises and organizations once the Iron Curtain fell, used them and helped them in equal measure. I took over after my father’s so-called death. But not everyone in the Consortium was happy to have a woman in charge—especially one who would not even hear marriage proposals from, shall we say, theworthy bachelorsof Eastern Europe. Heirs to all kinds of crime families tried to make a marriage alliance. I turned them all down.”
“Didn’t they know you’re, uh?—”
“I came out when I was fourteen years old,” she says sharply. “But these organizations I speak of…it doesn’t matter to them what I want. Only what they can achieve. Unfortunately for them, I hold more power than they can even dream of. And so I do as I please, and I put down anyone who steps out of line.”
She says it so matter-of-factly that it seems completely reasonable. I settle into the chair on the opposite side of the bed. Up close, I can see the family resemblance more clearly. The same strong bones, the same commanding presence—even in unconsciousness, her father has it, too.
“I understand now,” I say. “Why you keep people out. Why you push them away. But you can’t carry this alone forever.”
Eva gives a laugh. “Don’t be ludicrous. I’ve done it for years. Besides, I’m not the only one who knows. Leon knows. My father’s younger brother, Stefan, knows. And his son too, my cousin Dimitri. The nurse and the guard—he’s reallyherguard,to make sure she doesn’t let slip to anyone. And the staff, of course. They all know.”
“You trust them that much?” I ask, surprised.
“They know what would happen if they ever told. And besides, all of them love him. You couldn’t know my father and not love him. He was warm and generous. People flocked to him.” She gives a twisted smile. “They say I am more like my mother. Cold.”
I reach out and gently touch the man’s other hand. It’s warm, alive. “I’m so sorry this happened to you, Eva. That you live with this stress, constantly.”
Eva stares at me. “Why would you care?”
“Because I know what it’s like to protect the people you love at any cost,” I say quietly. “Even if it breaks you. Even if it means sacrificing everything else.”
