“Saba?”
She flinches at the sound of her name. I guess she’s not used to people using it here, either.
“What kind of meeting is this?” Zhornov knows, he must know about the vial—I haven’t done anything wrong otherwise, nothing I can recall.
We wait for the iron doors to open, slip through into the grand reverse-aquarium room as soon as there’s enough space. The water outside the walls is especially bright, sparkling with what I assume is morning light.
I start to repeat myself, but she cuts me off. “Whatever you do, don’t look him in the eye unless he asks you a direct question. He’s very particular about that.”
And that’s it. That’s all she gives me. I could press her for more, but I don’t. Better to save my energy, if this is going to be the sort of meeting that requires answers and answers and answers.
I have no answers. All I have are questions.
NINETY-TWO
SABA LEADS ME to an expansive room on the second floor, all white walls and ocean-view panorama. It is far too beautiful a room for a man who’s had such a hand in breaking the world.
Far too spotless.
Far too transparent.
Far too few personal effects for one of the kingpins, one of the men who’ve stolen everything from everyone and could have anything they ever wanted. Not even a painting hangs above his simple white desk, when he could have the entire Sistine Chapel. The only remarkable object in this room is the enormous, low-hanging chandelier centerpiece—it is breathtaking, a geometric masterpiece made from thousands of black and white diamonds. They hang, innumerable rows of fringe, glittering in the sunlight that streams through the all-glass wall.
“No water for us?” Zhornov greets Saba. Clearly, his us means himself and Dr. Marieke, myself excluded. They sit on the wrong side of the desk, their backs to it, in form-over-function seats bearing more resemblance to modern-day thrones than chairs.
Saba positions me—physically places her hands on both of my shoulders and leads me to a spot ten feet away from both men and with an unavoidably direct view of their faces—before disappearing out of the room. For water, I assume. She’s quiet as a whisper, seamlessly slipping in and back out, as she delivers a pair of frosted-glass water tumblers, ice cold and full to the brim. Zhornov sips from his straw in lieu of a thank-you. At least the doctor smiles, nods.
Never in my life have I seen anyone look as uncomfortable in a chair as Dr. Marieke. It’s a subtle sort of discomfort, the one-foot-constantly-tapping sort, nothing Zhornov will pick up on. My heart and his foot race to the same rhythm. At least I’m not the only one who doesn’t want to be here.
“Eden.”
My name on Zhornov’s tongue is a shock: here is the man who could not be bothered with introductions when we arrived, the man who seems to address people by name only if they are Dutch-Lebanese doctors who have the power to construct an indestructible future for his own benefit.
And that wasn’t a question—am I supposed to look in his eyes, or avoid them? His time of getting everything he wants is coming to a close. I don’t really care what he prefers, I realize, and shift my eyes to meet his. He is steel and concrete, storm clouds with the thinnest hint of silver linings.
“I was at your mother’s funeral, did you know that?” He is unbreaking, unblinking.
Wrecking ball approach, I see. Be strong, Eden, do not let him in.
“Brought your father some Scotch that day,” he continues. “We’ve been in each other’s lives for more than a decade now—he’s one of the only people I’ve ever been able to trust without reservation.”
My father never drank that bottle of Scotch. It sat on the top shelf of our kitchen pantry for years, collecting dust. It’s probably still collecting dust on that shelf.
“Which is why,” he says, even spaces between every word, “I need you to tell me the truth, Eden.” He clenches the arm of his seat so tightly his knuckles turn the same shade of white. “I’m going to need you to answer a few questions.”
This is no simple conversation.
This is a trial.
The bloodlock suddenly feels extremely obvious in my pocket, even though I know it isn’t; I made sure of that. And Dr. Marieke—he is on Dad’s side in this, isn’t he? Surely he hasn’t betrayed my father’s plan just to get into kingpin graces?
“It has been brought to my attention that your father suffered an attack at the hand of one of his colleagues.” Ava. Obviously Ava; he just doesn’t know I have any idea who Ava is. “Which is distressing in itself, but after speaking to the colleague in question, she is convinced her actions were absolutely warranted.”
Relief, twice over: if my father were dead, he would have worded it differently. Your father’s been killed, not your father suffered an attack. And if this is about what Ava suspected, an assassination attempt, it has nothing to do with the bloodlock—which means Dr. Marieke hasn’t broken Dad’s trust. I’m not out of the woods just yet, but if I’m careful, I might escape with our secrets intact.
“You came to my island with a blue-serum syringe.” His fierce eyes bore into me. “Why?”
I hold my head high, keep my eyes trained on his. “I was told I might need it for self-defense,” I say. “Which, clearly, I did.”
This answer seems to appease him, at least a little. “About that,” he says. “I was told all of you had received the requisite procedure prior to your departure, and yet you—no small coincidence, being Will’s daughter—arrived in your natural mind. Was it a lie when your father told me you’d undergone Pellegrin’s procedure?”
“My father doesn’t lie,” I reply, though this is perhaps not as true as I once thought. Necessary secrets are better than self-serving lies—but secrets, by nature, are a few shades off from wholehearted truth. “Pellegrin gave me the procedure right in front of my father, but told me later he’d given me a vaccine instead. I have the hologram, proof he worked on me, if you need to see it.”
“You’re telling me your father had no knowledge of Pellegrin’s decision to give you the vaccine?”
Careful, careful. “I’m sure there are a great many things my father knows, but I couldn’t begin to tell you what happens in his head. I believed him dead until just before I was sent here, to your island—he doesn’t tell me everything.”
Zhornov is momentarily caught off guard by my tone, by my thinly veiled accusation. He attempts to cover it up with a hacking cough that lasts a little too long. You attended my mother’s funeral, and yet you effectively orphaned me, I want to shout in his face.
But I don’t shout. I let the past speak for itself.