Placing a hand on his arm, she spoke comfortingly to him, and he knew she was right. Peter did profess such tales to the distress of everyone else around him.
‘He came to me you see, to this very room. He threatened to oust me to Lady Teralova, have me sent back to where I came from if I didn’t forget my love for you and run away with him instead.’
‘What did you tell him?’ Juraj remarked sheepishly, in disbelief of what was unfolding.
‘What do you think I told him?’ she barked strongly. ‘I told him no, of course.’
‘And his reaction?’
‘He said if that were to be the case, that he would kill you, Juraj.’
The small box of the room shrank further still, compressing and tightening, a vice grip hold upon his being as his chest tightened in tune to the scene. His senses were acutely aware now of the dust filling his nostrils and the faint taste of iron and copper invited itself upon his tongue. Every breath started to become heavier as a sense of fear gripped him, daring him to take one step further into a darkness that seemed to approach quicker and quicker. The light of the room had all but faded and his mind searched for sound reason or rhyme as to what was going on around him. The face of a woman he most loved started to blur and fade into distorted gradients of distant pixelated nothingness.
‘So, you—you…’ Juraj wavered, unable to speak the words.
‘Yes, I did what I had to, to protect you, to protect us.’
She spoke with a smile, glancing at her lover, holding him close within her arms now, embracing him with all her might.
‘He snatched my birthday present to you away from me, but it was already too late for him by then. I’d poisoned his tea: there was no other way—no time to act otherwise,’ she said, her face still and resounded. ‘I did not plan it, I swear it Juraj. He would not listen, and I have no doubt he would have told the world our secret, perhaps even worse. What if he dared to take his anger and vengeance on you?’
A chill ran straight down Juraj’s spine. Who is this person, this abomination?
‘He was my brother, Anita. He would have died for me, as I would for him. He would have gotten over you eventually, and if you loved me as much as you claim to, we would have found a way to exist outside the campus and shrine of the Teralov name. How could you dare to take it so far?’ Juraj coughed and spluttered now, a liquid filling his lungs—an unknown offer summed from depths he failed to fathom.
‘Once I found out Peter was dead and your mother had called for the Soviet detective to investigate, I knew I had to act, Juraj, to preserve our love. Don’t you see? I did everything to save us, to keep us close together.’
Juraj felt the panic and realisation of his past actions overwhelm him. He was as much as responsible for the fate of Edgar and Milos’ deaths now as the very people who finalized their doom.
‘I lied to protect you, Anita,’ he started, struggling for every word and breath. ‘The note you had the porter write to me, warning me of Edgar, you knew he would find out it was you eventually, he would have exposed you. I didn’t know what I was protecting you from then, but I lied to him, I feigned that I did not know from whom the note was written. Although I did not recognize the writing at first, the meaning of the message was clear to me after a while of thinking. But it is only now I truly understand and follow what you meant by protecting us.’
Anita smiled. ‘Yes, Juraj… finally, you understand. I had to warn you of the Soviet’s intentions because sooner or later, he may have found out what I had done, and, of course, that would have meant we would no longer be together. An unacceptable outcome. I had to warn you—it was important for you to not trust him.’
‘But I did trust him, Anita…’ He struggled now for air, fighting for every last inhalation. The dizziness and suffocation creeping further within himself. ‘He was good to me.’
‘He almost ruined everything—I had sent Milos to Bratislava as a decoy. It was so easy. He was a good friend of Peter’s. You know this. It was strikingly obvious he would go to identify the body, and as the police had been instructed to not move it,’ she ran her fingers through her hair as she spoke, smiling at Juraj brightly, awaiting his approval and delight in her well-executed plan, ‘I knew exactly where to find him. Slipping a note into a man’s pocket who is stricken with grief is a simple task.’ She smiled more and held Juraj’s hand, looking into his eyes with promise and wonder. ‘Everything went exactly as I had planned. Milos was ripe to take the fall for us, for our freedom and future. But Edgar was smarter than I expected. My brother knew exactly what to do if he suspected Edgar ever found out too much.’
Retrieving the brooch from his pocket, he revealed it to Anita, placing it within her hands. ‘For the one I love,’ he spoke.
Smiling with pride, Anita was beaming.
‘Yes, Juraj, this was… is my gift to you.’
Juraj began to feel more than just physically sick. Bile began to rise from his stomach and his mind was screaming for him to run, to strike her—anything to escape and imprison this beast, yet he could not muster himself to move.
‘Anita,’ he murmured, the energy starting to drain from his being. ‘Why did you do this?’ He quivered, feeling lifeless and lost as hope started to
