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As far as anyone is concerned, my father’s contact, the request for a bribe, and the meetup it instigated occurred before a rogue detective put me back on Ark’s radar.
My employment at the Chrysler building was always off the books, and my arrivals and departures over the past six months are wiped from the servers of this building and the many around it by Maksim’s security team as per my request before I started working here.
As far as the world is concerned, Ark and I are strangers who have a hunger so strong for each other that we can see murder as a non-villainous act.
I wasn’t lying when I said a mother knows who her children are safe with.
Tillie was not safe with my father. That is the sole reason I ran before she was born. I knew he would hurt her as Ark had imagined while standing across from him.
Although violence is rarely the solution, Ark reacted in the same manner I did when I saw the horrifying glint in Dr. Babkin’s eyes when he tracked me down under my first alias.
I didn’t have the means to hide my identity, so it didn’t take much for him to find me.
He wasn’t scared about possible prosecution for his crimes. He was more worried about his wife finding out about the money he had paid my father, and how he’d explain the mishap in accounting at her father’s multimillion-dollar business.
He wanted me to write an affidavit that I was a willing participant during our “exchanges” and that I had both consented and was of age before our “affair” began.
His demands only stopped when the giggle of a child who was terrible at hide-and-seek alerted him to the fact that we were not alone.
It was then that I realized my mother hadn’t told anyone about the positive pregnancy test that encouraged me to run. She somewhat protected me, though many years too late.
When I recognized the voice of the person banging on our motel room door, I made out to Tillie that we were playing agame. I shoved her under the mattress like it’s normal for the seeker to know the hider’s hiding spot before pleading for her to stay hidden.
Dr. Babkin burst into my room two seconds after I lowered the frilly bedspread until its hem tickled the carpet.
The look he gave Tillie when he told her to come out from beneath the mattress scarred me for life. I knew then and there that she wasn’t safe, and I took immediate action to remove her from what I deemed a dangerous situation.
Like Ark, I don’t recall much of what happened. I remember snatching up a lamp, swinging it hard enough for Dr. Babkin to fall onto the mattress Tillie had recently climbed out from under, and then collecting my minimal belongings and fleeing.
We haven’t been back to the Trudny District ever since.
I never considered checking Dr. Babkin for a pulse or calling an ambulance. I ran as I am sure Ark wishes he could have after his fear got the better of him.
I smile at Ark to assure him the panic in his eyes isn’t required before nodding at his mouthed question of if Tillie is asleep.
“You don’t need to whisper,” I say, my voice normal volume as I invite him into her room. “Tillie can sleep through a tornado.”
The ache in my chest I haven’t been able to shift since Ark begged us to stay the night clears away when he gently brushes back a curl flopped down the front of Tillie’s forehead.
He loves her as much as I do. He’s just confused as to what that means since his abuser is still a living, breathing part of his life.
With her wayward lock wrangled into submission, Ark gathers a box from a chest of drawers and hands it to me. I smile when I notice what it is. He bought Tillie a baby monitor.
I giggle. It is unexpected but very much needed. “She may never forgive us if we set this up. She appreciates her privacy.Greatly.” I use couple terms to certify that that is what we now are. We’re a team. “But I did show her the intercom and gave her a quick rundown on how it works, so she knows how to contact us if the need arises. But she has slept through the night since she was three months old, so I am confident she is out until the morning.” There’s no hiding my pride in my last two sentences. Tillie doesn’t have nightmares because I did everything in my power to keep her sleep restful.
Now Ark has done the same.
I don’t hate him for what he did. How could I? He protected my daughter when a threat presented. I could never hate someone for doing that.
Love is the only adequate word to describe my feelings about what he did.
Ark’s exhale makes heating unnecessary when I slip my hand into his before guiding him out of Tillie’s room. We’re risking a lot spending the night together, but we both need this. We need to close out the world for twenty-four hours again and put the focus and energy we used to fight away our demons on each other.
“Mara… don’t. Fuck,” Ark pushes out breathlessly when a second after we enter his room, I commence removing my clothes. “This isn’t why I asked you to stay. I just…”
I stare into his impossibly beautiful eyes when he struggles to express himself while I unzip my skirt and step out of it.
His chest expands with a big breath when my shirt is the next thing to go. Attraction fires through the air as the heady scent of lust wafts into my nostrils.