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MIA

February in Manhattan should be canceled.

I hug my shoulders against the cold bite of the air. My bare shoulders, because god forbid Brad Baldwin’s girlfriend have anything to cover herself up with. If it’s thicker than a bra strap, it belongs in his closet, not mine.

Brad Baldwin’s girlfriend. The thought sends another shiver down my spine. This time, it has nothing to do with the wind.

I step the rest of the way out of Brad’s white limo.

My cream-colored dress whips around my thighs, too short, too little, too much.

I make a less-than-convincing impression of Marilyn Monroe and yank it down.

I can only hope the flashing cameras didn’t just catch a flash of something I didn’t intend to put on offer.

Brad sinks his fingers into my arm, pinching like a snake. “Put a goddamn smile on,” he hisses in my ear. “We don’t want them asking questions, do we?”

The cold glint of gunmetal surfaces in my memories, pressed against my son’s temple.

I force a smile and wave.

My heels clack against the marble steps leading up to Baldwin Construction’s latest luxury complex. A billion-dollar venture, all for the modest price of kicking to the curb the not-quite-rich-enough inhabitants of the Lower East Side.

But hey, who’s counting?

Me, I whisper in my mind. I’m counting.

Because, the second you slip up, Bradley boy, I’ll be there to make sure you fall.

I can hear the reporters calling for me, but I filter it out.

I’ve gotten pretty good at that, these days—picking and choosing what to let under my skin.

Brad’s death grip, for example. I can feel the bruises forming under the lace wrist cuffs he gifted me.

He’s pressing on already battered ground, but the pain doesn’t quite register.

Force of habit, I guess.

“Mia!” A young, loud-mouthed reporter nearly flings herself against the cordon. “Is it true you’re getting married?”

I keep my lips sealed and give the reporter an enigmatic half-smile. It’s the kind of thing that’ll let her write whatever she wants in her article.

In my mind, though, I give her a straight answer.

Me, getting married? Not a chance in hell.

She’s persistent, though. “Is it true this is your second go-around with Mr. Baldwin? You have a son together, don’t you?”

My son is mine . No one else’s. Certainly not his.

“Didn’t you used to be engaged to Yulian Lozhkin?”

My half-smile curdles on my face. “What did you just say?”

“Mr. Lozhkin of StarTech. Isn’t it true you were?—?”

“That’s enough of that,” Brad snarls. “C’mon.” His nails dig into my skin as he drags me away.

I stumble on the steps. “Brad, wait,” I blurt. “My heels?—”

“I don’t give a shit about your fucking whore shoes,” he snaps, just loud enough for me to hear. “Keep up and shut up.”

My whore shoes. Like he didn’t pick these death traps out himself. “Sir, yes, sir.”

“What was that?”

“Nothing.”

Calm down, girl. Stop sassing out your psycho ex. There’s no way that ends well.

Haven’t you learned by now? Haven’t you learned anything?

I force myself to take a deep breath. Brad may have used up my well of patience long ago, but I can’t afford to do the same. He knows my weaknesses. Knows exactly where to press to make it hurt.

Most importantly, on whom to press.

I lose myself in last night’s memories. Brad’s drunken breath, acrid like rotting fruit in my nostrils. No part of Brownsville ever smelled so foul, not even in the heat of last summer.

“Whatcha looking at, you two-bit slut?”

I wasn’t looking at anything. Not by a long shot. But Brad had already decided to make me pay, so it didn’t really matter.

He walks up to me, swaying with every step. A bottle of scotch dangles from his fingers. He empties out the last of it—not his first of the night, and definitely not his last—and throws it hard against the wall.

It shatters. But I don’t. “You’ll wake him up,” I warn. My voice is flat and level, though inside, I’m screaming.

“I don’t give a shit.”

“You should. He’s your son.”

“He’s a bastard,” he spits out “Dumb as a brick. Takes after his slut of a mother in that regard.”

I shouldn’t be amazed at how little Brad’s changed man act lasted. And yet, a part of me can’t help a dull ache from spreading throughout my heart. It’s the bitterness that comes with an expected disappointment. The sting of “I-told-you-so.”

The burn of shame.

Hot rage seeps into my veins. “He’s the best kid in the universe. A real dad would see that.”

“You never let me be a ‘real dad’ to him.”

“I’m letting you now. Trying to, at least.” I start picking up the glass shards, gingerly, without letting them cut me. God knows I’ve had heaps of practice. “Not my fault you’re doing a shit job of it.”

Even as I say that, I know it’s a mistake. Wrong words, wrong time, wrong place, wrong everything. Every day in this house, I’ve had to remind myself to stay in my lane, to say all the right things.

But it’s been three months. And hearing Brad insult what I hold dearest in the whole world, day after day, night after night… It makes something snap inside me.

The last thread of my patience—and his.

Drunk as he is, he’s still blindingly fast. Bigger and stronger than me in every way. Hating him won’t change that simple physical reality.

So when he throws me to the ground, I can do nothing to stop him. The shards in my hands scatter, cutting into my palm and biting into the Singaporean carpet. Everything in this house is so expensive, but it’s like Brad gets a kick out of ruining it. The finer the piece, the worse he treats it.

I suppose I should be flattered.

He treats me worst of all. I guess that means I’m special.

I land on my side. My arms curl protectively around my belly. Brad doesn’t miss the gesture.

“Oh, shut the fuck up with your fucking whining, your bitching and your goddamn moaning.” He sneers down at me, his face twisted into a gargoyle’s hideous imitation of disdain “You think I don’t know you’ve been cucking me since day one?

You think I don’t know what you look like when you’ve got another damn bastard inside you? ”

“I don’t know what ? —”

“Yes, you fucking do!”

He stomps the floor right next to my stomach. I scurry backward, startled—no, terrified. The memory of his blows is still alive in me. The crush of knuckles and toes into the soft flesh of my belly.

I was lucky then.

I’m not so sure I’ll get lucky now.

“I haven’t fucked you once since you’ve been here.

” He throws that accusation at me like a judge’s death sentence.

Like I’m guilty of murder instead of the unforgivable crime of, let’s see…

not wanting to share a bed with a drunken lunatic.

“I’ve been patient, you know. I thought, hey, she probably just needs some time to come around, yeah?

She’ll warm up. She’ll remember what she’s supposed to do.

No, better yet, she’ll remember all the things I’ve done for her, and she’ll start doing her part.

Her duties, yeah?” He fixes me with a burning stare, hotter than the flames licking up the fireplace behind his back.

The light behind him casts his face in pure black silhouette.

Only his eyes shine through the shadows.

Two pinpricked glows. “Instead, all along, you were incubating Yulian Lozhkin’s runty little bastard. ”

Fear creeps up my throat. I crawl with my back against the wall, trying desperately to shield my belly. He isn’t hitting me yet, but I know the look in his eyes. I know what comes after it.

“Brad—”

“Don’t you fucking deny it!” He slams his fist into a bookshelf. “Don’t you fucking dare! I saw the box, that fuckin’ pregnancy test. Did you really think my staff would keep that from me?”

My heart sinks at the revelation. I thought I’d been careful. I thought ? —

What? That you could keep your pregnancy a secret forever?

I just thought I’d have more time.

Brad’s knuckles pop like fireworks as he cracks them. One at a time. One hand, then the other. Then his neck, side to side, front and back. Jaw left. Jaw right.

Then he’s ready.

“Please,” I whisper. “Please, I ? —”

“No.” He draws closer, tall, looming. His fist in the dark. The toes of his shoes, leather reflecting firelight. Pinprick eyes. “No, it’s time for you to shut the fuck up.”

“Brad,” I blurt, desperate to get through to him. I’ve got nowhere to run, nowhere to hide—my only hope is to make him listen. “The baby is innocent. Please don’t hurt my baby. Not again.”

That seems to give him pause—“Not again.”

For a second, only a second, he stops.

Then rage twists his features. “I should have hit you harder the first time,” he snarls. “I won’t make the same mistake with this one.”

I curl up into a ball. I don’t even bother to cover my face—my arms seal themselves around my belly, a weak shield of flesh and bones and prayers.

I shut my eyes.

I wait.

Then I hear it.

“LEAVE HER ALONE!”

Something throws itself in the way of Brad’s fist. I hear the crash of a small body against the bookcase.

My eyes fly open.

“Eli!” I crawl towards my son, panicked. He’s clutching his shoulder, but a quick exam tells me it’s not dislocated, thank God. “Are you okay, baby? Are you hurt?”

He shakes his head. I can tell it’s a lie. What Brad just did to him will cut deeper than any wound ever could.

For months, my own son hasn’t spoken a word to me. He’s too angry, too confused by the lie that ripped our lives apart.

But tonight, he threw himself at his own biological father to protect me.

I cradle my son in my arms and turn to Brad with fire in my eyes. “Touch either one of my babies again, and I swear to you, I will call the only man worthy of being their father. And he won’t be as kind to you as I have.”

It’s a long shot. I have no reason to trust Yulian. No reason to think Brad will be afraid of him.

But he is.

And when Brad’s upper lip curls into a sneer before he turns and stomps away, I realize I have no idea how long Yulian’s name will be able to protect us.

Time is running out.

“—known Bradley long?”

I snap out of my memories. Belatedly, I realize someone’s been talking to me. One of Brad’s investors, I think.

I give a polite smile and nod. “A lifetime and a half.”

The investor laughs. “It can feel like that, can’t it? Young love. Funny thing.”

Brad’s hand tightens on my wrist, telling me to do a better job of this: smiling, nodding, arm candying.

It makes me sick. All of it. The thought of playing house with a monster, of compromising every principle I’ve ever had just to buy myself another day—it’s all too much.

And I still don’t have a single piece of ammo to show for it.

“Excuse me,” I mutter.

I free myself from Brad’s grasp and head for the bathroom. The complex’s lobby is huge, enough to lose yourself twice over, but if books and movies have taught me anything, it’s that it’s always the last door on the right.

As I walk, I scroll the secret folder on my phone. I called it “Baby Pictures”—the last place Brad would ever think to look.

Inside is everything I’ve risked my life to get.

Documents I’ve scraped together from Brad’s laptop blink back at me, filled with names I can’t make sense of. Initials, like D.B. of P. or whatever. If there’s dirt anywhere—if there’s anything I can use to free myself and my children from this hell we’re living in—I haven’t found it yet.

But I have to keep looking. I have to keep our hopes fed.

It’s the only way I’ll survive.

After all, who’s left to help me?

Just as I’m having that thought, something firm and heavy collides against me from around the corner. A chest. A man.

The scent of cologne overpowers me. Cedarwood, amber, and something achingly familiar.

“Watch where you’re—” he starts saying, annoyed, but then he stops.

I know that voice.

I know that cologne.

And I definitely know those cheesegrater abs.

My heart starts racing. It can’t be.

But it is.

Because, as I lift my eyes, gray meets them like the winter sea.

“… Yulian.”