Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 100716 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 504(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100716 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 504(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
45
MARA
An uprising of emotions hits me at once when a shadow casts over the doorway of the room I’m settling Tillie in. The spare room closest to Ark’s bedroom has a soft and inviting palette—if you exclude the inclusion of numerous Australian soap star posters tacked to the walls.
Ark’s design team replicated Tillie’s room to perfection. If it weren’t triple the size and caked with that new furniture smell I’ve not experienced in years, I’d swear I was back in our apartment, slumming it with the less fortunate.
I don’t mean people with no funds in their bank accounts.
I mean the people who don’t have a love money can’t buy.
I’d be worried Ark’s request for us to spend the night was a mistake we couldn’t come back from if I weren’t aware how brilliantly smart he is. Barring a random photograph of two commuters sharing a cab fare, we have no known association before my father attempted to blackmail him.
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 a game. 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.