Chapter 11 Bella
BELLA
I don’t think.
If I stop to think, I’ll sit back down at that table. I’ll wait for him to decide what happens to me. To us.
So I run.
The bathroom is small, tiled, humming with cheap fluorescent light. I lock the stall, lift Lily onto the closed toilet, put my hands on her little cheeks.
“Listen to me, baby,” I whisper. “We’re going to play a game, okay? We’re going to be very, very quiet. Like little mice.”
She blinks at me, big eyes still a bit puffy from crying earlier. “Mice?”
“Yes.” I force a smile. “No sound. Can you do that for Mama?”
She nods solemnly. It’s enough.
The window above the sinks is small, meant for ventilation, not escape. I push it. It sticks, then gives way with a groan. Cold air pours in. Outside, I see the side of the building, a narrow strip of gravel, and a rusted dumpster. It’s not a nice landing, but it’s not far.
“Up you go,” I whisper.
I boost Lily first, heart in my throat. Her little shoes scrape the wall as I angle her through the gap. She whimpers once, more startled than hurt.
“Shh, baby. It’s okay. I’m right here.”
I slide my arms out, grab her under the arms, and lower her as far as I can before I have to let go. It’s a short drop. She lands on her feet, stumbles, but stays upright. I could cry with relief.
“Stay right there,” I hiss. “Hands on the wall. Don’t move.”
She does it. One hand on the brick, the other wrapped around that stupid kids’ sticker.
I haul myself up next. The sill digs into my stomach. For a second I’m sure I’m going to get stuck and this will all be pathetic and pointless. Then adrenaline kicks in and I wriggle through, one leg, then the other, palms scraping rough concrete.
I drop beside her, knees hitting hard. Pain punches up my shins. There’s dirt on my dress, glass dust still in my hair, and my heart is beating like it wants out of my chest.
But we’re outside.
No Aleksander. No Nikolai. No gunfire.
Just the alley, the low hum of traffic, and the distant, muffled sounds of the diner.
I grab Lily’s hand. “Come on.”
We move fast along the side of the building, past the dumpster, around to the front. I keep my head down, hair in my face. Nobody looks at us twice. A woman with a toddler is just…a woman with a toddler.
There’s a bus stop not far from the parking lot entrance—faded sign, scratched plexiglass shelter, a bench with chewing gum fossils stuck to it. I don’t check the route. I don’t care.
The bus that pulls up first is half-full, loud, and smells like old air and fries. Perfect.
We get on. I pay cash, my hands still shaking, and sit near the back, wrapping my arms around Lily, who’s pressed tight against me, thumb in her mouth.
My heart doesn’t slow. It just gets louder.
The bus rattles onto the highway. I watch the diner slide out of view through grimy glass, stomach twisting. Any second now, he’s going to realize I’m gone. He’ll count minutes, check the bathroom, follow the logic. He’s not stupid. He’ll know.
And if I know him at all, he’ll start pulling at every thread he can reach.
It hits me then: this is exactly what he’d expect. First bus. First obvious exit.
I yank the cord.
The driver glances in the mirror as the bell dings. “Next stop?” he calls.
“Yes,” I say. My voice sounds thin.
We get off at a small transfer station—just a concrete island with a couple of bays, a flickering timetable, and a bored guy in a reflective vest scrolling his phone. The kind of place nobody really looks at, just passes through.
I sit on a bench with Lily angled against me. We wait.
Five minutes. Ten. Twenty.
I don’t move. I don’t ask anyone anything. Asking leaves a trail—an interaction they can recall later. I keep my head down and Lily close. She gets fussy, then sleepy. I pull her into my lap, rock her gently, hum under my breath until she sags against me, heavy and warm.
I give it a full hour.
Long enough that if Aleksander is tearing that diner apart, his first nets might already be out—the parking lot, nearby cameras, bus routes that left in the first wave of panic.
Only then do I stand and check the map.
Brooklyn. Familiar enough. Far enough. Big enough to disappear in for a few hours.
We catch a bus heading that way. I pay in cash again, slide into a window seat. As the city starts to thicken around us—buildings tightening, graffiti becoming more frequent, billboards giving way to laundromats and bodegas—I finally pull out my phone.
One bar. Then two.
I scroll to Maya’s name and call.
She picks up on the second ring. “Hello?”
“It’s me,” I say.
There’s a beat. “Bella? What—where are you? You sound weird.”
“I’m fine,” I lie. “Mostly. I’m with Lily.”
That at least steadies her. “Okay. Where?”
I look out the window, scanning street signs as we roll past. I rattle off the cross streets, a landmark, the direction we’re heading. “Can you come get us?”
“Of course I can come get you,” she says. There’s steel under the shock now. “What happened? Is he—”
“I’ll explain when I see you,” I cut in. “Please just…leave now.”
She blows out a breath. “I’m on my way. Twenty, thirty minutes.”
“Okay.” My throat feels tight. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet,” she says. “You sound like you’ve been through a blender.”
She’s not wrong.
The call drops as we dip under an overpass. I keep staring at the blank screen for a second, then tuck the phone away.
Lily stirs, rubbing at her eyes. “Mama?”
“Almost there, baby,” I whisper, kissing her hair. “We’re going to see Auntie Maya.”
I look down at my dirty dress, at the faint streak of something on Lily’s sock. I should feel stupid. Reckless. Unprepared.
Instead, I feel…light. Terrified, but lighter than I did in that penthouse, than I did on that plane, than I did sitting across from Aleksander while he talked about his world.
I stare out the bus window, watching the buildings smear past in streaks of gray and brick and graffiti, and I feel like my skin doesn’t quite fit.
I did the right thing.
I know that. I know it in the way you know a stove is hot or a car is coming too fast. Aleksander is dangerous. Not metaphorically, not “he’s bad for me, ha ha, cocktails and red flags” dangerous. The real kind. The kind with guns and blood and men who don’t live to see forty.
I climbed out of that bathroom window because staying with him meant gambling with my life and my daughter’s. Any sane person would say I made the only possible choice.
So why does it feel like I’ve ripped something out of my own chest?
Lily is half-asleep against me, her small hand fisted in my dress.
I stroke her hair, my throat burning. She deserves boring problems. Lost shoes and late homework and stupid playground politics.
Not…this. Not air thick with gunpowder and shattered glass.
Not a man who can say “I’ve killed people” without flinching.
I close my eyes and see him anyway.
The way he threw himself over us in the car. The way his hands shook for half a second after, even though he tried to hide it. The way he held Lily this morning, clumsy and careful, slicing pancakes into perfect tiny pieces.
The way he looked at me in that diner like I was the only solid thing in the room.
I hate that part.
I hate that beneath all the fear and anger and self-preservation, there’s this aching, stupid, inconvenient pull toward him.
A part of me that remembers his mouth on mine, his hands on my skin, the way my body lit up when he touched me.
A part of me that felt safer with him in that car, in the line of fire, than I did the year before I met him.
What does that say about me?
The bus rattles over a pothole. Lily whimpers in her sleep and I hold her tighter.
“You did the right thing,” I whisper, but I’m not sure if I’m talking to her or to myself.
I picture his face when he realizes I’m gone. The open window. The empty bathroom. Part of me hopes he’s furious, offended, insulted that I could slip away. Another part of me knows he’ll be scared. Really, truly scared.
That thought makes me feel sick and warm at the same time.
I shake my head, angry at myself. Wanting someone doesn’t make them safe. Loving someone doesn’t make them good. He told me who he is. He didn’t lie. I can’t pretend I didn’t hear him just because his hands felt right on my body and his voice sounded like a promise I’ve secretly wanted for years.
The bus announces the next stop in a flat, mechanical voice. Brooklyn is close enough now that the streets look familiar, even if this neighborhood doesn’t. My phone buzzes—a text from Maya: 10 mins. Stay put.
Okay. Good. A plan. A small one, but it’s something.
I press my cheek to the top of Lily’s head and breathe her in. She smells like sweat and fries and the floral shampoo from my shower in Boston. She’s real. Solid. Here.
He’s…somewhere else.
I did the right thing. I know I did.
So why does my chest feel like I left half of myself back in that diner, sitting in a booth with a man I have no business wanting and a sticker on his sleeve like he belonged at our table?
The bus wheezes to a stop with a long, tired sigh. My phone buzzes again.
I’m here. Silver Honda. Outside the station exit, Maya’s text reads.
My stomach gives a nervous twist.
“Come on, baby,” I murmur to Lily, shifting her on my hip as we shuffle down the aisle. The driver barely glances at us when we step off.
Outside, the air smells like exhaust and fried food. People move fast, heads down, each wrapped up in their own mess. For a second, I feel completely unmoored.
“Bella!”
I look up.
Maya is sprinting toward us from a badly parked silver Honda that’s seen better years, her braids flying behind her, tote bag banging against her thigh. She looks exactly like herself and not at all prepared for the version of me she’s about to get.
I don’t realize how close to crying I am until she reaches me. She doesn’t hesitate—she just throws her arms around both of us, squeezing hard enough that Lily gives a muffled squawk between us.