Chapter Twenty-Four
Stella
“This is too much.” My voice doesn’t sound like my own. It trembles, catches, breaks.
Aleksei’s gaze remains steady, unwavering. “I understand.”
The room tilts. I grip the edge of the chair, my knuckles white against the dark leather. Pieces slot together with sickening clarity— our sudden departure from St. Petersburg, the name change from Larkin to Fermont, my father’s inexplicable refusal to talk about his work.
“That’s why we left Russia,” I whisper. “He was running from you.”
“From justice,” Aleksei corrects, his voice neither accusatory nor defensive. Simply factual. “He damaged my son permanently and faced no consequences. He fled the country within days.”
My chest constricts, lungs refusing to expand properly. The perfect image of my father— dedicated physician, loving husband, protective parent— fractures before my eyes.
“You told me once,” Aleksei continues, “about leaving St. Petersburg suddenly. About your father being afraid. Now you know why.”
I had told him that story, months ago. Before Polina. Before I knew who he really was. Before I knew who my father really was.
“How did you find us?” The question comes automatically, my mind grasping for details to process this overwhelming revelation.
“It took years.” Aleksei leans forward, elbows on his knees. “After I moved here, I kept looking for him. By then, your father had established himself in Los Angeles under your new name. He was careful, but money buys information.”
“And you…” I can’t finish the sentence.
“I waited. Watched. Planned.” His voice remains calm, matter-of-fact. “I wanted him to suffer as my son suffers. To understand what it means to be trapped in a body that won’t obey. Eye for an eye.”
My stomach churns. I press a hand to my mouth, willing away the nausea.
“He wasn’t meant to die, Stella.” Aleksei’s gaze never wavers. “My men were instructed to be precise. To ensure he survived, but never walked again.”
I close my eyes, seeing it play out— my father’s car on that rainy day, the crash that took his life. Mom was right. Not an accident. Never an accident.
“We’d already met when my father died,” I say suddenly as something occurs to me. “You knew me. Did you know I was his daughter?” I fight down nausea.
Oh God.
Did he use me to get to Dad?
A cold sweat prickles on my brow.
“No.” He shakes his head. “I knew you, but I had no idea of the connection.”
I stare at him, looking for some sign that he’s lying and finding none. Still, I can’t help saying the words I say next: “I don’t believe you. How? How am I supposed to believe you?”
He gives a small nod. “I understand why you would hate me for this,” he says simply.
“It’s ironic that our lives were joined even back then; the mother of my daughter is the child of the man who destroyed my son’s life.
God has a twisted sense of humor.” He shrugs.
“But I won’t beg your forgiveness. Because this was something that I had planned for years.
Something that I would have done whether I knew you or not. ”
I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to stop the world from spinning wildly. I press my fingertips against my eyelids.
“I need…” My voice fails. What do I need? Space? Time? To scream? To hit him? “I need to be alone.”
Aleksei nods, making no move to stop me as I back toward the door. “Take whatever time you need. But remember, Stella— your father wasn’t the saint you believed. And I am not pure evil; just a father who felt his child had been wronged.”
I flee before he can say more, stumbling through the corridors of Blackwood Manor until I reach my bedroom in the Left Wing. The night nurse looks up from where she sits beside Polina’s bassinet, concern crossing her face at my obvious distress.
“Ms. Fermont? Are you alright?”
“Fine,” I manage. “Please… just watch Polina. I need to rest.”
She nods, professional enough not to pry, and returns her attention to my sleeping daughter. I retreat to the bathroom, locking the door behind me before collapsing against it, sliding to the floor as sobs rack my body.
My father, drunk during a delivery. A baby— Aleksei’s son— permanently disabled through his negligence. Our family’s flight to America not for opportunity but to escape consequences. My mother’s suicide not just from grief but perhaps from knowledge of her husband’s guilt.
And Aleksei— the man I’ve shared a bed with, whose child I’ve borne— orchestrating my father’s death.
The worst part is that it makes sense. The pieces fit in ways that simple lies wouldn’t.
When I was a child, my father always spoken openly to us about his work, but all of that stopped after we moved to America.
I think of the hushed conversations he and my mother would have that stopped when we entered the room.
The very fact that we uprooted our entire lives to start again in a completely different country, despite my father’s thriving career back in Russia.
None of it made sense at the time, but we were young. We did as we were told.
“My God…” I say brokenly as my heart shatters in a dozen different ways. “Oh, my God…” I cry until my throat is raw and my eyes burn, until physical exhaustion temporarily numbs the emotional pain. Somehow, I make it to bed, collapsing fully clothed atop the covers.
My last thought before sleep claims me is of Polina— innocent, perfect Polina— now tied to this tragic history.
Morning arrives with harsh clarity, sunlight too bright against my eyelids. My eyes feel swollen, my body heavy with the weight of yesterday’s revelations. For one blessed moment, I exist in the limbo between sleep and wakefulness, before memory crashes back.
My father. Aleksei. Bobik. The terrible connection between our families.
A soft knock interrupts my thoughts. The night nurse peers in, Polina cradled in her arms.
“She’s hungry,” the woman says simply. “Would you like me to bring her to you?” If she notices my puffy eyes and tear-stained cheeks, she doesn’t say anything.
I nod, sitting up against the pillows. My breasts are heavy with milk, my body’s needs continuing despite my emotional turmoil. The nurse places Polina in my arms and discreetly withdraws, leaving us alone.
“Oh, baby… my sweet, sweet girl,” I whisper brokenly as I look down at my daughter’s face where she nuzzles against my chest. Her tiny features are so perfect— Aleksei’s dark eyes, my nose, a unique blend of us both.
I guide her to my breast, and she latches on with surprising strength, drawing milk with single-minded focus.
The physical sensation grounds me, this simple connection between mother and child. As she nurses, I stroke her cheek with my fingertip, marveling at the softness of her skin, the absolute perfection of her tiny body.
Love overwhelms me. Pure. Powerful. All-consuming. I’d do anything for this little life I’ve created. Move heaven and earth to protect her. Kill for her, if I had to.
And suddenly, like a lightning strike, something clicks.
If someone’s negligence damaged Polina— if a drunk doctor permanently disabled my perfect child— what wouldn’t I do? What revenge wouldn’t seem justified?
The realization hits with physical force, milk letting down in a rush that makes Polina gulp and sputter. I adjust her position automatically, my mind racing with this new understanding.
I’m a mother now. A giver of life. A defender of something innocent and pure.
I imagine Aleksei, younger but no less intense, watching his newborn son struggle for existence.
Hearing that his child would never walk, never run, never experience the simple freedoms most take for granted.
All because a doctor chose to work while impaired.
The rage I feel at even the hypothetical scenario burns hot in my chest. If someone hurt Polina that way…
Don’t go there, Stella.
Just don’t.
My heart tightens with something inexplicable just thinking about it.
I look down at her again, now nursing contentedly, unaware of the epiphany her existence has triggered. In this moment, I can understand Aleksei’s decade-long quest for vengeance. Not justify it, perhaps, but understand it in a visceral, maternal way I couldn’t have before becoming a mother myself.
My father made a terrible mistake. A mistake that permanently altered a child’s life. He fled rather than face consequences, hiding behind a new name in a new country. And Aleksei, for all his criminal activities and moral ambiguity, was simply a father seeking justice for his son.
The simplicity of this truth doesn’t erase the complexity of my feelings.
My father is still my father— the man who taught me to ride a bike, who encouraged my interest in science, who loved me imperfectly but genuinely.
My mother is still my mother— gentle, supportive, ultimately destroyed by circumstances beyond her control.
And Aleksei is still the man who facilitated my father’s death, who inadvertently caused my mother’s suicide, who kept these truths from me until confronted.
Yet he’s also the man who cradles Polina with impossible gentleness. Who funds experimental treatments for his disabled son. Who has, in his own way, tried to create a family from the wreckage of the past.
“Why does life have to be so complicated?” I murmur to my oblivious child.
Polina finishes nursing, sated on milk and drowsy. I shift her to my shoulder, patting her back gently until she releases a milky burp. Life continuing its simple rhythms despite all the earth-shattering truths I’ve learned.
As she drifts to sleep against my shoulder, my thoughts turn to Nick. My brother, who idolized our father even more than I did. Who has always been so prone to addiction. Who would never, ever understand what I now know.
I reach for my phone, finger hovering over his contact information. What would I even say? Hey Nick, turns out Dad was drunk during a delivery and permanently disabled a baby, and that baby’s father is now my daughter’s father too. Oh, and Dad’s “accident” wasn’t an accident after all.
He would never believe me. Or worse, he would, and it would destroy what little stability he’s managed to find. And he would judge me— rightfully— for continuing any relationship with the man responsible for our father’s death.
I set the phone down without calling. Some truths are too heavy to share.
Carefully, I place Polina in her bassinet, watching her sleep for long moments. Her perfect little hands. Her chest rising and falling with each breath. Her absolute vulnerability and dependence.
How can I possibly understand her father? A man battling his own demons, scarred by a brute who hurt his children instead of protecting them. Is it any wonder that Aleksei would be so driven to be a different kind of parent? A defender instead of an abuser?
Now, looking at Polina, imagining her injured through negligence, I feel the same rage burning in my chest that must have consumed Aleksei.
Is this Stockholm Syndrome? Or is it simply that love doesn’t follow moral calculations?
The truth changes everything and nothing at once. My father was flawed. My mother was desperate. Aleksei was vengeful. And yet here we are, creating a new life together.
I have no neat resolution, no clear path forward. Only the understanding that the black-and-white morality I once believed in has given way to shades of gray I never imagined existed.
What I do know, with absolute certainty, is that I will protect Polina with everything I have. That I understand Aleksei’s fierce paternal love, even as I struggle with his methods of expressing it. That I can’t simply walk away from this complicated, painful connection between our families.
For better or worse, our paths were intertwined long before we met.
And now, with Polina binding us together, they always will be.