Chapter Twenty-Three - Jessa
I press a kiss to Sofia’s forehead, then to Liana’s, lingering just a heartbeat longer with each. They smell of soap and the salty tang of our little world by the sea.
Liana sighs in her sleep, rolling closer to her sister beneath their faded quilt. I tuck the blanket around them, fingers gentle, then ease the bedroom door closed behind me, muffling the soft rhythm of their breaths.
The house is finally quiet, the kind of silence that feels earned—just the low hum of the fridge and the gentle hiss of ocean breeze through the cracked kitchen window.
I stand in the hall for a moment, pressing my palm to the door, whispering a promise I’ve made a thousand times: “You’re safe. Mama’s right here.” Usually, I’d curl up on the couch now, a book in my lap, letting the day fall away.
Something shifts in the air as I step into the narrow hallway. I catch the scent of cold outside air, a chill that has nothing to do with the sea. I turn toward the living room, toward the entrance, and my breath catches in my throat.
He’s there. Leaning in the shadows beside the front door, motionless, as if he’s always belonged to this darkness. Markian. His silhouette is so familiar and so impossible, I almost believe I’m dreaming.
My body knows better. My pulse slams into my throat, hot and wild. Every muscle freezes. My mind races, scanning for the girls, for the nearest phone, for an escape I know isn’t there.
I try not to look back at the closed bedroom door, but my eyes flicker toward it anyway.
It’s an instinct I can’t control. He sees it, of course.
His gaze slides past me, locking onto that door with a cold certainty.
He knows. Not everything, but enough. Enough to turn my carefully built life into splinters.
He moves away from the wall with the easy grace of someone who has always been a predator, who never doubts his control of a room.
His coat is open, shirt crisp, but there’s nothing civilized in his eyes.
He stalks me, slow and certain, crossing the cramped space until he’s close enough that I have to tilt my chin to meet his gaze.
The lamp’s glow catches in his hair, silvering the edges, but his eyes are all steel.
“So,” Markian murmurs, voice quiet and sharp as broken glass, “I have a daughter?” He smiles, but there’s nothing kind in it, just teeth and threat, the same smile I remember from every dream and every nightmare.
Before I can answer, his hand shoots out, cold fingers closing around my arm. I gasp, but the sound dies in my throat as he presses something hard and cold—steel, a pistol—just under my ribs. I feel the burn of it through my shirt, the way his thumb settles over my wrist, pinning me in place.
I want to scream. Want to wrench free, run to the girls, throw myself out the window if I have to.
I don’t move. I don’t plead. I just stand there, shaking from the inside out, breath shallow. My mind spins through every story, every lie, every line of defense I practiced for this moment. None of them matter now.
He leans close, his voice low. “Who touched you? Who helped you hide?”
I try to swallow, but my mouth is dry as sand. The urge to scream back, to tell him how wrong he is, flares and dies in my chest. Not when his eyes promise that he will burn this house, this life, this whole world if my answer doesn’t please him.
“I—” I start, but my voice fails me. All the fire I felt the night I ran, all the steel I used to keep going, it’s nothing now. I meet his gaze, determined not to let him see me beg, but he’s already reading me, reading the terror that I can’t hide.
He tightens his grip just enough to make me wince. “Was he kind to you?” he asks, voice almost conversational, but I hear the threat beneath. “Did he play daddy? Did my daughter call someone else her father?”
My hands are shaking. “There’s no one else,” I whisper. “There never was.”
He studies me, searching for a lie. I feel the weight of the years in his silence—years of anger, of loss, of wanting what he could not have. For a second, his mask almost slips, grief flashing in his eyes before the fury returns.
He glances at the bedroom door again, his whole body tense. “You kept her from me.”
I flinch, biting my lip so I won’t cry. “I kept them safe.”
He laughs. It’s a short, joyless sound. “From me?”
“From everything,” I say, the words trembling in the air between us. “From the world you dragged me into. From the war that follows you everywhere.”
He lets the gun drop, just a little, but doesn’t let go of my arm. “I’m not leaving without her. Without you.” His voice is a promise and a threat at once.
I shake my head, fighting tears. “You can’t just take us. You can’t just walk in here and—”
He cuts me off with a look that stills the air. “I can, and I will.” His voice is iron. “She’s mine. You are mine. That never changed.”
For a moment, the only sound is the distant crash of waves, the girls’ soft breathing just out of reach, and my own heart pounding out the truth: he has found us. There’s no running left.
I close my eyes, holding on to the only thing I have left: my love for the girls, the years I kept them safe, the hope that I can still protect them, even from him. I stand as tall as I can, refusing to let fear have the last word.
I know what’s coming; and I know, as his grip tightens and his eyes flick to the door, that nothing will ever be the same again.
The silence stretches until it feels like it could snap.
I can’t breathe. The gun pressed under my ribs is real—his grip on my arm even more so—but I force myself not to flinch, not to show the fear that’s crawling up my throat.
My whole body is wound tight, every muscle screaming to bolt for the girls’ door.
I don’t dare move.
And then, from the bedroom, there’s the softest creak of old hinges.
A shuffle. The padded sound of small feet on wooden floor.
I twist, just barely, and see Liana in the doorway, her bunny clutched to her chest, cheeks flushed with sleep.
Her eyes, gray as rainclouds, blink up at us, heavy with dreams.
“Mama?” she whispers, her voice tiny, uncertain.
We both freeze—me in panic, Markian in something that looks like shock. He stiffens, the gun gone so fast it might never have existed. His hand falls to his side. He stands very still, staring at her, not blinking, as if he’s afraid the sight will vanish if he does.
Liana toddles forward, rubbing her eyes. “Mama, is it morning yet?”
Markian’s entire body is rigid, his gaze caught on the little girl with his eyes. In that moment, the world contracts, narrows, the war between us shrinking to a single fragile child in pajamas and a clutch of soft toy fur.
All the rage and certainty in his face dissolves, leaving only horror and awe.
I can feel him breathing—deep, through his nose, like he’s steadying himself on a ledge. He takes a step back, never looking away from Liana.
Then, before anyone can say a word, Sofia appears in the doorway, her blonde curls wild and luminous, mouth puckered in a sleepy frown. She blinks at the scene—her mother, a stranger, the tension thick as a storm about to break.
Liana’s head tilts. “Mama, who’s that?”
Markian’s face goes slack, then sharp, then something new altogether. I see the moment the truth crashes into him: not just one daughter, but two. His daughters. His blood. His legacy.
He sways where he stands, just for a moment, and then he sets his jaw, hard and unyielding. He looks at me, accusation blazing in his eyes, as if this moment—this truth—has cut him deeper than anything else ever could.
There is a kind of horror on his face. The realization that all those years, all that time, he missed everything. First steps. First words. First nightmares and birthdays and scraped knees. He missed every ordinary miracle, and it burns.
He takes another step back, as if the girls’ nearness could hurt him. His hands tremble, then fist. “They’re mine,” he says, voice rough and final, a judgment passed. Ruthless. Cold. “Both of them?”
“Yes,” I breathe. “Twins.”
His expression turns steel cold. “I thought… you really haven’t let another man touch you since?”
“No.”
“I’m taking them both, and you, with me now.”
My whole body goes cold. “Markian, wait—please—” I reach for him, my fingers shaking so badly I can barely control them. “They’re too young. They need me. They don’t know you.”
His jaw works, rage and grief tangling in his features. He looks down at his daughters again, Liana staring back with wide, uncertain eyes. Sofia presses in beside her sister, suddenly shy, clutching her bunny to her chest.
“They’re mine,” he repeats, quieter now, but the steel in his tone is absolute. “You stole them from me. You had no right.”
Tears sting my eyes. I stand between him and the girls, every instinct in me screaming to shield them, to buy us time. “I did what I had to do. They’re safe here. They don’t know you, Markian. They’ve only ever known—” My voice breaks.
He shakes his head. His knuckles are white. His eyes, though—his eyes betray him. For one heartbeat, I see the pain there. The longing. The confusion. He’s so close to breaking, to something softer.
Then the walls snap back into place.
Liana peeks around me, her small hand tangling in my shirt. “Mama, are you okay?”
I force a smile. “It’s all right, sweetheart. Everything’s okay.”
Markian’s gaze flickers between us. “You taught them to forget me.” He spits the words like poison, but the edge is gone. It’s heartbreak now, stripped of all its armor.
“They never knew you,” I whisper. “You weren’t there; I had to keep them safe.”
He staggers, just a fraction, and then the anger floods back in. “You ran.”
I shake my head. “You would’ve destroyed us.”
He swallows hard, wrestling something inside himself. For a long, terrible moment, I truly don’t know what he’ll do next—take them, leave, break down entirely. The girls look up at him, innocent and curious, not understanding the battlefield they’ve walked into.
Sofia whispers, “Mama, I’m scared.”
That breaks me. I kneel, scooping both girls close. “Shh, it’s all right. You’re safe. I’m here.”
Markian watches, silent, fists clenched at his sides. For a moment he is just a man, not a monster, not a legend. Just a father—one who missed everything, who lost everything, and who wants it back so badly he’ll tear apart the world to get it.
I can see the doubt now, the crack in his armor. He wants to take them, but he doesn’t know how. He wants to punish me, but his hands shake. He wants a family, but all he’s ever learned is war.
We are all frozen, caught in the electric stillness before the storm. No one moves. No one speaks. Markian’s eyes are wild and lost. The girls clutch me, confused and frightened.
For a moment, all I can do is pray. Pray that he remembers he loved me once, that he sees these girls not as trophies, but as daughters who need their mother as much as they need him. Pray that whatever comes next, we can all survive it.
The world holds its breath, waiting for his decision.