Chapter Seventeen
Ilona
The morning after feels like swimming through honey— everything slow, thick, weighted with the memory of his hands on my skin.
I barely slept. Every time I closed my eyes, I was back in Room Five, feeling the heat of his mouth against my throat, the way he filled me so completely I forgot my own name.
My body hums with a restless energy that has nothing to do with exhaustion. Even now, twelve hours later, I can feel the ghost of his touch between my thighs.
I ended up touching myself again in the darkness of my bedroom, fingers working frantically as I replayed every moment.
The memory of his thick length stretching me open, the low growl he made when I clenched around him.
I came so hard I had to bite my pillow to muffle the sound, but it wasn’t enough.
Nothing will ever be enough now that I know what real desire feels like.
He’s awakened something in me I didn’t know existed. Some desperate part of myself that craves his possession like oxygen. The slip of paper with his VanishMe contact burns like a brand in my jewelry box, a secret door to a world I’m both terrified and desperate to enter.
But today is Saturday, and reality intrudes with all its mundane demands.
I need to see my parents. Need to tell them about the endometriosis diagnosis, about the grandchildren they might never have.
The conversation will be difficult, but Dad will understand.
He’s always understood everything about me.
I try calling them as I get dressed, but neither picks up.
Strange, but not alarming— they probably went out for one of their romantic dinners.
Dad still brings Mom flowers every Friday, still opens doors for her like they’re newlyweds instead of a couple married for thirty years.
Their love story has always been my template for what relationships should look like.
The drive to their house in Beacon Hill takes longer than usual, Saturday morning traffic crawling through streets lined with historic brownstones and carefully maintained gardens.
Their house sits at the end of a tree-lined avenue.
I’ve always felt proud pulling into this driveway, knowing I come from this solid foundation.
Dad worked his way up from nothing, building a practice that serves Boston’s elite while never forgetting his humanitarian roots.
He volunteers at free clinics, donates to children’s charities, makes time for patients who can’t afford private care.
He’s everything I want to be— successful, compassionate, beloved by everyone who knows him.
Using my key, I let myself in through the front door. “Mom? Dad?” My voice echoes through the foyer, bouncing off mahogany panels and crystal chandeliers.
Silence.
The house feels wrong immediately. Too quiet, too still, like it’s holding its breath. The air carries a weight that makes my chest tighten with undefined dread.
I head toward the kitchen, expecting to find evidence of their usual Saturday routine— coffee brewing, newspapers spread across the marble countertops, classical music playing softly from hidden speakers.
Instead, I find chaos.
The kitchen looks like a tornado hit it.
Cabinet doors hang open, their contents scattered across expensive granite.
Empty bottles litter the counters— vodka, whiskey, wine— some still uncorked, others shattered on the floor.
The stench of spilled alcohol mingles with something else, something sour and desperate that makes my stomach clench.
This isn’t like them at all. My parents are meticulous, organized, the kind of people who never leave dishes in the sink overnight.
Dad drinks wine with dinner, maybe a vodka after a particularly difficult day at the practice.
But this… this looks like the aftermath of a bender that would make fraternity boys blush.
My hands shake as I pick up an empty bottle of Grey Goose, checking the label like it might explain everything. The glass is sticky with residue, fingerprints smeared across the surface in patterns that suggest desperation rather than celebration.
“Mom?” I call again, my voice cracking with rising panic. “Dad?”
I find her in the living room.
Mom lies crumpled on the cream sofa like a broken doll, her usually immaculate hair tangled around her face in greasy strands. Her silk blouse is stained with what looks like vomit, and the smell of alcohol radiates from her unconscious form in waves that make me gag.
This isn’t my mother. My mother doesn’t drink beyond an occasional glass of wine at dinner. My mother doesn’t pass out on furniture or leave the house in chaos. My mother is elegant, controlled, the perfect doctor’s wife who hosts charity luncheons and volunteers at the hospital auxiliary.
“Mom!” I drop to my knees beside the sofa, shaking her shoulders with trembling hands. “Oh my God, Mom, are you okay?”
Her eyes flutter open, unfocused and bloodshot. For a moment, she doesn’t seem to recognize me, staring through me like I’m a ghost. When recognition finally dawns, her face crumples with grief so raw it steals my breath.
“Ilona?” Her voice is a broken whisper, thick with alcohol and something darker. “You’re here.”
“What happened? Mom, what’s wrong? Where’s Dad?”
The question seems to shatter whatever composure she has left. Tears stream down her cheeks as she tries to sit up, failing twice before I help her upright. Her hands shake as she reaches for me, gripping my arms with surprising strength.
“Your father…” The words come out as barely more than a whisper. “He’s dead.”
I stare at her in disbelief. The words don’t make sense, can’t make sense. Dad, dead? Impossible. I just saw him a few days ago. He was fine, healthy, concerned about my health issues but otherwise perfectly normal.
“What?” The word tears from my throat like broken glass. “What did you say?”
“He’s dead, baby.” Mom’s voice breaks completely. “Your father is dead.”
The living room spins around me, expensive furniture and family photos blurring into meaningless shapes. My knees buckle, and only Mom’s grip on my arms keeps me from hitting the floor. This has to be a nightmare. Some twisted dream brought on by stress and too many changes in my life.
But Mom’s tears are real. The alcohol on her breath is real. The devastation in her eyes is real.
“How?” I manage to force the word past the ice blocking my throat. “How did he—when—”
“I don’t know.” Mom’s words slur together, confusion and grief making her barely coherent. “Police came yesterday. Said they found him… found him near a bridge. They said… they said…”
She dissolves into sobs that shake her entire body, and I realize she’s not just drunk—she’s in shock. Deep, traumatic shock that’s rendered her unable to process what’s happened.
My hands shake as I pull out my phone, dialing 911 with fingers that feel disconnected from my body. The operator’s voice sounds like it’s coming from underwater, professional and calm while my world crumbles around me.
“I need an ambulance,” I hear myself saying. “My mother… alcohol poisoning, I think. And shock. She’s in shock.”
The next ten minutes stretch like hours. I hold Mom while she alternates between sobbing and staring into nothing, her body limp with grief and vodka. She keeps repeating the same words—”He’s dead, baby. Your daddy’s dead”—like a broken record stuck on the most devastating track imaginable.
Dad is dead.
The words echo in my skull, but they feel foreign, impossible. Just days ago, I was worried about telling him about my endometriosis. Just days ago, he was the solid foundation of my world, the man who could fix anything, explain anything, make everything better with his presence alone.
Now he’s… gone?
The ambulance arrives in a blur of flashing lights and professional courtesy. Paramedics load Mom onto a gurney, checking her vitals and inserting an IV while I follow in a daze. She reaches for me as they wheel her away, her fingers cold and desperate against my palm.
“Don’t leave me,” she whispers. “Please don’t leave me alone.”
“I won’t,” I promise, though my voice sounds like it belongs to someone else. “I’m right here, Mom. I’m not going anywhere.”
The ride to the hospital passes in surreal silence broken only by the electronic beeping of medical equipment and Mom’s occasional whimpers.
I stare out the ambulance window at Boston streets that look exactly the same as they did this morning, wondering how the world can continue spinning when mine has just stopped completely.
At the hospital, they wheel Mom into the emergency department while I’m relegated to a plastic chair in the waiting area. The fluorescent lights buzz overhead, casting everything in harsh, clinical tones that make my skin look gray and lifeless.
I call Jason because I can’t think of anyone else who might have answers. The phone rings twice before his familiar voice answers, immediately shifting from casual to concerned when he hears mine.
“Ilona? What’s wrong, kiddo?”
“Jason…” My voice breaks on his name. “I need you to check something for me. In the police database. My father… Igor Shiradze. Something’s happened to him.”
“Give me a moment,” he says, his voice colored with concern. Keystrokes sound in the background, then silence stretches across the connection, and I know before he speaks that my worst fears are confirmed.
“Jesus, Ilona. I’m so sorry. There’s no easy way to say this. His case file shows him as deceased.”
The words drive the air from my lungs. So, it’s true. Dad is really dead. Not a mistake, not some horrible misunderstanding.
Gone.
“What happened?” I whisper, though part of me doesn’t want to know. “How did he…?”
“It says the case is still under investigation,” Jason says carefully, his cop voice replacing his fatherly concern. “But preliminary reports suggest… it appears to be self-inflicted.”
Suicide.
The word he can’t bring himself to say hangs between us like a loaded weapon. Dad killed himself.
“That’s not possible.” The denial comes automatically, fierce and absolute. “Dad would never… he’s not… there has to be some mistake.”
“Ilona… I know this is devastating, kiddo. I know it doesn’t feel like it makes sense right now—”
“Because it doesn’t make sense!” My voice rises, drawing looks from other people in the waiting room. “My father was happy. Successful. He loved his family, his work. He would never abandon us like that.”
“Sometimes people hide their pain—”
“Not Dad!” I’m shouting now, grief transforming into fury at the suggestion that I didn’t know my own father. “You don’t understand. He was fine. He was helping me with medical issues, worried about Mom, planning for the future. People who are suicidal don’t do those things.”
But even as I say it, memories surface that I’ve been ignoring. The strained conversation between my parents that I walked in on. Dad’s evasive answers about their finances. The way he looked tired, worn, like he was carrying weight I couldn’t see.
“Ilona,” Jason’s voice is gentle but firm. “I know this is hard to accept. But the evidence—”
“What evidence?” I demand. “What evidence could possibly prove that my father chose to leave us?”
“I can’t discuss details of an ongoing investigation. But if you want answers, if you need to understand what happened, I can put you in touch with the detective handling the case.”
I want to scream that there’s nothing to understand, that this is all some terrible mistake that will be corrected once the right people look at the right piece of evidence. But the words stick in my throat, choked off by the growing certainty that my world has fundamentally changed.
Dad is gone. However it happened, whatever led to this moment, he’s not coming back. The man who taught me to ride a bike, who walked me to school on my first day, who bandaged my scraped knees and broken hearts— gone.
“I have to go,” I whisper into the phone. “Mom needs me.”
“If you need anything—” Jason starts, but I’ve already hung up.
I sit in that plastic chair, surrounded by the controlled chaos of a hospital emergency department, and let the full weight of loss crash over me. Dad is dead, Mom is being treated for alcohol poisoning, and I’m completely, utterly alone for the first time in my life.
The warm glow my day started with feels like a distant memory. But the slip of paper in my jewelry box feels like a lifeline now— a connection to someone who made me feel alive, powerful, desired. Someone who saw me as worth touching, worth claiming, worth remembering.
I need that feeling again. Need to remember that I’m more than this grief, more than the daughter of a dead man and a traumatized woman. I need to feel like I matter to someone, even if that someone is a stranger whose name I don’t know.
But first, I have to survive this. Have to figure out how to keep breathing in a world without my father in it.
Have to find a way to live with the possibility that everything I thought I knew about the man who raised me might have been a lie.