Chapter Nineteen
Ilona
The hospital parking lot stretches before me like concrete purgatory, cars glinting under the harsh afternoon sun.
I sit behind the wheel of my Honda, engine off, keys dangling from fingers that won’t stop trembling. The silence presses against my eardrums, broken only by the distant hum of traffic and the rhythmic beeping of some medical alarm filtering through the hospital windows above.
No matter how hard I try to process all of this, nothing sinks in. Twenty million dollars in debt. Dad’s secrets. The house we’ll lose. The life we thought we knew— all of it built on lies I never saw coming.
My father is dead.
The words echo in my skull, refusing to feel real despite Jason’s words, despite the hours I’ve spent watching Mom fall apart.
I press the heels of my palms against my eyes until stars explode behind my lids, but the pressure can’t stop the tears from coming.
They fall hot and fast, carrying with them all the conversations we’ll never have, all the moments he’ll miss, all the questions I never thought to ask when there was still time for answers.
The grief is suffocating. It fills my lungs like water, makes breathing feel like drowning. Every inhale burns, every exhale comes out broken and jagged. This isn’t the manageable sadness I’ve felt before— this is something primal and devastating, the kind of loss that rewires your DNA.
I need to talk to someone. I need connection, understanding, anything to remind me that I’m not completely alone in this wasteland of hospitals and debt and family secrets.
But who? Jason is being professional about Dad’s case, treating me like a victim instead of someone who needs comfort.
My friends from work wouldn’t understand the magnitude of this devastation. And Stanley…
Stanley is history. The thought should bring relief— and part of it does— but mostly it just adds another layer of isolation to an already unbearable situation.
TMG – The Masked Guy
The thought hits me like lightning.
He understood pain in ways that suggested his own familiarity with loss. Maybe…
But it’s Sunday. No masked nights. No burgundy rooms filled with candlelight and the possibility of being seen by someone who doesn’t need explanations.
My phone feels heavy in my trembling hands as I stare at the blank screen. The VanishMe app. His contact information, written in strong masculine handwriting.
I could download it. Could reach across the anonymous divide and ask for what I need— not sex, not romance, but simple human connection from someone who’s proven he can offer it without conditions.
The app downloads faster than my racing heart can process. Black interface, minimal design, everything focused on messages that disappear after sixty seconds. Perfect for secrets that shouldn’t exist, conversations that need to stay buried.
My fingers hover over the keyboard, paralyzed by the weight of what I’m about to do. Breaking the rules. Shattering the carefully maintained boundaries that keep his world separate from mine.
But I’m drowning here, and he’s the only lifeline I can reach.
You know you shouldn’t be doing this, Ilona.
It’s against the rules.
The message disappears into digital ether, leaving only the crushing weight of silence. Maybe he won’t see it. Maybe he’ll ignore it, protecting the anonymity that makes our connection possible.
Minutes crawl by like hours.
Then: Read .
He saw it. He’s there, somewhere in the city, staring at my plea for help. But the silence stretches, taut and unforgiving, until I’m sure I’ve destroyed whatever magic existed between us.
Desperation overrides caution. I type before I can lose my nerve:
“I’m sorry to do this. Can I talk to you?”
Read appears again almost instantly. But still no response. No words to bridge the gap between his world and mine, no acknowledgment that what I’m asking for even exists.
Ten minutes pass. Ten minutes of sitting in this parking lot, watching other people’s normal lives continue while mine disintegrates. Ten minutes of wondering if I’ve just lost the only person who made me feel human in months.
Then my phone buzzes:
“Meet you in an hour. Usual place.”
Relief floods through me so fast it’s nauseating. He’s willing to break the rules. Willing to risk whatever consequences come with crossing that line.
“No masked night today.”
I gnaw on the edge of my nail as I wait for a reply.
“I will take care of that. See you in Room Five.”
The engine turns over on the second try, my hands steadier now that I have something to do, somewhere to go, someone to see. The drive to The Scarlet Fox passes in a fog of traffic lights and Boston streets that all look the same through eyes blurred with exhaustion and tears.
By the time I reach the familiar brick building, my heart is hammering against my ribs like it’s trying to escape. This is reckless. Dangerous. The kind of decision grief makes seem reasonable when nothing else in your life makes sense anymore.
Jack looks up from behind the polished bar as I enter, taking in my disheveled appearance with professional assessment. No surprise crosses his features— TMG must have called ahead, prepared him for this breach of protocol.
He nods toward the hallway without a word, understanding passing between us like shared conspiracy. Whatever rules exist here, whatever boundaries usually govern this place, they’re being suspended for reasons I don’t need to know.
The corridor feels different in daylight— less mysterious, more desperate. My footsteps echo off burgundy walls as I make my way to Room Five, each step bringing me closer to the only person who might understand the kind of pain that makes breathing optional.
The mask feels foreign on my face without the ritual of evening preparation, without the transformation from Ilona Shiradze into someone else entirely. But it settles into place anyway, becoming the barrier that makes honesty possible.
He’s already there when I open the door.
Sitting in the chair across from where I usually perch, fully clothed this time in dark jeans and a charcoal sweater that makes his shoulders look impossibly broad. The leather mask covers half his face, but I can see the tension in his jaw, the way his hands rest clenched on his thighs.
Something’s wrong.
He’s different.
The easy confidence that usually radiates from him has been replaced by something heavier, more guarded. Like he’s carrying weight that threatens to crush him.
“I’m sorry about this,” I begin, settling into my familiar chair with movements that feel automated. “There is no one else I can talk to.”
He nods once, a sharp jerk of his head that speaks of understanding without judgment. The permission in that simple gesture unlocks everything I’ve been holding back.
“My father died yesterday.” I choke the words out. “The police think it was suicide.”
Something flickers behind his mask— a tightening around his eyes that might be shock or recognition or simply the weight of witnessing someone else’s devastation.
But he doesn’t speak, doesn’t offer empty platitudes or false comfort.
Just listens with that complete attention that made me trust him in the first place.
“He was everything to me,” I continue, the words pouring out of me, my grieving heart no longer caring about rules. “My hero, my anchor, the one person who could fix anything. He… he was a respected gynecologist, helped so many families, saved so many lives.”
My words hang between us, and I swear I see him flinch. Like something unspoken crosses his face. But grief makes me hypersensitive, reading meaning into every shadow and silence.
“He taught me that problems have solutions, that hope exists even in the darkest moments. When I was little and scraped my knee, he told me it was brave to cry. When I failed my calculus final in college, he drove hours to see me. He took me for… for…” my voice cracks, “for ice cream and said, ‘it’s just one grade, darling. You’re worth so much more. ’”
I choke out the memories, tears streaming down my cheeks and disappearing behind the lace mask.
“He was supposed to help me figure out my endometriosis, supposed to be there when I finally found someone worth marrying, supposed to walk me down the aisle and hold his grandchildren and grow old watching me build the life he taught me I deserved.”
The silence stretches, filled only by my ragged breathing and the distant hum of the city beyond these walls. TMG remains perfectly still, but I can feel the intensity of his focus like heat against my skin.
“My mother is in the hospital now, sedated because she couldn’t handle the news. She’s been drinking— my elegant, controlled mother who barely touched alcohol. Yesterday I found her passed out on our sofa, surrounded by empty bottles, completely destroyed.”
I press my palms against my eyes, trying to stem the flow of tears that seems endless.
“I don’t understand how this happened. Dad seemed fine when I saw him last week.
Tired, maybe, but not… not like someone who was planning to leave forever.
How could I have missed it? How could I not know my own father was drowning? ”
When I look up, TMG has shifted forward slightly, his entire body radiating tension that suggests internal warfare. His hands are clenched so tightly on his thighs that I can see the strain in his forearms, the way his muscles fight against whatever he’s holding back.
“All I have is my mother now,” I whisper, the admission scraping my throat raw. “My job feels meaningless, my future uncertain. I don’t know how to exist in a world without my father in it. I don’t know how to be a daughter without a father. I… I’m sorry to dump all this on you.”
The grief crashes over me again, fresh and devastating as the moment I first heard the news. I double over in the chair, sobs wracking my body with violent intensity. This is ugly crying, the kind that strips away every pretense and leaves you raw and exposed.
When I finally lift my head, gasping for air between waves of devastation, TMG is standing. His posture is different now— not the controlled grace I’ve come to expect, but something heavier, more burdened. Like invisible weight has settled on his shoulders since I started speaking.
“Talk to me, please,” I beg, recognizing the signs of retreat in his body language. “I need… Just say something. Are you okay?”
But he just shakes his head, a sharp negative that cuts through my plea like a blade. He’s pulling away, emotionally and physically, the connection between us severing.
Before he can reach the door, desperation makes me bold. “Please don’t leave me alone here. I know it’s not fair to ask, but… I don’t have anyone else who—”
He stops mid-stride, his entire body going rigid. For a moment, hope flickers in my chest— maybe he’ll stay, maybe he’ll offer the comfort I’m desperate for.
Instead, he turns back to me with movements that seem to cost him everything.
His hand settles on my shoulder, fingers pressing through the thin fabric of my blouse with careful pressure.
The touch burns through me like electricity, carrying weight that has nothing to do with sexual desire and everything to do with shared understanding of pain.
In that single contact, I feel his grief mixing with mine. Whatever burden he carries, whatever darkness he lives with, it resonates with my own devastation in ways that make perfect sense and no sense at all.
The touch lasts only seconds, but it imprints itself on my skin like a brand. When he pulls away, the absence feels like tearing.
Then he’s gone, the door clicking shut behind him with finality that echoes through the empty room. I stare at the closed door, understanding with crystal clarity that I’ve just witnessed goodbye. Not the casual departure of our previous encounters, but true farewell.
Something in his touch, something in the way he carried himself, tells me I’ll never see him again. Whatever rules we broke by meeting here today, whatever boundaries we crossed by acknowledging each other’s existence outside these walls, have consequences that extend beyond my understanding.
I sit alone in Room Five, surrounded by burgundy velvet and flickering candles, and feel more isolated than I’ve ever felt in my life. Even the stranger who saw me at my most vulnerable, who offered connection without conditions, has been stripped away by forces I can’t name or fight.
The mask feels heavier on my face now, less like transformation and more like burden.
I pull it off with trembling fingers, letting it fall to the floor beside my chair.
Without it, I’m just Ilona again— grieving daughter, broken woman, someone who’s lost almost everything in the span of a single week.
The silence stretches, filled with echoes of everything I should have said and questions I’ll never get to ask. Both from my father and from the mysterious man who just walked out of my life forever.
I close my eyes and let the weight of loss settle over me like a shroud.
Dad is gone.
TMG is gone.
The two men who made me feel seen, valued, worth protecting— both beyond my reach now.
And I still don’t understand why.