Chapter 20 Martin
MARTIN
Thomas swings the knife at me, tearing a chunk of my tee and drawing blood from my chest. I grimace, jerking backward, but I know there’s no way he can win this. He’s too shaken, too angry, and it’s throwing off his good sense.
Not that I can blame him, given the circumstances.
He tries to rush past me, and I slam the door before he can make it inside, sending him crashing into the wood full-force with a grunt.
He spins around, brandishing the knife again, and I flex my hands at my sides.
I never thought I would have to take on my own damn son in a fight like this, but right now, it doesn’t look like I have a choice.
He brandishes the knife at me, jabbing it toward me like he’s trying to keep me at arm’s length. “Why did you do it?” he demands. “Did you do it to hurt me? Did she come to you because she knew—”
“I didn’t know anything,” I tell him. It’s the truth, but I doubt he’ll believe it.
Shit, I don’t know if I would believe it, if I was in his shoes. The coincidence is just too enormous, the hugeness of it more than either of us can take.
“Oh, yeah, like I’d believe that,” he grunts. He swings the knife wildly again, but it’s clear he doesn’t have a damn clue what he’s doing with that thing. I don’t know what he had intended to do with it if it had only been Lila in the apartment, but I’m relieved that I’m here to take him on.
Even if this whole mess has left me with more questions than answers.
“Just leave her alone,” I tell my son, pacing around him carefully, pushing him back wordlessly till he’s at the top of the stairs. It’s a short drop to the next landing, but enough to knock the wind out of him. If he won’t go on his own terms, I’m happy to help.
“And what, you’ll go in there and knock her up again?” he snaps. “Does Mom know about this? What would she think if she knew you had a little whore on the side—”
“Don’t talk about her like that.”
I try to control my temper, but it’s difficult when he’s clearly going out of his way to aggravate me. He wants a response, wants me to react, wants to see me blow the fuck up with no warning. That way, he’ll feel as though he has won, and I know I can’t give him that satisfaction.
“Why, that’s what she is, isn’t she?” he mocks me. “A girl who’d sleep with a father and son—what else does that make her but a—”
I lunge for him before I can stop myself, and he takes a step back to get away from me—but he’s so close to the edge of the stairs that he topples, sending himself sprawling to the ground before he realizes what’s happening.
The knife flies from his hand and I dive down to grab it before he can pick it up again, watching as he lands with a heavy thud at the bottom of the staircase.
“Get the fuck out of here, Thomas,” I warn him, holding the knife, making sure it catches the light. “Or I’ll call the cops, and make sure that your mother doesn’t protect you this time.”
He glowers at me, but finally seems to get the message, and scrabbles to his feet to take off down the stairs and leave us alone. I stand there for a moment, breathing hard as I try to ground myself, and then turn to head back to the apartment.
Because there’s a whole hell of a lot of explaining that has to be done. On both sides.
Lila is already there, her arms wrapped around herself, the babies settled on their playmat.
“Is he…is he gone?” she whispers.
I nod, closing the knife and slipping it into my pocket. “He’s gone.”
Silence hangs in the air between us. Where the hell do we even start with this? It feels impossible to even get the words out, let alone contend with the enormity of what has just happened.
“Is he really your son?” she asks finally.
I nod.
“I thought you said you didn’t have children.”
“I didn’t want to stress you out about him,” I admit. “I should have been straight-up, but I—I never thought it would come up.”
She presses her lips together, nods.
“And is he really your ex?” I ask.
“Yeah, he is.”
I close my eyes. I should have put the pieces together.
A man who terrorized a woman like that for years on end, how many other men are there like that in this city?
Maybe I had been in denial, trying to pretend that my son couldn’t have done something so cruel, but I was stupid to think for a second that I could duck responsibility for it.
“Jesus Christ,” I mutter.
There’s nothing else to say. I can’t even begin to untangle the mess of this inside my head, the enormity of this chaos that’s closing in around me right now.
I feel like I’m going to throw up, and she’s not looking too well either.
She reaches out for my hand, and I pull it away, feeling as though I’ve been scorched.
“That night, the night we met…”
“I was running away from him,” she confirms, and she looks down at the twins, her face a twisted painting of distress. “But I…I had no idea who you were, Martin. And I would never have done any of this if I had known. You have to believe me—”
“I believe you.”
She gazes at me, and her face is written with so much hope it makes my heart hurt.
But I can’t do this. I can’t. I’ve been lying to myself all this time, letting myself believe for an instant that I could make things work with her when I know that I’m just—I’m just some dirty old man twice her age who slept with her when she was vulnerable, and I can’t undo that, no matter how hard I try.
“What’s wrong?” she asks, and she tries to touch me again. I don’t pull back this time, knowing it will likely be the last time I allow myself to feel her touch.
“I can’t do this, Lila,” I tell her gruffly.
I don’t even want to say it out loud, but what choice do I have?
I can’t pretend any longer. I can’t make like I don’t see the mess that we’re in.
I’m the father of her children—and the father of the man who harmed her in ways that she’s still trying to recover from, the man who won’t give her the peace she so dearly needs.
I hate that I’ve let it go on as long as it has. I should have nipped this in the bud a long time ago, after that dinner, when I offered her all the money and support she could have wanted. That could have been it.
“What do you mean?” she asks, her voice catching at the back of her throat, the pain evident in every word.
“I mean…I shouldn’t have let any of this happen,” I tell her. “I was living in a fantasy world. Thinking I could make something work between us, when we’re so different. I should never—”
I look down at the twins, and my heart clenches. I will still support them, of course, but I can’t risk being this close to them. Look at what happened the last time I raised a child—he brandishes a knife on the woman he claims to care for, like some sort of psychopath.
“I should have told you about Thomas a long time ago,” I concede. “Because he’s the reason I wasn’t sure about having the twins in the first place.”
“What are you talking about?”
I shake my head. I don’t know how to put it into words without sounding mad.
She likely already thinks I’m crazy, given what just happened, but it’s not her prerogative to sift through everything and help me make sense of it.
No, it’s better for all of us if we just leave this behind right here and now, and forget that we got involved in the first place.
“I’m sorry,” I repeat again.
There aren’t enough apologies for what I have done to her.
Not just leading her on, letting her believe that there might be a chance for a real relationship between us, but knowing that it was my son who caused her this hurt in the first place.
If I had kept a closer eye on him, if I had stayed in touch with him more, then maybe he would never have had the space to abuse her the way he did.
It only took one look at her this morning, at her expression when she heard him banging on the door, to tell me just how much trauma she already lives with, and to think that I could have done something to ease some of that for her…
I move to the door, and she goes after me, her eyes starting to grow glassy with tears.
“Martin, please, we can talk about this—”
“There’s nothing for us to talk about.”
I can’t give her an inch. If I do, I might change my mind about leaving, and I know I would never be able to forgive myself.
I can feel the knife pressing against my leg through my pocket, a reminder of what Thomas would have done if he had gotten access to her and the twins.
My stomach knots at the thought. Of what he could have done. Would have done, given the chance.
“Any help you need from me with him, just ask,” I tell her, a hand on the door. “But us, this…” I gesture between us. “It’s not right, Lila. I can see that now.”
“Martin—”
She calls after me one last time before I force myself to open the door and step out into the corridor outside.
My hands are clammy and my legs feel weak, but I keep going.
I can’t turn back now. I have to lay down the law, put some sense into all of this mess, even if it feels like I will never be able to make sense of anything ever again.
My son’s ex.
The mother of my children.
I don’t even want to think what Martha will think of me after this. If she would have judged me for getting involved with a younger woman at the best of times, I don’t even want to imagine what kind of disdain she will have for me getting Lila, of all people, pregnant.
But I know one thing for sure. It’s nothing compared to the disdain I have for myself right now. I doubt that anything anyone can throw at me will even come close to the hatred that’s entirely aimed inward in this moment.