Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Daisy
"Hello."
Confused, I tried to blink but couldn’t. Instead, my eyelids were peeled back.
"Are you awake?" the same little voice asked. A little face came into view. The same little face that I had recognized instantly as my child because he looked so much like Ilya.
"Yeah," I mumbled.
Almost instantly, he let my eyelids droop and scampered away. Sleep still clung to me, but that was short-lived as the mattress began to bounce.
What the hell was happening here?
It took me maybe a few seconds to realize before I scrambled for the sheets to cover my nudity.
My son was here. In this room. Clutching the sheet to my chest, I sat up, pressing my back against the headboard.
"Hello," I said softly. Was that even the right thing to say? What did one say to the child they were forced to give up?
He didn’t stop bouncing, his little feet getting higher and higher off the mattress with every jump.
I couldn’t help it; I smiled. His happiness was contagious.
"What are you doing in here?"
He turned his head, eyes flashing. "You were taking too long to wake up," he said, paused as if to study me, and then continued to jump. "So I thought—"
"Did your Papa ask you to wake me?"
Something that looked like a shadow flickered across his face. "Papa is busy." The excited jumping slowed and then stopped altogether. "He told me to stay inside and play and never touch the elevator doors. But—" a wicked smile crossed his face, "he never told me I wasn’t allowed in here."
I couldn’t help it; I grinned. "That’s sneaky. Alexander, isn’t it?"
Bouncing once, he landed cross-legged on the bed. "Alec."
I raised an eyebrow at him. That hadn’t been the name I had heard in the graveyard.
"Alec is what Papa calls me. You should call me Alec as well." He held out his little hand for me to shake.
"It’s nice to meet you, Alec." My heart gave a pang as I took his hand and squeezed. He was such a little gentleman. "Do you have any other names?"
It felt weird to ask him that when he was my child and I should have been the one to name him.
He puffed out his chest. "Alexander Dimitri Peter Popovitch," he said proudly.
My heart gave a pang. Ilya had given him my father's name. I hadn’t expected that. "It’s a beautiful name," I forced myself to say. "My name is Daisy."
"I know," he whispered, and the happiness evaporated from his face.
I didn’t want to make him sad, so I reached out and stroked down his cheek. "Would you like to play?" I asked.
He shook his head. "No, I don’t feel like playing, and anyway, Milli is in the playroom. She doesn’t like it when I make too much noise. Probably better if we stay in here and be quiet."
"Sure." My voice shook with uncertainty. "I’d love to talk to you." My mind was going a million miles an hour. Who was Milli? Had Ilya met someone else? Not that I could blame him. He had never loved me; it made sense that he had replaced me.
"She never wants to play. Not until Papa comes home, anyway. Then she just pretends." At his sides, his little fists clenched. "She’s not very nice. Not like you."
"Is Milli your momma?" I couldn’t help the wobble to my voice.
His eyes flashed. "Of course not. Milli is my babysitter. Most of the time she just calls her boyfriend and drinks Papa's burning drink." He shook his head.
I let out a sigh of relief. I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of it before. There was no way Ilya would leave his son alone if he wasn’t here.
"She really shouldn’t be doing that. She should be looking after you."
He nodded his head. "Yeah, but she doesn’t have to now, does she, because you are here." His lips moved upwards in a smile. "I don’t need a nanny because I have a mommy."
The world spun around me. Everything blurred together.
My throat worked and my mouth opened, but the only word that came out of my mouth was a squeak. "Alec."
"You are my mommy, aren’t you?"
I couldn’t breathe. My lips opened and closed like a fish.
"Papa said you were an angel, but I knew it was you. When I saw you. You looked like an angel. And you got sad. Papa has been sad too." His lips twisted. "That’s why he locked this room up."
I swallowed hard.
No wonder it had all looked the same. Ilya had kept my room as some kind of shrine. I didn’t know what to think about that. Why would he even do it when he had wanted me out of his life?
"You were sad last night. Papa was too."
My head snapped around to his. "Your Papa was sad?"
He nodded his head, deadly serious. "I don’t like it when people are sad."
I continued to stroke my fingers over his baby-soft cheek. I’d missed the first six years of his life, but he was right here in front of me, and I couldn’t stop stroking his cheek even as tears sprang up in my eyes.
How could I love someone so much when we had only just met?
"Neither do I," I admitted, forcing my lips up to a smile.
Ten seconds passed where neither one of us spoke, and then he jumped off the bed. "Stay here," he ordered, sounding every bit his father's son. I couldn’t help but smile. Where was I going to go? I was naked.
Fifteen minutes passed before he slipped back in the door and piled a bundle of clothes on the end of the bed.
I stared at them, confused. "Whose clothes are these?" One by one, I lifted them. "Are these my clothes?"
"I got them out of Papa's room. Get dressed so we can escape."
I didn’t even want to think of the implications of why Ilya still had my clothes in his closet after six years.
"Escape?"
Nervously, he looked towards the door, his eyes shifting every which way. "Papa is going to make you sad; I don’t like that. So we are going to run away."
"Your Papa will be sad if you run away, Alec."
He shrugged. "I know, but—" A noise sounded from out in the apartment, and his eyes grew wide. "I have to go. Get dressed. When I come back, we can run away together."
Fifteen minutes later, I was dressed in my old clothes that were just a tiny bit too tight. The jeans and graphic tee weren't going to give me any kind of protection from the rain coming down outside my windows, and the flip-flops weren’t matched, but he had tried.
My son was going to bust me out. I didn’t know why he wanted to run away. Maybe Ilya was cold and harsh to him, but I didn’t think that was it.
I knew how Ilya acted when he cared about someone, plus I had seen how he had looked at our son.
He loved him.
"Ready?" Alec whispered from the door. Nodding, I tiptoed towards the door. My heart was thundering a million miles an hour. If Ilya came back now, I’d lose my life.
Hell, I’d probably lose my life if I stayed.
"We have to get the staff elevator. Down to the third floor, and then we use the fire escape. If we go down to the basement, Papa's men will catch us," Alec said matter-of-factly as he slipped his hand into mine and tugged me forward.
There was a backpack on his back. One with some cartoon characters on it that I didn’t know. Matching Wellington boots were on his feet.
"We have to be quiet because Milli will hear us." He pressed his finger to his lips, and I nodded.
Together, hand in hand, we moved across the spacious apartment until we got to the small service elevator, which was locked with a keypad.
Shit.
I’d never had to use this; I didn’t know the code. This was a dead end.
"It’s okay, we can—"
"Oh, two, two, four."
I stared at him in shock, completely confused until he lifted his little hand and typed in the first number. Followed by the other three.
Zero, two, two, four.
My birthday. The code was my birthday?
Together we stepped into the elevator. I had so many questions. How he knew the code? How he knew how to escape? But there was only one burning question on my lips as we hurtled downwards towards freedom.
"Alec?"
He tilted his head up to me.
"Is Papa mean to you? Is that why you want to run away?"
His chubby face, so much like his dad's, twisted. "No, of course not. Papa is the bestest Papa ever. He loves me the whole world."
He seemed genuinely outraged at the notion.
I let out a sigh. Okay, so that wasn’t the reason. Honestly, I hadn’t thought it would be.
Crouching down on my two left sandals, I brought our faces level. "Then why are you running away, Alec? It will make your Papa very sad."
Tears welled up in his eyes. Jesus, he was such a kind, sensitive little soul.
"Papa will be sad, but you will be sad too. And Papa will understand. He will say I am a brave boy."
I waited for him to continue, but at that moment the door opened onto one of the lower floors and we snuck out.
I couldn’t help but look around, half expecting a goon with a gun to jump out at any second. Surely Alec would have been missed by now.
"You are very brave," I muttered. The light indicating the stairwell was right there, and down just a few flights of stairs was freedom.
I just didn’t know what I was going to do when I got there. I didn’t have my purse or my passport. I couldn’t run. Maybe I could go to the police, but I had a feeling that wouldn’t help. Ilya probably had them in his pocket.
"I am." Alec squeezed my hand in his chubby one. "And don’t worry, I will protect you. That’s why I am coming."
I blinked down at him in shock. "You’re running away with me so you can protect me?" I whispered.
He nodded, completely serious. "Yes, Papa wouldn’t want you out there alone. Bad men are out there."
Yeah, there were bad men in the world. His father might just be the worst of them all, but I didn’t say that to him. Instead, I nodded. "Yes, they are."
"So I am going to look after you; that’s why I brought the 'widges." He pointed to the backpack.
"The what?" I had no clue what he was saying.
"Jam and peanut butter," he said proudly.
I sniffled. Sandwiches. He had been trying to say sandwiches. My son had given so much thought to our escape that he had packed us a lunch.