Chapter Twenty-Two
Mirabel
“Mirabel?”
My name. In her voice. The voice that used to finish my sentences, that knew every secret.
We stand face to face. Identical. Trembling. Both alive. Both here in Arkady’s garden for reasons that don’t make sense yet.
“How—?” Her voice cracks. “How are you here?”
I don’t answer. Can’t answer. I just close the distance and pull her against me.
She collapses into my arms—or I collapse into hers—and we’re sobbing, clutching each other like we’re drowning. Her bones feel sharp under my hands. Too sharp. Too thin. But she’s warm and breathing and real.
“You’re alive.” The words tear out of me. “God, Debra, you’re alive—”
“I know. I know.” Her hands fist in my shirt. “I’m here, Mira. I’m okay.”
She’s lying. I feel it in the way she shakes, in the hitch of her breathing, in how she holds me like I might disappear too. But I don’t push. Not yet.
The baby starts crying.
She pulls back, swiping at her face. “Sorry, I have to—” She turns to the stroller, lifts the bundle of blue blankets.
When she faces me again, when I see the baby’s face—
My breath stops.
Dark hair. Strong features. And those eyes—pale, piercing, unmistakable even on an infant.
Arkady’s eyes. I’m certain of it.
My hand drops to my stomach before I can stop it. Covering the place where his other child grows. The baby I was about to run away with.
“Yours?” The word comes out wrong. Flat.
“What? No.” Debra rocks the baby automatically. “This is Aleks. Arkady’s son. The nanny’s sick, so he asked me to watch him today.” She glances at me. “I don’t know much about the mother. She’s… not around.”
“Debra.” My voice sounds strange. “What are you doing here? How long have you—?”
“It’s complicated.” She shifts the baby to her other arm. Her hands won’t stop shaking. “Can we…? Can I have some time? To explain? I just need—”
The haunted look stops me cold. Whatever happened to her is carved into her face, her posture, the way she moves like she expects something to hurt her.
“Okay.” I swallow hard. “Okay, we don’t have to—”
“Dad.” She cuts me off. “Is he… Mira, is Dad okay?”
My throat closes.
“He’s sick.”
“Sick how?”
“Cancer.”
She staggers. I grab her elbow, steadying her while she clutches Aleks against her chest.
“No,” she whispers. “No, he can’t… Not Dad—”
“He’s fighting it. The treatment’s working.” I’m talking fast, trying to stop the panic spreading across her face. “That’s why I’m here. Working for Arkady. The money pays for everything: the treatment, doctors, all of it. Dad’s going to be fine. He’ll be even better when he sees you.”
I have to believe that. Have to believe seeing her won’t give him a heart attack from shock.
“When?” Her voice cracks again. “When can I see him?”
“Soon. We’ll go together, I promise.”
Aleks squirms and fusses. Debra adjusts him, but her movements are mechanical. Distant. Like her body’s here, but her mind is somewhere else.
I cup her face, gentle, forcing her to look at me.
“Deb. Are you okay?”
She laughs. It’s a broken, jagged sound that makes my chest ache. “I don’t even know anymore.”
“Tell me.” I keep my voice soft. Steady. “You can tell me anything. You know that.”
For a long moment, she just stares at me. Then something breaks in her expression, and the words start spilling out.
“He took me, Mira. That night in the woods. There were men. They grabbed me and threw me in a van, and I woke up in…” She stops. Swallows. “In a room. Underground. Concrete walls. No windows. There were other girls. So many girls.”
My stomach turns to ice.
“Gavriil Laurov.” Her voice drops to almost nothing. “Arkady’s father. He… he kept me. I was his—” She can’t say it. Can’t get the word out. “His favorite. That’s what he called me.”
I’m going to be sick. Right here in the garden, I’m going to throw up.
“Every night he’d come down. Pick one of us. Sometimes he’d take me to this other room and—” She stops again. Shakes her head violently. “I can’t. I can’t talk about that part.”
“You don’t have to.” My voice sounds like it’s coming from underwater. “Debra, you don’t—”
“I watched girls disappear.” She keeps going, words tumbling out now like she can’t stop them.
“Shipped overseas. Dubai. Amsterdam. Places I’d never heard of.
Fourteen, fifteen years old. Some younger.
” Her eyes are somewhere else. Somewhere terrible.
“The ones who fought back… they didn’t last long. ”
Tears stream down my face. I can’t stop them, can’t breathe past the weight crushing my chest.
“Arkady found me.” She focuses on me again.
“He raided his father’s compound. Pulled me and the other girls out.
” Her voice wavers. “He saved us, Mira. He’s been hiding me here, protecting me, paying for therapy.
Dr. Harrison comes three times a week. I’m on medication for—” She gestures vaguely. “For everything.”
I’m sobbing now. Full body sobs that shake through me, making my stomach cramp. Nausea rolls up my throat, pregnancy or horror, I can’t tell.
“I should have found you.” The words rip out. “I should have looked harder, I should have—”
“Stop.” She wraps her free arm around me, still holding Aleks. “You couldn’t have known. No one knew. He was careful. They were all careful.”
“Six years,” I choke out. “You were there for six years—”
“I survived.” Her voice hardens. “That’s what matters. I survived, and I’m here, and I’m getting better. Slowly. But better.”
We hold each other in the garden while Aleks fusses between us. The baby’s soft cries mix with our ragged breathing, and somewhere above us, birds are singing like the world isn’t completely destroyed.
Everything clicks into place.
The locked rooms. The phone calls that send Arkady disappearing for hours. The security. Dr. Harrison’s visits. God. It wasn’t another woman. It wasn’t secrets kept out of cruelty or control.
It was Debra.
He was protecting her. Giving her space to heal. Trying to figure out how to navigate an impossible situation without breaking anyone further.
And I was going to leave. Was going to run away with his baby growing inside me, convinced he was dangerous, convinced I couldn’t trust him.
The guilt is sharp enough to cut.
I lift my head, tears still wet on my face.
Arkady stands twenty feet away, half-hidden by the hedge line.
He’s watching us. Silent. Still. His hands hang loose at his sides, but there’s tension in his shoulders, in the set of his jaw. Like he’s ready to move if we need him. Or ready to step back if we don’t.
Our eyes meet.
My hand covers my stomach. The baby. His baby. The one I almost took from him.
He rescued my sister from his own father. He’s raising Aleks for a woman he never cared for. He gave me work when I was desperate, protected me when men tried to grab me, and never asked for more than I was willing to give.
All his faults—the control, the violence always simmering just below the surface, the secrets—suddenly make sense. Not excusable. But understandable.
He’s not perfect. He’s not safe.
But he’s mine.
The realization sinks in. Not a romantic notion or a desperate hope. Just fact. Simple and absolute.
He saved my sister. I’m carrying his child. And somewhere between the fear and the fury and the desperate need, I fell in love with him.
Arkady takes a step forward. Slow. Careful. His eyes never leave my face, reading me the way he always does—looking for signs of flight, signs of fight, signs of anything that might tell him what I need.
I don’t move.
The duffel bag lies abandoned on the flagstones between us. My escape plan reduced to dead weight.
I’m not going anywhere.