Chapter Thirty-Five
Mirabel
The armored car doesn’t look armored.
That’s the point, Stefan explained this morning while handing over the keys—something about ballistic glass being indistinguishable from regular glass until someone tests it with a bullet.
I didn’t ask for specifics. I just nodded and tried not to think about the fact that I now live in a world where the vehicles I drive need to be bulletproof.
The car is quiet. Whatever soundproofing they installed to protect against bullets also protects against traffic noise, birdsong, and any reminder that the world outside still operates according to normal physics.
Debra sits beside me in the passenger seat, staring out the window at the motorway unreeling ahead of us.
She looks better than she did three days ago.
Better than the night of the engagement party, when Gavriil’s voice reached through the walls of Ashwater Heights and dragged her back to a basement she’s been trying to recover from.
But better is relative. Better is still a woman who dissociates when someone closes a door too loudly.
“It’s time we tell him,” I say.
Debra turns from the window. “About where I’ve been.”
“Yeah. He’ll start asking questions soon.
We need to get our story straight.” I signal to change lanes even though there’s no one behind us.
Arkady’s men are back there somewhere. I don’t look for them.
I just drive and pretend I’m a normal woman taking her sister to visit their father, not a pregnant mob wife being escorted by armed guards.
“We can’t tell him everything,” Debra says. “He’s still recovering. The shock—”
“Could kill him. Yeah. I know.” I sigh. “But when the hospital called, they said he’s getting stronger.”
“Yes,” says Debra.
“We tell him you were taken,” I say. “Kidnapped. That part’s true. We don’t tell him who or why or what happened while you were gone.”
“We say I was treated well enough. That I’m home now. That I’m safe.”
I feel terrible for lying to him, but what’s the alternative? Dad, Debra was kept as a sex slave by the father of my fiancé. Yes, the same fiancé you met at the hospital. Also, I’m carrying his grandchild. Surprise.
“He’ll want details,” I say.
“Then we don’t give them. We tell him it’s an ongoing investigation. That we can’t discuss it yet.”
“Dad doesn’t like being shut out.”
“Dad doesn’t get a choice.” The words come out sharp, and she closes her eyes for a moment. When she opens them, the flatness is back. “We’re protecting him, Mira. He doesn’t need to know all of it.”
She’s right. But there’s something vicious in the irony—that the two of us, the people he raised to be honest and forthright, are sitting in a bulletproof car planning the lies we’re going to feed him.
“Okay. Simple version. You were taken. You’re back. You’re safe. Everything else we’ll explain when we can.”
“When we can,” Debra repeats. Testing the phrase.
We pull into the car park at St. Mary’s. I find a spot near the entrance—not laziness, but Stefan’s instructions: Park where you can see the exit. If anything happens, you run.
The panic button is in my pocket. Debra has one too, disguised as a bracelet. We’re two women visiting our father in the hospital, armed with satellite-tracked emergency beacons.
Inside, Arkady’s men are already positioned—two of them in orderly uniforms near the nurses’ station on the fourth floor, blending in with the hospital staff so seamlessly I almost walk past them. One gives me the faintest nod.
The elevator takes us to oncology. Muscle memory takes over—left at the nurses’ station, right past the family room, third door on the left. Dad’s room.
Except when we get there, he’s not there.
The bed is made. Empty. Monitors off. For a single, terrible moment, my brain fills with every worst-case scenario it’s been rehearsing for the past year.
Oh my God!
Debra’s hand finds mine.
I flag down Dr. Klein, who’s reviewing charts at the nurses’ station. “My father—Peter McLeod—he’s not in his room.”
Dr. Klein looks up. Doesn’t look concerned, which is either very good or very bad. “Oh, Mr. McLeod is in the restaurant.”
“The restaurant?” My tone is incredulous.
“Yes. His appetite has returned over the past few days. He’s been eating well, gaining weight. His results are—” He pauses, choosing words. “Remarkably good. No one quite knows how to account for it, but your father is improving. Significantly.”
I stare at him. Something in me wants to grab hold of this, and something else is screaming no, don’t, don’t you dare hope.
“I’d like to discuss his progress with you properly when you have a moment,” Dr. Klein adds. “After your visit.”
I nod. Can’t speak.
Debra and I stand in the corridor for a moment. Then she turns to me, and her face is lit with hope for the first time since she was rescued.
“Restaurant,” she says.
“Restaurant,” I confirm.
We head that way.
The hospital restaurant is exactly as depressing as you’d expect—vinyl chairs, the smell of reheated everything, a sad salad bar. Prepackaged sandwiches that have been there since last Tuesday.
And at a table by the window, looking better than he has in six months, is our father.
I stop walking.
Dad looks good. Not cancer-patient good, not relative-to-last-week good, but genuinely good.
His face has filled out. The gray pallor is gone.
He’s wearing his own clothes—a soft navy jumper and dark sweat pants, not the hospital gown I’d started to forget he could exist without. Freshly showered. Shaved.
And he’s eating. Not picking at food the way he has for months, actually eating. Eggs, toast, bacon, a cup of tea, and he’s working through it with the focus of someone who’s rediscovered hunger.
He sees us. His whole face transforms—recognition, then pure, uncomplicated joy. The kind I remember from childhood, when Debra and I would come home from school, and his entire world narrowed to us.
“Girls.” He stands. Actually stands without the slow-motion rising I’ve watched him perform for months, without reaching for the table. Just stands and opens his arms.
I’m moving before I think. Debra too. His arms close around both of us, and we’re tangled together—father and daughters, the unit we’ve always been.
He smells like himself. Not hospital soap, not antiseptic. Just Dad. Laundry detergent and the ghost of his aftershave and something that feels like comfort.
“Look at you both,” he says, and his voice is strong. Full. “My beautiful girls. Together.”
He looks at Debra, not with the drugged, pain-fogged haze he’s had before. His eyes are clear as he takes her in.
“Debra. God, you’re here. You’re really here. For a while, I thought I was dreaming it.”
“I’m here, Dad.” Her voice is quiet but steady. Her face is pressed into his shoulder, and I can feel the way her breathing has changed, deep, almost steady.
We stand like that until my lower back protests and the baby elbows me in the kidney. When we pull apart, all three of us have wet faces.
“Sit, sit.” Dad gestures to the chairs. “Have you eaten? The food here is terrible, but it’s food, and after months of that nutritional supplement nonsense they kept passing off as meals, I’ll take terrible over beige liquid any day.”
We sit. He returns to his chair with no sign of the pain he’s carried for so long.
“How are you feeling?” Stupid question. I can see how he’s feeling. But I need to hear it.
“Honestly? Better than I have in months. The treatment kicked in. Dr. Klein is calling it a dramatic response, which I gather is medical speak for we didn’t expect this, but we’ll take it.
My last tests came back with numbers they actually smiled about.
Smiled, Mira. When was the last time you saw an oncologist smile? ”
Never. The answer is never.
“Dad, that’s incredible.”
“It is.” He sets his cup down and looks at both of us with the dad-look I know too well—the one that says I expect the truth. “Now. Is one of you going to tell me what’s been happening? Because I’m recovering from cancer, not a coma.” He turns to Debra. “Where were you all this time?”
Debra’s hands settle in her lap. That deliberate stillness. I watch her face cycle through options before settling on the version of truth we came up with.
“I was kidnapped,” she says. “Taken during the school trip. Held for a long time.” She pauses. “I’ll explain the rest later, Dad. It’s too complicated right now.”
Dad processes this in real time—the shock, the horror, the parental rage that has nowhere to go because the threat is past and Debra is here, alive, returned.
“The police—”
“Are involved. It’s ongoing. Arkady’s helping—he has resources. He’s making sure I’m protected.”
Not a lie. Just not the whole truth.
Dad looks at me. Back at Debra. Then at the window, where the city sprawls in its gray indifference.
“You know what, Debra?” he says finally. “You’re right. Let’s not discuss it now. Let’s just enjoy each other’s company. You being here—both of you being here, together, with me—that’s what truly matters. We’ll get to the rest when you’re ready.”
The knot in my throat loosens.
Dad reaches across the table and takes Debra’s hand. Then mine.
“I love you both. Whatever happened, whatever is happening—that doesn’t change. You’re my girls. That’s all I need to know.”
I wish everything in life could be this simple.
“Now,” Dad says, picking up his fork. “Tell me about this granddaughter of mine. You’re due in two months, Mira, and I intend to be around to meet her. Show me scans.”
The rest of the meal passes in normal conversation—ultrasound images on my phone, debates about baby names, Debra telling edited stories about settling back into life, Dad sharing overly detailed accounts of his treatment schedule as if oncology appointments are dinner party anecdotes.
When Dad checks his watch and says he should get back for afternoon vitals, we walk him to the fourth floor and settle him into his room. He hugs us both again—longer, tighter.
“Dr. Klein thinks I might be discharged next week if these numbers hold,” he says.
Discharged. The word doesn’t feel real.
“We’ll be here,” I promise.
In the hallway, the door closed behind us, I turn to Debra.
“I need to use the bathroom. Wait for me in the family room?”
She squeezes my hand once and heads down the corridor.
I don’t go to the bathroom. I find Dr. Klein in the consultation room off the main corridor—the same room where, three months ago, he sat me down and talked about palliative care and making Dad comfortable.
“What is this miraculous recovery?” I ask before I’ve even properly sat down. “I hardly recognize my father. He looks so good.”
Dr. Klein settles into his chair, removes his glasses, polishes them with the edge of his coat. Puts them back on.
“His response to treatment has been… nothing short of miraculous. Tumor markers down significantly. Kidney function improving. Appetite returned. Weight gain steady and healthy. All his vitals are trending in directions we rarely see at this stage.”
“Three months ago, you were talking about making him comfortable before death. What changed?”
“This is my personal opinion, Miss McLeod,” he says carefully, as if trying to pick the right words.
“Not official medical literature. But I’ve been practicing oncology for twenty-three years, and I’ve seen patterns.
” He pauses. “Your father’s system was weakened due to extended trauma.
That’s the kind of environment that allows cancer cells to flourish.
Deep trauma makes people sick. The body and mind are not separate—they communicate constantly, and when the mind is in a state of prolonged grief, the body responds.
Stress hormones, inflammation, compromised immune function.
Your father was grieving his daughter. That grief was killing him as surely as the cancer. ”
I can’t speak. He continues.
“Now he has both of his daughters back. His will to live is back. And when the will to live returns, sometimes the body follows.” He hesitates.
“I want to be very careful making statements like this, because it’s early days.
But I think your father is one of those rare people who could recover from this.
Not just survive—recover. With regular medical checks and continued treatment, he could live a good, fulfilled life after the disease. ”
I collapse back into the chair. My hands cover my face, and I’m crying—properly crying. I’ve spent a year crying over my dad. But these are different tears. These are the good kind.
“I’m fine,” I manage when Dr. Klein makes a concerned noise. “I’m just—God, I’m so happy.”
He slides a box of tissues across the desk and lets me cry it out.
When it passes, I wipe my face, take a breath, and try to pull myself together.
“Thank you. For everything you’ve done for him.”
“It’s my job.” Simple, factual, but warm. “And for what it’s worth, your father is lucky to have you both. That kind of love isn’t quantifiable in blood work, but it matters.”
I find Debra in the family room. She stands the moment she sees my face.
“What happened? What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong.” The words come out choked. “Dad’s going to be okay. Deb, he’s actually going to be okay. Dr. Klein thinks he could recover. Really recover. Because of you. Because you came home.”
Debra’s face crumples. Then she’s crossing the room and pulling me into a hug, and we’re both crying—messy, inelegant—two women in a hospital family room holding onto each other because our father might live.
We stand like that until the tears stop. Until the world settles back into its ordinary shape and we remember we have to drive home in a bulletproof car while armed men follow at a discreet distance.
But right now, none of that matters.
Dad is going to live.