Page 69 of Cruel Submission

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—”