Page 70 of Cruel Submission

“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.