Lily
I watch him for hours, focused on every tiny move he makes. His very existence enchants me. Out of something very dark came someone purely good.
Touching his hand, I smile when his fingers wrap around my pinky and tighten to a firm grip, even as he sleeps. He instinctively knows he can cling to me.
It’s been just over a year since I last saw Cason, but every day for the past four months, I’ve gotten to see the child we created who looks like the spitting image of his father with his dark hair and deep brown eyes. I fantasize that he’s out there somewhere and keeps an eye on us, but out here in the country, there isn’t much to worry about.
My father passed away just a month after my son was born. He never had any more run-ins with men he owed money to after I came home, but the stress of what happened to me made him an old man overnight. I think he only lived as long as he did to see his grandson come into the world. He never asked who his father was, and I never told him.
But one look at Lukas and he knew the truth.
It’s not that I’m ashamed of who his father is. Never once have I felt anything but pride that my son grew out of something that most people would think was the worst part of my life. It wasn’t. The bad parts of that week have faded away, leaving only the good, and my son is the best thing I have to remember his father by.
Not that I ever mention the circumstances around how he came to be to anyone. We live quietly in the house my father’s plates helped pay for out here in the country where no one bothers us. I have enough money that we’re comfortable and I can stay home with Lukas until he goes to school. Then our lives will change, but until that day comes, it’s just the two of us living that life I described to Cason that morning in that dingy motel room.
Is he still alive, or did his father kill him for what he did to Doc to protect me? I wonder if I’ll ever learn the truth. Until then, he remains only a memory that lives through our son.
I lay my head on the pillow as Lukas holds my finger and whisper, “Never doubt that you are loved. Whatever your father was to everyone else, he protected me so you could come into the world.”
Pressing my lips to his forehead, I kiss him goodnight and smile at the feel of his soft skin. He’s so new and so pure that I wish I could keep him this way forever. Cason’s words that day as he told me how he was destined to work for his father never leave my mind, but I won’t let Victor Varens do the same to my little boy.
“I promise you won’t ever have to do that, Lukas.”
As I close my eyes, I repeat that pledge to myself over and over until I drift off to sleep. I will never let that happen to my son.
Jolted from a deep sleep, my eyelids fly open at the sound of a door closing. I quickly look across the room toward the TV and see it isn’t on, and a second later my brain understands that sound means someone is in the house with us. I scoop up Lukas into my arms and tightly clutch him to me before hurrying over to the closet door.
I freeze as my hand grips the doorknob, straining to hear where the intruder is in the house but unable to as my heartbeat pounds in my ears. I’ve feared this moment every day since Lukas was born. When nothing happened in the past few months, I convinced myself that I was just being paranoid.
Now I’m sure I wasn’t.
A tiny cry escapes from Lukas, and I stare down at him in terror. Holding him against my chest, I kiss the top of his head and silently pray to God the person outside my bedroom didn’t hear him.
Slowly, I open the closet door, wishing I had oiled that damn hinge like I planned to weeks ago. The creaking sound slices through my body, paralyzing me. I can’t move or cry out. I’m trapped.
Now I hear heavy footsteps coming toward the room. Clomp. Clomp. Clomp. Whoever it is, they walk slowly and confidently, not afraid that I know they’re here. They know I have no defense against them.
My imagination runs wild as my heart races in terror.
A man.
Twice my size.
With a gun.
He’s here to kill me and take Lukas.
The intruder heard the door like I feared they would and knows exactly where we are. My gaze frantically darts around the room as I desperately search for a way out. The door won’t work, but what about the windows?
My bedroom is on the second floor. I chose this room because of the beautiful view of the sunrise I get every morning through those windows that now serve no good purpose to me. Even if I could get down to the ground, I can’t do it safely with Lukas.
One footstep followed by another and another down the hallway, each one closer to where I stand with my infant son in my arms. Then they stop. I hold my breath and listen for the next sound. Will it be another footstep or will it be someone’s hand twisting the doorknob before they find us?
“I know you’re here, Lily,” a man’s ominous voice calls out from the other side of the door. “Don’t make this difficult. Come with me and you won’t get hurt.”
The voice sounds familiar in some way, but I don’t recognize it. The man knows who I am, though, and one terrible thought races through my mind.
Victor Varens has finally decided to come for my son.
Against Lukas’s cheek, I whisper, “I promise we’ll be okay, honey. Just hold on to mommy and don’t cry.”
I don’t have a choice now. I have to go out the window.
Rushing across the room, I push up the screen and stick my head out into the October morning air. An unusually warm fall day, the air feels heavy, like a water-logged sponge, and it makes filling my lungs difficult. I struggle to inhale fully, but I need to so I can calm myself as I quickly scan the size of the jump I’m going to have to make in mere seconds.
God, what if I don’t make it? Or what if Lukas is hurt in the fall?
The bedroom door begins to open, so I don’t have time to think about the answers to those questions. Pulling my head back inside, I hold my son tightly to me and put one leg out the window. It dangles against the side of the house as I desperately work up the nerve to send the rest of me out after it.
I crouch down, my cheek pressed against my baby’s head, and start to ease myself out the window until only my left leg still remains inside. Just one more thing to do and then I hope God protects us when we fall two stories.
“What the… get the fuck back in here!” the man barks before charging toward where I hang halfway out the window.
“Leave us alone! I won’t go with you!” I scream as Lukas begins to cry, startled by all the yelling.
The man is the definition of burly, at least twice my size and easily able to grab hold of my body. He pulls me inside with a single yank and a deep grunt, setting me on my feet with a look of disgust.
“You’re on the second floor, for Christ’s sake! Did you want to kill yourself? What the fuck are you thinking, little girl?” he asks, scrunching up his fat face.
“I don’t know what you want with us, but I won’t go. I’m not afraid of you,” I say, not bothering to answer any of his idiotic questions.
“You will go, and if you had any sense, you’d know that I’m not here to hurt you. If I was, I would have pushed you right out that window myself.”
As much as I don’t want to admit it, that makes sense. Even coming from him.
Grabbing my arm, he tugs me toward the door as Lukas cries even louder. I rub his back to soothe him, but it does no good.
“My son is just an infant. Please don’t hurt him.”
“I’m not here to hurt either one of you,” the man says in frustration. “Now just come with me and nobody will get hurt. You know how this works. Don’t make it hard on yourself.”
I don’t know him, but I do know how this works. I know all too well.
“Why does Victor Varens want to see me? I’m nobody to him,” I say quietly as I’m lead down the stairs toward the front door.
But suddenly the man who was so chatty just a minute ago now has nothing to say. All the better. I know the answer to my question, so I don’t need this guy to tell me why.
Lukas had the bad luck of being born a male, and just like his father, he’s worth more because of that.
The monster’s office looks just like it did the last time I was brought there. Anyone who doesn’t know the man would think all those books would make him more civilized, not less, but somehow they don’t. They’re probably all for show.
“Little girl, Scotch here says you tried to jump out a second story window with my grandson,” he says in a voice that makes it sound like he gives a damn about Lukas or me. His tone changes to one far more menacing when he continues, “That makes me wonder about your fitness to be his mother, to be honest.”
I squirm in the leather chair I’m forced to sit in at the mere mention of my not being the best person to take care of my child. “I am the only person in the world fit to be his mother,” I say defiantly.
My attitude goes unnoticed, however. Likely, the rebellious tone of a nobody to him doesn’t faze Victor Varens in the least.
“I’m curious why this child has never met his father,” he says as he turns to look over at Lukas as he sleeps in the bassinette on the side of his desk where he placed him when we arrived. “It’s obvious he’s my son’s child. Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that out.”
The truth is Lukas looks like his grandfather too. Victor and Cason’s dark hair and deep brown eyes have made their way to the next generation. But that’s where the similarities end.
When I don’t answer him, he gets up from his chair and walks over to stand next to the bassinette. Without saying a word, he leans down and stares at my son. It’s a look that reminds me of how animals gaze at their prey before sinking their teeth into their flesh and ripping them apart.
Quickly, I try to force his attention back on me. “I’ve never seen Cason again. I don’t even know if he’s alive, so there was no one to inform about his birth.”
Victor lifts his head and smiles. “I bet you thought I’d never find out, didn’t you? A single week you two spent together, so why would anyone think anything came of it?”
I have a sense he doesn’t want answers to those questions, and because I have no answers, I stay silent. I never thought I’d be able to avoid having him find out about my son. I’ve dreaded that fact since the moment Lukas came into the world after hearing Cason tell me what his father did to him all his life.
As for the time we spent together, it’s always felt like so much longer than it was in reality. Maybe that’s because of what happened with Doc. I don’t know, but to this moment, I’ve never felt closer to another person in my life than Cason.
“So my son produced a boy. I guess I’m not surprised. Varens men always create the next generation,” he says proudly and then takes another look back in at him.
“His name is Lukas.”
My statement seems to surprise him, like he never considered my son to have a name before this moment. Why would he? Like his father, he means nothing to him other than just another person he can command to do his bidding.
But I won’t let that happen.
Victor sits down and stares across his desk at me. “If you thought you were going to be able to keep this child from his rightful family, you’re going to find out how wrong you were.”
“I’m his rightful family. I’m his mother. That means more than anything else in the world. I carried him in my body and gave birth to him. I feed him and comfort him when he cries. Me. Whatever anyone else thinks they are to him, they aren’t me.”
As the words leave my mouth, I know somewhere in the back of my mind that any one of them may set this man off, and yet, I don’t care. I don’t know why he choose today to bring us here, but I have the sense that he’s known for much longer that Lukas existed. We’re likely just some useful pair of pawns to get Cason to do something for him. Nothing more.
“My first wife thought she was the most important person in Cason’s life too. I can assure you I showed her that was an incorrect assumption.”
“I know all about what you did to your first wife. Cason told me exactly what happened to her. That doesn’t change the fact that Lukas is only a baby and can’t hold any worth to you, so why won’t you let us go?”
Victor’s eyebrows shoot up into his forehead at my reference to Cason’s mother’s murder. “One week and he told you that? I’m impressed, little girl. Not only did you turn the killer on another man but you got him to open up about something I would have thought he’d never tell a soul and leave the only life he’d ever known. That’s nothing short of amazing, in my eyes.”
His mention of what happened to Doc gives me the opportunity to explain the truth of that night, so I jump at the chance. “I didn’t turn anyone on Doc. He tried to rape me, and Cason made him pay for it. As a killer, that’s what he’s supposed to do, isn’t it? Kill people? I’d think you’d be happy he did his job.”
For a long moment, Victor says nothing but continues to stare at me. I’m likely pushing my luck by being so mouthy with him, but Cason did nothing wrong.
“My son is only supposed to kill for me. By murdering Doc, he killed for you. An entirely different circumstance, unfortunately.”
“How can you be so unforgiving of your own son? Doc was just an employee. Cason is your flesh and blood. Now that I’ve had a child, I can’t imagine ever not forgiving him for anything.”
I stop for a moment as what he said about Cason leaving his life behind echoes in my head. “Why isn’t Cason here? Did you do something to him?”
My questions make him throw his head back in laughter. “Everyone is always so concerned that I’m going to do something to my son. You, his cousin, even my brother. Who knew so many people cared about a killer like Cason?”
A defense of him as more than just some killer bubbles up inside me, but I don’t let the words out. There’s no point. Victor Varens only sees the person he wants to see in his son. I can’t change that if his own family can’t.
That doesn’t mean what he thinks of Cason is true, though. I saw something else when we were together. There’s more to him than just what his father has tried to make him be.
