I take a big step back.
That’s how I’m thinking of it. Whatever’s growing between me and Arsen isn’t dead, but I do need a break. It’s all been too much, too fast, and now I have to process.
Corpses. Secrets. Stalking. Violence. It swirls all around this house and infects everything.
I’m afraid it’ll shape the way our baby grows up.
Most days, I act like everything’s normal. I’m not going out of my way to see Arsen, but I’m also not running away when he comes into the room. Things are civil. It’s painful, but it’s for the best. I need to find myself first before I get caught up in him. That’s partially why I start sleeping in a guest room.
But also so that I can explore the passages at night.
Sona got in my head. I hate it, but I can’t help myself. Her story and her little challenge are bothering the hell out of me.
Each night, I sneak out into the library, slip into the secret passages, and search.
I have no clue which room was Sona’s when she was growing up. That makes this a real challenge. I don’t want to ask Arsen because that’ll give away what I’m doing, and I don’t trust anyone else in the house to keep this secret from him.
I’m stuck going at it the long way.
Each night I cover more ground. I need to get some sleep, and I don’t want Arsen to notice that my routine’s totally changed, so I only give myself an hour. That’s enough time to get in, check out a room or two, and get out.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of rooms in this place.
One positive benefit of crawling around in the walls is I get a lot of time to think. And as I think, I start to process my feelings and all this weirdness.
I’m sure of two things. First, Arsen cares about me. He genuinely wants to build a family with me. Everything he’s doing, he’s doing out of a place of love. Even if his love is creepy and fucking crazy.
It’s still the best love he can give.
And second, I want that family too.
I ache every time I try to picture my life without Arsen. I despise the idea of raising this baby without him actively in the picture. I’m lonely at night in my lumpy, empty bed, and I’m itching to put all this stupid shit behind us.
But the distance is good.
I have a chance to discover what I really want—and to crawl around in the darkness.
“Shit, fuck, asshole,” I mutter as I squeeze myself between two wooden joists. “Mother dick cock fuck ass tits—” I pop out the other side and fall on my face. Dust claps up around me and I get a mouthful of cobweb. “Damn it.” I spit it out and sit back, breathing hard.
There’s barely any light. I hold up my phone and let it shine on the path. My clothes are covered in dirt and ripped in a couple of spots where old, rusty nails caught on the edges.
I fidget with my eyebrow bar. I lick my lips and wait for some sound. Nobody’s caught me yet, but it’s only a matter of time. I haven’t exactly been stealthy.
But nobody shows up.
“One more room,” I whisper, pushing myself to my feet. This is the final bedroom in this section of the house. If this isn’t it, that means I have to search one more entire wing, and who knows how long that’ll take? I already want to go back to Arsen’s room. I miss the way he looks at me, his hands on my body, his mouth on mine.
But I have to finish this first.
I shimmy onwards, cursing softly the whole way. There’s nothing on the path, no sign of life, no hint that someone might’ve come down this way. I’m starting to think this is another dead end when I reach a right turn and come to a halt.
There’s something up ahead.
“What the heck?” I whisper to myself, heart picking up. Sweat prickles my back. I lower my phone light and stare at a pile of blankets pressed up against a dead end.
I approach it slowly. The blankets look old and dusty. There’s a candle, an ancient radio, a few moldy adventure paperbacks, crayons, a yo-yo, two dull knives, and a stack of pens.
“It’s a nest.” My nerves are a freaking mess as I kneel down and rummage through the stuff. It looks like somebody used to come in here all the time. There’s even an old flashlight that doesn’t work.
But it’s what’s hidden in the blankets that makes my jaw drop.
The diary’s black. There’s nothing on the cover. No lock on the edge. Just a simple little book filled with tight, loopy writing.
The name Sona Sarkissian is written on the very first page.
I sit back against the wall, laughing like I’ve just discovered the cure for cancer, and skim the first page.
Dear diary. I’m not going to start every entry that way. I’m not that lame. But for the first one, it’s okay.
I’m back home again. I never thought I’d end up here, but life’s weird like that. I had all these big dreams: college, jobs, boys, money. The sort of stuff every girl dreams about. Winning big and slaying my enemies. And now here I am, back in my dad’s house again like I’m a freaking teenager. I’m even hiding in my old spot and writing in this dumb thing.
I made a lot of mistakes.
And I’m going to pay for them.
Sona’s asleep when I shuffle into the gap in the walls behind her prison room. She’s not tied to the chair anymore; Arsen brought her a cot and some stuff to keep her comfortable. The windows are covered in bars and the door was reinforced. I heard a few of the house guards talk about how she tries to escape every day, but she’s locked down tight.
“I found it,” I hiss at her. She twitches in her sleep. “Wake up, Sona. I found it.”
Slowly, she rolls onto her back. She’s an old woman and looks even older from her captivity. No matter how comfortable Arsen tries to make it for her, she’s still trapped in a room all alone. Her hair’s graying at the roots and her eyes are red and runny. She rubs at her face and stretches out her legs.
“Took you long enough,” she murmurs, putting her hands behind her head. “Did you read it?”
“I read enough.”
Her eyes close and she smiles. “What did you think?”
I open my mouth to answer, but stop.
I’m not sure how to answer that question.
I have a million thoughts—a million ideas—a million new revelations.
“It’ll kill him,” I say wearily, because that’s what I keep coming back to.
When he finds out, it’s going to break him.
“You think so? I don’t know. You don’t have much faith in your husband.”
“You don’t understand how he feels about this family.”
“I don’t?” She laughs bitterly. “I’m locked up in this fucking room. Says a lot about how he feels.”
“You were trying to kill him. You stabbed him in the chest.”
“Missed his neck,” she mutters.
“How?” I ask, moving closer. I bend down and press my ear to the drywall. “How did it even happen?”
I can’t see her anymore, but I can hear the smile.
“We met by accident. He had a stake at a biotech start-up around Philly, and I guess he heard that I was interviewing for a job there. He reached out and offered to buy me dinner. I figured getting together with an investor couldn’t hurt my chances, so I accepted.”
“Did you know? Who he was, I mean?”
“Of course,” she says like I’m an idiot. “Everyone knew Boris Zeitsev back then. The big, powerful pakhan of the Zeitsev Bratva. Ruthless, handsome, deadly. Surprisingly intelligent too. I never really liked Russian men all that much until I met him.”
“Was it just that one time?”
It sounds like she adjusts herself in the bed. “I thought it would be, but we had a connection. And the sex was very, very good. We slept together for a month straight, at least until I realized that I was pregnant. I guess you can imagine how he reacted to that.”
“Does he know? About Arsen?”
“Boris is dead now, but there was no way in hell I was going to let him know back then that he had an heir and a rival to his throne hiding away in Baltimore. He would’ve hunted Arsen down and smashed his little baby head against the sidewalk.”
I shiver at the image. I feel sick and exhausted. I press my hand to my belly, thinking about my own baby, about Arsen’s child growing in me.
“He needs to know.”
“He absolutely does not need to know.” Her tone is ice. “That boy is not my child. Do you understand? My older brother made a choice. He understood that I would be ruined if anyone found out that I fucked the head of a Bratva and got pregnant with his kid. My reputation and our whole fucking family’s reputation would’ve been torched, especially in those days. We’re surprisingly liberal now, believe it or not, but back then—” She sucks in a breath and blows it out. “So he took my baby. It wasn’t easy hiding away for nine fucking months, but his wife had to do it too. Nobody could know the truth. We made up some story and he had a million excuses prepared, and eventually Arsen came into the world, and I went back to my life. Garen doesn’t know. Nobody knows. Aram raised Arsen and I acted like nothing had ever happened.”
I let the story sink into my bones. An old trauma, older than me. A stolen baby, an abused child. Arsen never knew the truth about himself. Still doesn’t know. And what will happen when he hears it?
But he needs to know.
“You have to tell him,” I say to the wall. Sona’s breathing fast on the other side.
“What will that achieve?”
“He needs the truth. Family is everything to him.”
“Let him have that family.”
“Tell him, Sona.”
“That boy is not my fucking son,” she hisses, inches away from my face. “Do you understand me, you idiot girl? You stupid Russian bitch!”
“Tell him,” I say sadly. This woman is Arsen’s mother, and she’s so awful. Would it have been better if she had raised him? I don’t even know. I can’t even imagine. “Or I’ll show him the diary.”
“I never should’ve written that fucking thing. And it was a moment of weakness to tell you about it. Burn the damn book and move on. Arsen doesn’t need to know.”
I push away from the wall and get to my feet. My back aches and my knees are sore. Everything hurts like hell and I’m tired. So freaking tired. There are too many secrets in these walls.
Even for a girl like me, it’s too much.
“Tell him,” I say and walk away. If Sona answers, I can’t hear her.
Arsen is not his father’s son. All that pain, all that fear and anger he holds on to so tightly, he can let it all go.
If he hears the truth, he can start to heal.
