AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Well, if they’re half of both of us, then they’re going to be monsters,” I reply sarcastically, smiling at her to make sure she knows I’m joking.
She knows, but she smacks my arm, anyway. “Dominik! You can’t talk about them like that, babies can hear!”
I stifle a laugh, which she also doesn’t appreciate. “Baby, you don’t really think that those little jellybeans we saw on the monitor have the language skills to understand an insult, right? They can hear your heartbeat and the sound of your voice. That’s basically it.”
“Okay, whatever, I’m just saying that I don’t want our babies to feel how I felt growing up. It started with those little jokey insults, and then it escalated to him trying to shoot me in the head,” she replies, her voice serious and withdrawn.
“Yeah, I guess you’ve made your point. Anyway, I’m really hoping the babies are both girls,” I say, trying to lighten the mood before she gets caught up in more anxious memories.
“Really? I thought men never wanted daughters. They just kind of ended up with them.”
“Jesus, I could have figured that Remi made a horrible impression on you, but I didn’t think it would affect how you saw every man,” I reply, uncertain whether I should be offended or just sympathetic to her.
“I mean, it’s easy to see all men as evil when the only ones you meet are your abusive father or the men he hires to kill people. I’m shocked that I even warmed up to you at all,” she says.
I laugh a little. “Oh, you warmed up for sure. I’m just not positive that it was in an emotional way.”
She rolls her eyes and groans. “Ugh, what were you expecting from me? I was a virgin, you were hot, and you were in my bedroom all the time. Something was bound to happen.”
I brush her hair behind her ear, looking closely at the dark circles under her eyes. She needs to rest, but I know she won’t. She’s still too worried about being found.
“Well, I’m glad something did happen,” I reply, kissing her on the cheek.
She lies on the bed with her chips, staring at the ceiling that I’m certain she’s memorized by now. Every little crack and water stain, her eyes have drifted over them hundreds of times, maybe thousands.
“Hey, do you want to go to the ocean tomorrow?” I ask. I’ve been meaning to suggest something fun to do but being in hiding has made it challenging.
“What? Really?” she asks as she sits straight up again.
I nod.
“I’ve never seen the ocean,” she confesses. “I think I’m happy that I’ve never seen it, though. If I had a choice, I’d rather see it with you first.”
I feel my chest light up a little at her comment. She might not mean for it to hold so much weight, but knowing that she’d want to preserve something like that to share it with me is very revealing. She does love me, and she loves me a lot. Even if she doesn’t know how to show it all the time, I know that she does.
* * *
The next morning,she’s ready to go before the sun is even up. She wants to see the sunrise, which takes a little bit of extra planning. I’ll do anything for her, though, and I know it would mean the world to her.
We ride through the winding cliff-side roads, the world around us growing incrementally lighter as the sun starts to come up over the horizon.
Just before the sun breaks through, we arrive at an empty beach that goes on for miles and miles. The sand is white, and the water is cleaner than any natural water I’ve ever seen before.
Mika sits right in the middle of the beach, begging me to come over and sit with her.
As soon as I’m by her side, she clings to my arm and kisses my shoulder. “We’re going to be a good family. I can already tell.”
I turn my head and lean down to kiss her on the lips. “We’re going to be better than the parents we had, and our kids will never know fear the way that we do.”
She seems to be moved by that, and she lays her head in my lap for me to stroke her hair. She’s been much more receptive to soft touches since we got to California, and I’m starting to wonder if it’s because we’d never touched like this at the house. It was always rough sex, domination, and spanking.
I listen to the sound of the waves, powerful and never-ending as I try to erase all memory of Remi and the Bratva. This is the life I want now, something simple and authentic. I don’t need the world around me to be crumbling constantly to feel alive anymore. Mika’s shown me that, and now we’ve come through the worst of it together.
EPILOGUE
MIKA
It took me a long time to get used to living in society after spending my entire life locked in that house. Since I never made friends growing up, many of my basic social skills were lacking, and it’s taken years for me to feel like I even pass for normal in this city.
