Roman

The pit of despair that had grown in my stomach, pulsating like a fire breathing dragon, already felt like a bad dream. The truth was out, in the open, and I no longer had a need to lie. I was many things – a killer, and worse – but I was never any good at lying. The terrible, creeping despair of our situation, though, was no better. The silence between us began to throb with tension, and I felt as though I had to fill it.

"I'm sorry," I murmured. "For lying to you. I was lying to myself, really. I didn't know how to tell you the truth, the truth that I –, we have a child, a baby, and that I don't even know his name. Or her name," I added bitterly. I couldn't help but express my violent hatred of the man who had done this to me – Victor Antonov. He was a weed, a worm, an example of the very worst that Alexandria had to offer, and he'd taken his brother's death not as a warning, but as an opportunity. He was the powerbroker in this town now. A week ago, I didn't care. A week ago, it meant nothing to me. A week ago, I didn't know that I was a father.

A flash of stricken worry danced across Ellie's beautiful cheeks. "What the hell are we going to do?" She gasped. "Oh my God, we need to call the police. Right now. What if someone has my baby! What if –," her voice cracked, and she looked ashen. I knew exactly what thought had crossed her mind. I was no stranger to it.

"No!" I snapped, putting more force into my voice than I had intended. Ellie's words cut through me. My baby, she said. It shouldn't have hurt me, but it did. It was my child, too. She recoiled like she'd been stung, like I'd reached out and slapped her. I never would. I softened my voice, grinding my teeth together as I mustered my anger. It crashed against me, buffeting every last pillar of resolve in my mind, a seething hit of acidic rage that threatened to take control. I couldn't let it. I needed to be strong. For Ellie. For her child. For my child. Anger would get us nowhere. It was time to act smart.

"No," I repeated. "We can't. If they don't have it –," I paused. The word it sounded so impersonal, as though the child I was talking about wasn't my own, didn't have my own blood running through its veins. I said it again. I decided to make my peace with it, for now. But when I broke that peace, and I would, someone would suffer. And that person had a name. Victor Antonov. "If they don't already have our child, or know that he exists, then we can't give them the opportunity to find out. Believe me, the police in the city are crooked to a man."

"I know," Ellie said back shortly, her eyes closed as though reliving a memory. "I don't know how, but I know. You're right. But what the hell are we going to do about it? We can't just, just, sit here! We have to go back to the hospital."

"No, we don't," I replied. "They'll be watching –"

Her eyes popped open with sudden, betrayed energy. "You're being a coward," she said accusingly. "We can't just leave him," she said, unconsciously copying my description of a child as a boy.

"We're not going to," I said, my voice firm and unbending.

"But you said…" She broke off, her face screwed with confusion, and more than a hint of betrayal.

"All I said was that we aren't going to that hospital. There's only one of me, it would be suicide. No matter how many guns I bring. We have to be smarter than them, not stronger, because we'll lose that fight every day of the week."

"Then what?" Her tone of voice was harsh, clipped, and left me in no doubt that if my answer was unsatisfactory, then she would break off, ignore me, and strike out on her own path to save her child.

"We have other options." I pulled my phone out of my pocket, as much to buy myself time as for any other reason, but not quickly enough to avoid the inquisitive look on Ellie's face, a look of hope that cut through the thunderous, tear-threatened squall storming across her face – fear, anger, and a burning desire to fight back against someone, anyone, all doing battle in one simmering cauldron of emotion.

"What are you talking about?" She said, her voice curt.

I wavered, a decade of experience of working on my own, of keeping my own counsel and hiding my own secrets fighting against my desperate desire not to have to lie to her any longer.

She grimaced, and the irritated gesture made her message as clear as if she'd shouted it – no more games. I bowed to her pressure like a stalk bending against the wind.

"I might have a lead," I said, remembering the feeling of my phone vibrating against my leg. "I'm not sure." Ellie's expression changed yet again, and a little jig of hope, of relief danced across her face. I couldn't stop myself thinking about how pretty she was, how beautiful. About how she, for a brief, split-second anyway, looked at me as a savior, and a someone to trust. But the second I looked back, it was gone. I let myself believe, hope really, that deep down she still felt something for me. No matter how selfish a thought that was right now, I had to hang onto it.

I raised the cheap black burner phone up to my eyes, conscious of Ellie's anxious gaze burning a hole in my forehead. A small LED light on the front glowed, then faded; glowed then faded in the universal notification that I had a message. I took a deep breath in, realizing that in the moment, I'd forgotten to breathe.

"What is it?" Ellie said plaintively, her voice cracking. I glanced up, and saw that the black, grim emotion that had wreathed her face only a few moments before was gone. "Tell me, Roman. Stop treating me like –"

I raised my hand and cut her off. "Okay, okay. I've got – well I'm not exactly sure," I said, acutely aware of the hesitancy that even I could hear in my wavering. The location was familiar, but confusing nonetheless. "It's a residential address. I just don't know what I'll find there."

Ellie opened her mouth to speak. Only one word came out. "We'll." It was laced with determination, dripping with a justified, righteous, crusading anger. And yet I thought I knew better. I put my foot in my mouth.

"No," I said firmly. "You're staying here."

Her head jerked upwards, her chin held high and proud. She was a little five foot tall bundle of roaring thunder, and I immediately regretted speaking up. No matter the difference in our sizes, she looked fiery enough to tear my head off. "The hell I am," she snapped, spitting fire. "If you think that I'm going to sit around here while you save the day, you're insane. Trust me Roman," she laughed. "I don't trust you an inch."

Her words battered into me with the force of a boxer's punch, each knocking me back half an inch, tearing the wind from my God, silencing me. The last blow rocked me to my core. And yet I knew that I couldn't blame her for it. She was right. I needed to redeem myself with her, by her side, in full view. It was the only chance that I had of winning her back. "Okay," I said, with a voice choked with emotion. "Okay. We'll go together. But when we're out there," I said, meeting her gaze fell on. "You do exactly what I tell you to do. The kind of men we are up against won't hesitate before pulling the trigger. You're a liability to them. Understood?"

She glowered in front of me, her petite body trembling with anger, and for a long, painful second I thought that she would refuse. An option flickered through my brain of locking her up for her own safety, but I dismissed it as soon as it crossed my mind. And acts like that would destroy her fragile confidence in me forever, and for good reason. As she dragged out her decision, each second felt like a minute. When she finally acquiesced, with a tight nod, a tidal wave of relief broke against me with the force of an explosion. My posture softened, and tension I didn't know I was holding flooded away.

"Good," I said. "Now we're agreed, shall we go get our baby back?"

It was corny as hell. But it was necessary. It got Ellie to crack a smile. And maybe it gave me the opening I needed to start to win back her trust.

Maybe.