Epilogue
Maddie
Maddie couldn't keep still.
Her knees were bouncing and she'd chewed her lip to the point of bleeding as she sat with Redek in the back of a cab, whizzing toward her dad's house.
The moment she'd found him, she'd almost been tempted to delete the knowledge right away. To remove it from her brain. Things with Redek had been so perfect and uncomplicated and she almost didn't want to ruin things by introducing anything that might be bad.
Redek had started teaching at the training academy on Suytov for bodyguards, which gave him a stable position and let them stay on the planet she'd fallen in love with the second they landed. She'd landed a position as a technical security advisor for a large financial corporation through a contact she'd made at the IU's financial corruption division. It was remote, which meant she could stay living with Redek.
She caressed her swollen stomach—it had been earlier than they’d expected, but it had only brought them closer. The excitement every time Redek even looked at her stomach was palpable.
It had all been perfect.
Now she'd gone and potentially thrown a wrench in the works by finding her dad. He was alive. Alive and well on a planet just a solar system away.
She'd found him when searching through the files on Damien's computer for the thousandth time. It was such a tiny detail that she'd missed it the rest of the times, but she'd just dealt with a threat at work from someone who was hiding information in a similar way. She knew Damien couldn't have been the one to use the technique—he must have had someone more technically minded do it for him—but she'd spotted it, and had found notes on the operation to retrieve her.
Her real name was Carla and she'd been born to Monica and David Scott.
Maddie had read her real name and expected an identity crisis, but it had been easier to dismiss than she'd thought. She only had to think of all the times Redek had said her name to know it was the one she wanted to keep, even if Damien had given it to her.
There hadn't been much information online about her parents for her to find, beyond the fact her father was alive, and where she could find him. She found real articles about her mom's murder, and in them it was written that she'd been murdered, too. They'd supposedly found her body two days after her dad had come home to the bloody scene of her dad's murder. She didn't want to know whose body it really was, or who had had to die because of it. The case was officially marked as unsolved.
Now, sitting in the back of the cab, she didn't know if she was making the right decision. Her father had thought she was dead for over seventeen years. Would he even believe her? Would she even be able to prove it?
She didn't know if she could take being rejected by him.
Redek laced his fingers through hers. "It's okay," he said, and it worked a lot more in calming her down than she thought it would.
"I should have told him before I just showed up," she replied, knee bouncing faster. "It was selfish of me to want to do it in person, wasn't it?"
"Of course it wasn't. You're doing the right thing. I've got two weeks off work. There's more than enough time for you to properly see him and get to know him beyond the shock of him first seeing you."
"I suppose." She was struggling to calm her pounding heart.
Then the cab stopped, and she had to remember how to breathe. Redek pressed his card against the scanner to pay, and the door clicked open.
The street they’d arrived on was in the suburbs of the small city, and was filled with low rising apartment buildings. Redek went to get the apartment number from his phone, but Maddie said, "It's 402, block F."
He laced their fingers together as they walked along the block.
"This one." She went to the door and saw the buzzer. "Oh, we have to ring a buzzer. What do I tell him? Do I tell him now? That's not any better than on the phone, is it?"
"Don't tell him now, just ask if you can see him. Say it's important. I can do it, if you want."
She shook her head. "No. I want to do it." She pressed the button and flinched as it buzzed.
"Hello?" someone on the other end asked. She could see the camera above the door, and knew he'd be able to see her. Did he recognize her? She'd been so tiny when he'd last seen her. "Can I help you?"
"David Scott?" she asked to buy time, because her thoughts were racing.
"Yes."
"I'm Maddie. I wanted to talk to you about something. It's important, could you buzz me up?"
She shifted her weight and tried not to look suspicious. It was a weird request, she knew, and she wouldn't blame him if he didn't want a stranger coming into his house.
Redek was huge, too. He was intimidating.
There was a long pause, and then the lock on the door to the building opened. She smiled. "Thank you."
In the elevator, Redek asked, "You okay?"
She nodded, putting her hand to her mouth to stop herself from chewing on her lip.
Her dad was standing in the doorway of his apartment when they stepped out of the elevator, and her feet were rooted to the floor for a moment. He looked like her, she realized. He actually looked like her.
"What is it?" he asked, folding his arms and looking at her with a skeptical expression. "How can I help you?"
"I—" she started, but couldn't find the words. How could she possibly tell him everything that had happened?
Redek tugged on her hand a little, and she allowed him to guide her. "Maybe we could come in," Redek suggested. "This is going to be a long talk, I think."
Her dad looked him up and down with clear reservation on his face, but when he looked at Maddie again, he relented. "Come in."
They took their shoes off in the entryway and took a seat next to each other on a couch. His apartment was small, but well looked after. She thought it was quaint. It seemed like he lived alone, which made her sad, but she pushed that away.
"Drink?" her dad asked.
"Something warm, please," she replied, with a small smile. It was taking everything not to hyperventilate.
"Just water, please," Redek said.
Her dad nodded and disappeared into the kitchen.
Redek squeezed her hand. "Just tell him the truth," he urged. "He'll be over the moon, I'm sure. Just say what you're thinking."
"Okay." She could do that. She'd spent so long trying to come up with a script that she'd overthought it. Maybe Redek was right. The words would just come when she started speaking, and if her dad rejected her, that wasn't her fault. It was Damien's fault they'd never had a relationship in the first place.
It wasn't that she'd done anything wrong.
Her dad returned and passed her a mug. He sat down in a chair across from them, and seemed to ignore Redek. He was staring at Maddie like he was trying to figure her out. Maybe he noticed the resemblance, too.
She cleared her throat to try and get rid of the lump in it. "I was looking for you for a long time," she began, holding the mug tightly even though it was too hot on her hands. "I was taken when I was six years old and kept away from the world. I didn't know who I was until I escaped. I... I was born Carla Scott," she said, flinching at the name as she waited for his reaction.
Her dad only frowned, shaking his head. "It's not possible," he replied. He stood up abruptly, turning his back on them. "It's not possible. My daughter is dead."
Maddie did her best to explain everything. She didn't wait for his responses or questions, but told him everything that had happened to her, from what she remembered about her mom's death to Damien and why he'd kidnapped her, to how she'd escaped and found him and ended up sitting in his living room just now.
He didn't turn and look at her the whole time she spoke, but she watched his back get stiffer and stiffer. She was terrified of what she'd see on his face when he eventually showed it to her.
She almost wasn't expecting the tears that streamed down his face.
"You're really my Carla?" he asked.
She nodded.
He sat in the chair and took a deep breath. "That was the only reason I let you in. You look so much like my wife."
Maddie managed a half smile. "I'm so sorry I put all this on you at once. I didn't know what to say."
Her dad stood up again and held his arms out. She passed Redek her mug and accepted his hug, wrapping her arms around his middle. It was strange, she didn't know the first thing about him, not really, but it felt like a father's hug. Damien had hugged her once or twice, but it had never been like this.
Finally, she cried, too. She sniffled as she hugged him tighter.
After that they sat down and just talked. The conversation flowed easily, and Maddie's only problem was that she had so much that she wanted to tell him and ask him, and not enough time to do it all in. He asked about Redek, too, and her proudest moment of all was when she got to brag about how perfect he was to someone else for a change.
"I'm going to be here for a couple of weeks," she said when the sun had been set for hours and her yawns were so frequent she could barely get her words out. "So we can catch up more and you can show me around."
"I'd like that."
They hugged again and exchanged contact information so they could get in touch in the morning.
On the doorstep, her hands were on her stomach. She couldn’t resist leaving without asking him the biggest question she had. “I’m having a girl,” she said. “And I wanted to name her Monica, after my mom, but I wanted to ask you if that was okay. I wouldn’t want to—”
Her dad only beamed at her, tears sparkling in his eyes once more. “It’s perfect. I love it. She would have too, your mom. She’d be so proud of you.”
They hugged for a final time and then he shut the door, leaving Maddie and Redek alone.
He rested his hands on her stomach. He always tried to resist doing it in front of people, but when they were alone he couldn’t keep away from it. “I’m so happy for you,” he said.
"I can't believe it," she stood on her tiptoes and pressed kisses on each of his cheeks between words. "I can’t believe I really met my dad.”
He laughed. He'd come alive since leaving the compound. She never saw his emotionless mask anymore, not even when something was wrong. He was completely open with her. "He seems like a good man.”
"Thank you for taking the time off to come with me. I know it wasn't easy for you to convince them to let you."
He wrapped arms around her and kissed her lips hard enough to make her cheeks burn. "I'd do anything for you."