Chapter 9 - The Truth on the Floor
I stood my ground in front of the bedroom door, looking up into the face of the man I had loved, hated, and run from for nearly a decade.
"She’s sleeping," I said, keeping my voice firm. "And she’s terrified, David. She’s an eight-year-old child who spent her morning watching men pull guns on her mother in a hospital hallway."
David closed his eyes for three seconds, letting out a long, ragged breath that sounded like torn paper. He pressed his hand harder against his wounded side, a faint line of red seeping through his black hoodie.
"I didn't know," David whispered, his eyes opening slowly. They were filled with a profound, agonized pain that I had never seen in him before. "Natasha... on everything I own, on my mother's memory... I didn't know."
"Of course you didn't know!" I snapped, tears finally spilling over my eyelashes. "Because I hid her from you! I packed my bags, I quit my job, and I ran to Madison the second the test turned positive!"
David winced as if I had struck him across the face. "Why? Why wouldn't you tell me?"
"Look at where we are, David!" I yelled softly, gesturing wildly around the reinforced room. "Look at what happened five hours ago! Your uncle tried to kidnap her! Men fired automatic weapons over her head in a hospital! This is your life! This has always been your life!"
I walked up to him, stopping inches from his chest, pointing a trembling finger at his face.
"I wanted her to have school lunches, David," I wept softly. "I wanted her to draw horses with purple crayons. I wanted her to play in a yard where we didn't have to check for armored cars before opening the front door! If I had stayed, if I had told you... she would have grown up inside a gilded cage surrounded by bodyguards and blood!"
David listened to every single word without interrupting. He stood there like a stone pillar, taking the full weight of my anger, my fear, and my grief.
"You were right," David said quietly.
I blinked, taken aback. "What?"
"You were right to run," David repeated, his voice devoid of pride, devoid of arrogance. "Look at me, Natasha. I almost died three days ago because my own uncle wanted my seat at the table. If you had stayed... if Samuel had known about Chloe eight years ago... he would have used her against me a long time ago."
He slowly reached down, his scarred fingers gently brushing a wet strand of hair away from my face. His touch was surprisingly soft, warm, and familiar.
"You saved her life by leaving me," David murmured softly. "And today... she saved mine."
Before I could answer, a small door click sounded down the hallway.
We both turned our heads.
Chloe was standing in the doorway of the bedroom, wearing her oversized yellow denim jacket over her pajamas, holding her purple horse coloring book against her belly. She looked at David—tall, pale, bleeding, and dark—and then looked at me.
David froze completely. He didn't move a muscle, as if he were afraid that the slightest sudden movement would cause her to vanish like a dream.
Chloe took two slow steps forward into the hallway.
She looked at David's dark blue eyes. Then she looked at her own reflection in the framed mirror on the wall.
"You have my eyes," Chloe said softly.
A tear spilled down David Carter’s pale, scarred cheek. The head of the most feared syndicate in Chicago dropped slowly onto his knees on the wooden floor, completely ignoring the blinding pain in his abdomen.
He sat on his knees before his eight-year-old daughter, lowering his head until he was eye-level with her.
"Yes, I do, sweetheart," David whispered, his voice trembling violently. "I have your eyes."
Chloe walked over to him. She didn't look scared anymore. With the terrifying, pure intuition of a child, she reached out her tiny hand and gently touched the silver cross hanging around his neck, then pressed her little palm against his cheek.
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"Are you the sick man from the hospital?" Chloe asked gently.
"I was," David choked out, holding her tiny hand against his face as if it were the most precious thing in the universe. "But I'm better now. Thanks to you."
