Chapter 3 Thirty Minutes Too Late

Milan POV

The next morning, I’m up early making Daniel’s breakfast exactly as he likes it.

Eggs soft. Bacon crisp. Toast barely browned.

I prepare the coffee to his liking. I make sure everything is in place to keep him in a good mood.

His briefcase is by the door. His keys are on the table where he likes them. His cufflinks are beside his watch because if he can’t find something, somehow it becomes my fault.

I need to be able to move around today, and I can’t do that nursing any new injuries.

He actually gets through breakfast without saying anything to me.

I stay on the other side of the kitchen, wiping down the counter even though it’s already clean. I don’t ask how he slept. I don’t ask where he’s going. I barely breathe too loud.

Before he leaves, he stops at the door.

“Find somewhere for you and the twins to go tonight. I have company coming over,” he says.

My hand stills around the dish towel.

I look down before answering.

“Where are we supposed to go, Daniel?” I ask.

“I don’t give a fuck, Milan. Just don’t be here.”

“But—”

That was the wrong thing to say.

He backhands me so fast I drop to the floor.

My cheek burns instantly, and my palm slaps against the tile when I catch myself.

“Are you talking back?” he asks, standing over me.

I shake my head, looking down.

I keep my eyes on his shoes. Looking at him when he’s angry only makes him angrier.

“Good. Now clean this shit up, and when I get home, don’t be here,” he says before grabbing his briefcase and walking out the door.

The door slams behind him.

I sit on the floor a moment longer.

I listen for the car. The engine starts. The tires pull away.

Only then do I stand.

I walk to find my phone and call my one friend who didn’t abandon me when Daniel isolated me from everyone.

Yana.

She answers on the first ring.

“Is he gone?” she asks.

“He just left, but he said the boys and I had to find somewhere else to go tonight,” I say as I run into the boys’ room and start packing their suitcases.

I grab shirts, pants, pajamas, socks. I don’t fold anything. I just shove it in and keep moving.

I leave a few things out so if he comes in here, nothing looks out of place.

Their drawers still need to look full. Their closet still needs to look lived in.

I run into our bedroom and grab my suitcase and pack one bag for myself.

I don’t even think about what I want to wear. I grab whatever Daniel usually lets me leave the house in—dresses, leggings, a few tops, underwear, toiletries. Anything I know won’t stand out if he opens my closet.

I hide it in the twins’ closet and collect all the money from all of the stash places around the house.

My hands shake while I count it because every bill took months to save without him noticing.

Ten thousand two hundred and fifteen dollars.

That is everything I have to my name.

I count it once. Then again.

“I will be there soon to come get your bags,” Yana says. “If you need to come here, you know you can.”

“I know, and thank you,” I say.

“I will be there in thirty minutes, Milly,” she says before hanging up.

Thirty minutes.

I go get the boys out of the playroom.

“Hi, my babies. Are we ready to go?” I ask them.

They both smile up at me, their two-year-old selves don’t even know what is going on around them.

“Yay,” they both say, smiling.

Avi reaches for me first while Adonis grabs the toy truck he refuses to go anywhere without.

I put their jackets on them and make my way downstairs with them.

I sit them on the couch and then run upstairs to grab our suitcases.

My arms are full when I hear a car pull up outside.

Has it been thirty minutes already?

Relief hits me so fast I almost laugh.

I look out the window when I get downstairs.

“Shit. No. What is he doing back?” I say under my breath.

My stomach drops.

Just as the front door opens, he stops in the doorway and looks at me, then the suitcases.

Then the boys.

“Are you trying to leave, Milan?” he says, stepping forward slowly.

I take a step back, eyes wide.

My heart pounds in my chest.

“N-n-no, baby. I wasn’t,” I say.

“Do you think I’m stupid, Milan?” he shouts.

Avi jumps on the couch. Adonis goes still beside him.

“No, Daniel. This is just for the night,” I say low.

He closes the space between us in two steps and grips my hair.

My head jerks back, and pain shoots across my scalp.

“You trying to take my kids from me?” he asks.

“No, Daniel, please. The boys are right there,” I say.

I can hear Avi starting to whimper behind me.

“You tried to take them. They should see you learn a lesson,” he snaps.

“I wasn’t. I swear,” I say.

“Okay, let’s see.”

He lets me go and walks to my suitcase.

My knees almost give out.

He opens it, and sitting at the top is the money I saved.

I should’ve hidden it better.

I should’ve put it in the boys’ bag.

I should’ve—

He looks at it, then at me, and smirks.

“You think you can just leave me? Your family gave you to me, Milan. You are mine. Nobody is going to save you,” he spits before he kicks me in my stomach.

The air leaves my body, and I fold around the pain.

He bends down.

“This shit isn’t a choice, Milan,” he says, kicking me again.

“You can’t run from me. I will always find you,” he says before punching me across the face.

I lay there on the floor in a ball trying to block some of the hits.

My arms cover my head. My knees pull toward my chest.

The boys are crying now. Both of them.

That hurts worse than anything he’s doing to me.

The assault doesn’t stop until he hears Yana’s car pull up outside.

His head turns toward the window.

A few seconds later, she’s banging on the door.

“Milly! I swear to God, Daniel, if anything happens to her, I will fucking kill you!” she screams.

He looks down at me like I caused this too.

He opens the door.

“Have her ass back home in the morning,” he says, walking out the house.

Like I’m something he loaned out.

Yana rushes to me.

“Oh my God, Milan, I’m so sorry. There was traffic,” she says.

She drops to her knees beside me and reaches toward my face before stopping herself.

“He took the money, Yana,” I say.

That’s what comes out first. Not my ribs. Not my face.

The money.

“It’s okay. We are still getting you and the boys out,” she says.

“I can’t go to the hospital.”

Not again. Not with my mother showing up and turning another beating into some accident I’m expected to repeat.

“I know. I’m going to take you somewhere else,” she says.

She grabs Adonis while I grab Avian.

Avi wraps both arms around my neck, and I bite down on the inside of my cheek when lifting him pulls at my ribs.

We get them in the car and go back for the suitcases.

I don’t look around before I leave.

I don’t let myself.

Then we drive.

I keep one hand turned toward the back seat, and every few minutes one of the boys grabs my fingers.

We stop in front of the tattoo shop I walked into yesterday.

I stare through the windshield.

“Yana, why are we here?” I ask.

“My cousin owns this shop. He can get a doctor to come here,” she says.

Of course he does.

We grab the boys, and when we step inside, the bell jingles.

He picks his head up.

Recognition hits first.

Then his eyes move over my face, down to the arm I’m holding against my side, then to the boys.

Those dual-colored eyes look murderous.

Not at me.

At whoever did this.