Page 52 of Severance

“You didn’t know how I would handle it?” I bark. “You never gave me a fucking chance to!”

“Dahlia,” my mother starts calmly. “I know now that we should have told you, but you have to understand… we didn’t know if the baby was a product of rape or what types of memories she might represent for you.”

I shake my head and scoff as I begin to pace the floor. “You didn’t know because you never fucking asked!” I’m standing in front of her, yelling. “She wasn’t a product of rape, she was a product of love. The kind of love that was bred in the midst of sheer chaos with an unbreakable bond. We have the kind of love that the rest of the world yearns for. She would have been a reminder of the good that came from that hell.”

My mother’s eyes are wide and filled with tears as my voice dies down. “I had no idea,” she whispers.

I purse my lips and cut my eyes at her. “Maybe you would have if you would have asked.”

“You’re right.” Her voice cracks around her words.

“I know that you chose the family that has her and that you know them personally. Who are they?”

“May and Sal’s daughter and her husband.”

May was my mother’s best friend when I was growing up, but after I was returned home, she stopped coming around.

“You gave my kid away to your friend’s kid?”

“They had been trying for years to have a child of their own and they couldn’t,” my mother explains as if that makes this whole situation right. “They’re good people, she’s well taken care of and they love her as if she’s their own.”

“But she isn’t,” I remind her harshly. “I want to meet her,” I demand. I have to see it for myself to believe it. There’s no other way.

She nods understandingly. “I’m sure that we can arrange that.”

I give her a curt nod just as her phone begins to ring and interrupts our conversation. I welcome the interruption because our time here is done; I have nothing left to say to this woman.

“Hello?” My mother asks hesitantly as she answers the phone. She listens intently as she stares at me.

A few moments pass as I sit in silence before she slowly hands the phone to me. “It’s for you.”

Reluctantly, I take the phone from her and glance down at the blocked number on the screen. “Hello?” I ask hesitantly.

“Alek’s on his way to pick you up now,” Nikolai informs me, with the agitation evident in his tone. His agitation and the abruptness has me unsettled and anxious.

“Something happened,” I concur. “What happened, Nik?”

“Your boy woke up.”

A rush of relief floods my system as I let out the breath that I didn’t know I was holding. “How is he? Is he okay?”

Nik chuckles harshly through the phone. “Oh, he’s okay,” he scoffs. “He has one hell of a right hook, I’ll give him that.”

Kai hit Nik?

My eyebrows pinch together as I’m mildly confused. “Huh?” He was shot and is laid up in bed, but somehow he hit Nik?

“He woke up and you weren’t here so he flipped his shit when he didn’t know where you went. I may or may not have had to sedate him to get him to calm down.”

He surprises me. “You mean that you didn’t tell him?” I whisper, slightly in shock.

“I may not be a good guy, but I’m a man of my word,” he assures me. “Well, for the most part.”

I shake my head. “You’re a good guy, Nikolai. Even when you aren’t.”

Nik laughs lightly. “Babe, trust me, you won’t be saying that after you get to know me.”

“I have a feeling that I’ll never know the real you,” I mutter as I remember my mother is sitting in the room, watching me.

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