5. MADDY

5

MADDY

Unlike my heart, the ocean is calm. Ayana is quiet. I know those moments of calm before the storm.

Raven has been gone a week. Every day is harder because I lose hope, though it seems like no one had any hope in the first place, and I was the only one who considered the possibility of Raven being alive.

Day to day, I move as if by inertia.

I don’t go to work. I stay at home. I go to Raven’s alcove and sit there for hours watching the ocean. I close my eyes and imagine what he felt. This place is laced with his emotions. It makes sense—the way it erases the view of Ayana and the sounds of humankind and leaves you face-to-face with the vast expanse of the ocean.

I spend nights at Raven’s place, reading the bookmarked parts in his books, his letters. I feel like a thief. But if he doesn’t come back, he will never know I invaded his privacy. At this thought, tears start coming, every time, without fail, and I shoo that awful thought away. This is my daily vicious cycle.

I try to occupy my mind and numb my heart. I spend hours and hours with Little, teaching him reading and practicing writing. He doesn’t find so much joy anymore in running around Ayana. It’s as if with Raven being gone, everything falls apart. Places are closed. Parties are scarce. Ayana lies low.

Soon, a war will explode. Everyone knows it, but no one talks about it.

And there is no news about Raven. He simply vanished. And because everyone avoids talking about him, occasionally, he feels like a figment of my imagination.

The only person who keeps me sane is Dad. Who would’ve known?

It’s still surreal, having my father back. Me being Milena. Him calling me Mila. Speaking Russian. Joking. Talking about old acquaintances and friends. Him telling me about Maddy Wise and her family and how she is still on the list of missing people. Telling me about all the things he did searching for me.

“A year ago, someone spotted you in Australia,” Dad says. “I knew that was unlikely. But they showed pictures. I sent people. They couldn’t confirm. I flew in. Turned out it was all a scam, organized by the Vermelhos’ Syndicate out of Brazil.”

“I’m sorry,” I say, cringing at apologizing and correcting myself right away. “That you got hurt.”

A tiny smirk appears on his lips. “But not for making yourself disappear, huh?”

Hie eyes meet mine. The eyes of a brutal man but also a hero to some. The most loving father but also a man who treats everything and everyone as property. He is a ruthless businessman who moves through life like a train, crashing into anything that stands in his way. But also a man who once cried when I was twelve, when it was my mom’s thirty-fifth birthday, or would’ve been if she were alive. That day, I wore a dress like Mom had in the picture, and he yelled at me and told me to take it off, then apologized and sat in silence while my head spun in disbelief that what I saw in his eyes might have been tears.

Dad’s eyes are on me constantly, no matter what I do, observing me from the video screen.

“Your hair looks good,” he lies, complimenting my natural color that’s mostly a mess lately.

“You look good,” he flatters me, though I highly doubt that sweatpants and a t-shirt ever enticed a compliment from him.

“You are quiet,” he says, and I want to tell him that’s an acquired skill when you are in hiding for two years.

“You need to eat,” he insists sternly when he realizes that I haven’t had a proper meal because we talk on video chat several times a day, and he notices everything, especially when I have dark circles under my eyes.

What do I tell the man who’s been missing from my life for two years?

“I missed you, Dad.” It’s the truth. “But I’m not going to apologize for how things turned out.”

“I see that.”

“I chose to do what I wanted. Just like you chose to do what you wanted with me and not accepting any other options.”

I shut down the conversation before we get into another bout of arguing, and he tells me that my arranged marriage was supposed to protect me from the way I feel now—grieving.

It’s easier when Little is around. Little doesn’t understand why Raven is gone. What do I tell him a week from now? A month?

Little gets to meet my father, talks to him, tells him he talks funny.

“Funny?” Dad asks with a smirk.

“Yeah.” Little grins. “Because you arrrr Rrrrrussian.” He breaks out in laughter, making my dad roll his eyes. That, in turn, makes me laugh.

Dad’s eyes right away bore into me, and in a second, I realize that it’s the first time I laughed since we started talking.

Little boasts to him about his Swiss Army knife.

“Where is that from?” Dad asks.

“Raven.”

“I see.”

“Snake,” Little says, narrowing his eyes on my dad. For a second, I’m appalled that he calls my dad that.

“Say that again?” Dad asks in a harsher tone.

“Snake, the code word."

“Code word for what?”

“Danger.”

“Explain?”

Little makes an important face. “When there’s danger, and you need to give a warning, you use a code word. Then this!” He shoves the knife’s blade into the screen, making my dad snort. “You use that to protect yourself. Raven taught me.”

“He did?”

“Yeah. I know moves.”

“That good.”

“That’s good,” Little says with intentional articulation.

“Excuse me?”

“You have to say it correctly. ‘That’s. Good,’” Little says importantly, and I almost burst out in laughter again.

Dad frowns, not understanding, so Little explains. “You have to learn to talk properly. Raven taught me.”

Dad’s eyes shift to me, and I shrug with a smile.

Tonight, I go to Raven’s bungalow again. It’s becoming a habit. Being in his place feels like he is just… away. Temporarily.

Tonight, Archer brings me Raven’s phone. “We looked through it but didn’t find anything useful. There is no way to track the calls. Not that it would help in…”

He goes silent.

In finding him , I finish the sentence.

I nod, and when he leaves, I stare at Raven’s phone, wondering if I’m grasping for straws. But here’s the thing about those who lose the most important people in their lives. They need those straws. Those are the only bridge to sanity.