61. RETURNING HOME

HANA

I finally held my Seb, not because he was crying, not because he was afraid. He is still asleep after Bash coaxed him into sleep. I hold him because I need something to hold on to.

Bash made a few phone calls. Someone, wearing a black mask came into the room and cleaned the mess I had made. Even Greta was a part of it. She glared at me. But she carried out Bash's orders perfectly. His actions were robust. An hour passed, and the room became as good as before. It didn't look like a place where someone was killed. It is as clean as before.

I didn't know how. Because there are only things three that played in my mind; me under him, Bash above him, slashing his throat, and Seb crying alone on the bed.

"Hana, snap out of it." Bash's words brought me back to reality.

I focused on his eyes, watching the concern for the first time in a year and a half. "You don't know anything. You didn't do anything. Nothing happened here, and you didn't even get out of the room. Print these words in your mind. You know nothing. That's what you are going to tell them if they ever get to ask you. Understand?"

I nod my head, not understanding what he is saying. Bash held my arms tightly. "Hana. Do you understand?" This time he raised his voice and I nodded my head, wiping a tear away.

"What if I get caught? Will they let my baby leave? I don't care what they do to me. Please Bash. Just please let Mateo take care of the baby. Please. I will...will....do anything, any punishment....I...I...will....take it. Pl...please. Let him go...."

Bash held the back of my head and pulled me to him, making me rest on his shoulder. Just that little gesture of kindness had me weeping like a baby.

"You will leave with your son, Hana. You will leave tomorrow. That's a promise." His words are confident. But they are not enough. I wish he held me tight, I wish he took me into his arms and I wish he was the Bash I knew. But what Bash did now is more than I had expected. HE IS HELPING ME despite who he is and what I did.

"But him..." I don't even know his name. I don't know if I wanted to know.

"They will find him on the other wing of the house. With the symbol I carved on his chest, they will never suspect you."

It meant only one thing. Bash was misleading them by pointing to someone else who might kill like that. The image of Bash slashing his throat and carving him with a knife and the events that led him to do that crossed my mind. Fear crawls over my body, prickling my skin. It wasn't because of what Bash did but because of what I had experienced before. What did that say about me?

Bash pulled back, and I suddenly felt the urge to wrap my hands around myself. A knock came again and stiffened at the sound of it. "Easy. It's just Greta." He tells me.

But I couldn't relax until I saw her with my own eyes.

She brought us a whiskey bottle and started to pour it into two glasses. But Bash gestured her to go away, and he did that himself. Suddenly the moments of the past when we drank together and danced together came rushing back to me, hitting me like thunder. It's unbelievable that it was all an act.

"Why are you helping me?" I asked him. "Is that because I am your sister-in-law now?" I hated the words that came out of my mouth. I hate to imagine them.

Bash handed me a glass, and I reached it with trembling hands. I emptied it with one long swig. Bash didn't answer my question instead his eyes focused on the baby sleeping on the bed.

It's odd sitting in the same room where I killed a man and letting Seb sleep on the bed beside the crime scene. What happened to my life? What am I even doing?

"Is he any good?" Bash questioned me.

He emptied two glasses and poured more.

"Who?"

"Your baby's father."

"How's Violet?" I asked him in return.

He looked away, avoiding my question like he did earlier. He wore the same stoic expression as he did in the living room. But something about him feels different when we are alone. He feels more approachable or I might have just gone crazy to think that after what happened.

Moments passed in silence. Whiskey is only helping me to forget the events from earlier. But with every passing moment, Bash seemed more reachable. He looked like the man I used to know.

He swirled the glass around in his hands and looked at the baby again. "You moved on so quickly." It felt like an accusation as though I was the one who left him. "Yet you named him after me. Why?"

He turned his head, his eyes held my gaze. "Why, Hana?" He questioned again.

I was half tempted to say that I had never moved on, that I had never let another man touch me. But I thought better of it. "I named him after a phase in my life." I lied.

Bash scoffed, releasing a mocking breath. "What a loser he was to let them take you."

"I was here because of you in the first place." I snapped.

His eyes flared up but he quickly suppressed his emotions. He got up and raised his hand to check the time. "We have to leave." He says.

I got up along with him. "Where's my phone?" I asked him.

He gave me a look that said are- you- that- dumb? Of course, so they might have broken it.

"Why did you help me?" I asked him again.

I will leave now. We will go back to our lives. I should be grateful and be done with this. But the man before me is not a stranger who helped. He is Cillian whom I knew as Bash.

"Because I refuse to lose before them. I stand on my words."

There's no look of concern on his face. He doesn't want to look weak. That's it. He feels nothing for me. It's all about his wounded pride. Then why does he soothe my baby with kind words? Why did he come looking for us at midnight? Why did he get blood on his hands?

I nod my head. I touched his arm, just wanted to remember how it used to feel. Bash looked from my hand to me blankly. "What have we become?"

"We were nothing to become something." He says. "Snap out of any hope you have that I helped you out of love, Hana. It was never there. Go back to that child's father."

I refused to believe that. But it is the reality of us. It has always been me, my time, my efforts, my love, my pain, my life and it doesn't make any sense now.

A traitorous tear slipped down my cheek and I quickly looked away to save myself from the embarrassment. Everything I faced in the last thirty-six hours took me back to the cottage and how I found a bleeding man who changed my life forever.

'I loved you, Bash. I miss you so much. It's been so hard without you. Why did you do this to me?' The words stayed on the tip of my tongue.

I slowly walked to Seb, changed his diaper, put on a new dress and wrapped him in a soft towel. I prepared the formula and packed the necessities in a duffle bag Greta brought us when she brought our clothes.

Somewhere in this house, a man is lying lifeless waiting to be found. And I am returning to my life with my Seb as if nothing happened.

Bash dropped me at a seashore. A yacht was waiting for us. A middle-aged man shook hands with Bash and they talked something. Then he took my duffle bag from my hand. I looked around my surroundings while Seb tilted his head a little to do the same.

"Where am I?" I asked Bash.

"Sicily." He replied. That piece of information didn't shock me any more. Everything that happened till now has been startling enough.

"It will take two days to reach İstanbul. But it's the safest passage in the current situation. Max is one of the best soldiers we have. You and your son will be safe." Bash explained.

I tried not to concentrate on how Bash addressed Max as a soldier and how he used the word, we. 'You are not one of them,' I wanted to scream. But what do I know? After witnessing him with the knife and how unfazed he was for doing that, I might as well believe the facts now.

Two days on a yacht, with a stranger.

I was a second away from begging Bash to come with us before Bash took a step forward and touched my baby's back.

"I didn't save you both to kill you at the end, Hana." He says, his voice is gentler than before yet hard. "You can trust, Max."

Max climbed out of the yacht and handed me a gun. If it was any other normal day, I wouldn't have taken it. But it's not a normal day and I am not normal anymore.

"I have a sixteen-year-old daughter. I won't harm you." Max tried to assure me.

I nod my head hesitantly. His assurance didn't stop the dread from clawing its way inside me.

"Can't I use public transportation?" I questioned Bash.

"You don't have a passport." He replied sharply. "Like I said, this is the safest way. Hang in there."

'Hang in there.' He said the same words in a different situation. He looked away again as though he too remembered that.

What the fuck am I even doing? He is my sister's husband. But what was he doing here?

"They will not see you again." He stated firmly. "I will make sure of it."

To not to lose before them, of course.

"Don't let me see you again."

With those words, he left. Once again we departed without a goodbye.

Waiting to reach İstanbul is torture. But we reached safely. I was left on the harbour with an infant in my arms.

I called Mateo with a stranger's phone.

"Hello?" He says from the other end and tears filled my eyes at his voice. We are finally home.

"Ma...Mateo...."

He paused for a second. Then I heard a rustling sound. "Oh my god, Hana. Where are you? Are you okay? How is Junior? Whose number is this?"

*

An hour later, Mateo came to pick me up. He took us in a bear hug, inspecting our wounds and kissing Seb's face. He has grown a beard. It's been one hell of a week.

"What happened?" He asks me. "We gave a complaint to the police. They have been searching for days now and couldn't find any lead. When I told them that you had reappeared, they oddly backed down. They are not even willing to question you."

Of course, Bash controlled everything.

"I am fine. I tell him. Take me home. And call the nanny. I don't think I can handle everything on my own today. I just need...."

"Hana," Mateo calls hesitantly. "Shalini woke up."

I felt a skip in my heart. "She woke up on the day before you went missing. I want to surprise you. So I never told you."

Relief and fear flooded through me. I put her son in a most dangerous situation. How she would react if I told her what happened? Would she let me see him again?

First of all, do I even deserve to hold Seb after what I had done?