Page 5 of Married to the Don (Kornilov Bratva Duet 1)

Ted’s eyes narrow and then drift down my body again. “You look too young to have a kid that old.”

I cross my arms tighter, covering my chest. He’s probably thinking exactly what everyone else thinks when they find out I have a four-year-old son. Teen mom, slut, another statistic. I’ve heard it all before, and I’m not about to hear it from Ted the Gym Pervert.

“Well, I’m not,” I say coldly.

I try to walk past him, but he steps to the side, blocking my path again.

“Listen,” I say, holding up a hand to warn him to keep his distance. “Whatever this is, I’m not interested in—”

“I see you come in every day, but you don’t workout.” He glances behind him to check that the desk is still empty and his fellow employee hasn’t joined him yet. “You just come in, go straight to the showers, and leave.”

I swear his pupils are larger than they were a second ago. His face is familiar in the way all predators seem familiar. There is hunger there, and I resist the urge to turn and run in the opposite direction. I stand taller, broadening my shoulders to look as big as possible, as though I’m trying to scare away a bear. “There are no rules against that.”

He raises a brow, surprised by my fight, perhaps. Then, he nods towards where Theo is drawing a misshapen snowman. “There are rules against him, though. He isn’t supposed to be in the showers with you.”

I respond without glancing back. “He wasn’t.”

Ted’s smile widens, and his white teeth glimmer in the yellow lighting. “Don’t lie. Remember? I’ve seen you.”

The same cold-egg-yolk-moving-down-my-spine feeling I had in the shower this morning returns, and I suddenly know without a doubt that Ted has been watching me bathe.

I’ve had the same feeling every time I’ve showered in the gym, and I thought it was just my own self-consciousness at being in the open, but now I realize my instincts picked up on the presence of a predator.

Suddenly, I remember all the footsteps I’ve heard over the months we’ve been coming here. There were times where the locker room door would beep like someone had opened the door, but then no one ever came in. Only, now I realize, they did. He did. And he watched me—naked and vulnerable—without my consent.

My stomach turns. I know this feeling all too well. The violation. I want to throw up, and when Ted’s eyes assess me again, I know he doesn’t need me to take off my coat to get an idea of what I’m hiding under it. He has already seen it.

“What do you want?” I ask, my voice low and icy. I glance back towards the doors and see the bus pulling into the parking lot. Theo sees it too.

“The bus is here,” he calls, dragging his coat sleeve through his condensation drawing to erase it and moving towards the doors. “Come on, Mama.”

“Nothing,” Ted says with an innocent shrug that I recognize as a farce. Then, his face sharpens, and he looks down at me over the long slope of his nose. “I just thought maybe you could reward me for keeping your secret.”

“I don’t have any money.”

He shakes his head and looks down the length of my body, his tongue darting out over his lower lip like a snake. “I don’t want your money.”

I fight back a shiver.

Ted leans in, whispering, “I’ll pay the five dollars for the day care. No one will ever have to know.”

He lays a hand on my shoulder, dragging it down my arm. “It’s your choice, Molly.”

He knows my name, and something about that feels like the worst thing of all. That this man knows me and has seen me. That he’s threatening me, blackmailing me with the ability to shower for sex. It’s repulsive, and I clench my fingers into a fist, prepared to break his nose and make a run for the bus. I don’t give a damn if I’m banned from the gym for life.

Before I can follow through with my plan, Ted moves away from me suddenly and heads back for the desk. He looks back over his shoulder one more time, smiling wickedly. “You better go. You don’t want to miss your bus.”

* * *

Theo asksonce on the ride to his day care who I was talking to at the gym, but when I distract him by pointing out the Dalmatian being walked down the sidewalk, he forgets about the incident entirely. I wish I could do the same.

We get off at our stop and have to jog three blocks to Theo’s daycare provider’s house. Krista lives on the second floor of an apartment building that is way nicer than anything I could ever afford, but would still be considered lower class by many standards. She has a box of dead flowers hanging from her narrow balcony, and I can see paper snowflakes and snowmen taped to the window, made by Theo and the other kids she watches.

Her daycare is not official. I tried to find a place registered with the state, but they were all too expensive. Krista seems nice. Her place is clean, Theo always tells me he has fun at her house, and I have no other options. So, I take Theo to her every day, hoping she takes care of him and doesn’t eventually get shut down by her apartment complex or the city.

Krista lets us in when we buzz and has the door open when we walk up the stairs. Two other kids, both younger than Theo, are sitting at a table eating oatmeal. Krista’s hair is pinned back with a clip at the base of her neck, and she is in a pair of sweatpants and an oversized sweatshirt. Theo gives me a quick hug and darts past Krista to take his place at the table.

“We’ll probably go to the park down the block, if that’s okay?” she asks.

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