Chapter 6: Mia’s Story
They ended up in a bright twenty-four-hour sandwich shop two blocks from the grocery store, where the light was hard and honest and the windows opened onto a busy street. Mia chose the table. She sat on the side facing the door, Leo on her lap, the milk carton parked by the napkin dispenser like evidence of the only mission she had successfully completed all day.
Adrian ordered food without making a ceremony of it: warm soup, bread, a cup of orange slices, more milk. He set everything between them and then kept his hands visible on the table. Mia noticed. She hated that she noticed. Paying attention to safe signals was exhausting, but not paying attention had already cost her too much.
For a while she only fed Leo and ate in small, quick bites. Hunger made manners irrelevant. Adrian did not comment. He waited until the edge of her desperation blunted before he spoke.
“You said someone told you to run if the wrong person recognized the bracelet,” he said. “Who told you that?”
Mia wiped Leo’s mouth with a napkin. “Lena.”
“And Lena is…?”
Mia’s shoulders hitched. “His mother. For a while she was mine too, the way that matters. Not by paper. By staying.”
Adrian’s face tightened, but he didn’t interrupt.
Mia stared at the steam rising from the soup. “There was a room above a laundry for a couple months. Then a car. Then a lady with a pink suitcase who said she knew a safer place. People always say that. Safer place. Temporary. Just until. Then one morning Lena went to handle something and didn’t come back the same way. After that it was me and Leo and a list of things not to do. Don’t show the bracelet. Don’t tell his whole name. Don’t trust men who look like offices.”
“What happened to Lena?” Adrian asked, very carefully.
Mia’s jaw flexed. “If I knew the clean version, I wouldn’t be guessing every night.” She finally looked at him. “She told me if she ever didn’t come back, I keep him breathing. That’s the whole job. Milk. Soft clothes if I can steal them without getting caught. No police if I can help it. Police separate people first and ask later.”
Adrian dragged a hand across his mouth. In the harsh café light he looked less composed, more human, the shock of the grocery store settling into something heavier.
“You’ve been doing this alone,” he said.
Mia gave a small, humorless shrug. “I have Leo. Alone would be easier.”
The baby reached for the edge of the tray with solemn concentration. Mia guided his hand away from the hot cup and kissed his hair without thinking. The gesture was so natural it seemed to pain Adrian more than any accusation could have.
“I’m not going to pretend this is normal,” he said. “You’re a child carrying another child through a city with rules that will not be kind if they catch you wrong. But I need you to hear one thing without running. If that bracelet is what I think it is, then Leo is not only your responsibility.”
Mia’s arms closed around the baby at once.
“He is mine to protect,” she said.
“Yes,” Adrian answered. “And that is the only reason I’m still sitting here instead of forcing a disaster in public.”
May you like
Mia studied him over Leo’s head. Trust was not on the table. Not yet. But she had walked this far for milk and a chance, and the sandwich shop was warm, and Leo’s stomach was settling for the first time all day.
For now, that had to be enough to keep her in the chair.
