Page 16 of Scarlet Chains
“That’s… that’s really good, kid.” I take the paper with hands that aren’t quite steady. “You’re a real artist.”
“You can keep it if you want! Papa says giving presents makes people happy.”
I look down at this kid— this pure, untainted little soul who sees the world as a place where dragons protect treasure and stick-figure men smile all the time— and something breaks inside me.
This is what I’ve lost. This is what Slava could have been. What Ilona’s baby could have been.
But kids like Dénes need fathers like Péter. Steady men who come home every night with sawdust in their hair and patient smiles. Men who build things. Men who don’t have blood on their hands or enemies watching from the shadows.
Men who don’t wake up in cold sweats, reaching for guns that aren’t there.
“Thank you,” I tell him, carefully folding the drawing and sliding it into my jacket pocket. “I’ll put this somewhere special.”
Dénes beams and scampers back to Péter, chattering about something he saw on the street. Péter follows him with his eyes, that protective instinct never switching off.
That’s what a real father looks like.
“Boss?” Péter’s voice brings me back to the present. “You okay? You look…”
“I’m fine,” I snap, then exhale a steadying breath, softening my tone. “Just tired.”
He nods, but I can see the concern in his expression. Everyone’s been walking on eggshells around me lately— Radimir, the crew, even the contractors. They can sense the violence simmering just under my skin.
Good. Let them be careful.
My phone buzzes against my ribs. For a split second, hope flares in my chest— maybe it’s Ilona, maybe she’s finally ready to talk— but it’s just Radimir with updates about a shipment coming through the docks.
Of course it’s not her.
She’s gone. Vanished like smoke. And Slava…Blyad, Slava is probably calling some other man “Papa” by now.
The thought almost breaks me. I shove the phone back in my pocket and stalk toward the entrance, needing air that doesn’t taste like concrete dust and broken dreams. Péter calls after me, something about approving tile samples, but I don’t stop.
Outside, the cool air bites at my face. Budapest spreads out below me, all red rooftops and church spires, the Danube cutting through it like a scar. Beautiful city. Expensive city. The kind of place where a man could build something lasting.
If he was the kind of man who deserved to build anything at all.
Dénes’s drawing crinkles in my pocket as I lean against the construction fence. In his innocent world, monsters can be heroes, and everyone gets to smile in the end.
But in the real world— my world— monsters stay monsters. And the people stupid enough to love them end up running for their lives.
Maybe that’s for the best.
Maybe Ilona was smart to disappear. Maybe Slava will grow up better without me poisoning his childhood with nightmares and blood money. Maybe some people are meant to build things, and others are meant to tear them down.
I light a cigarette and let the smoke burn my lungs, watching the workers through the windows as they piece together my vision of what the Scarlet Fox could be. They’re building something beautiful here.
Too bad I’ll never truly be able to enjoy it.
Too bad I’m too fucked up to deserve the things I want most.
But that’s the way the world works, isn’t it? The ones who can create, do. The ones who can only destroy… well, we pay for it in the end.
One way or another, we always pay.
Chapter Six
Ilona
