Page 37 of Scarlet Chains
He doesn’t know. He has no idea that he’s just become an orphan again.
“I… of course,” I hear myself saying. “I won’t leave him alone.”
“Thank you. Thank you for understanding. I will be in touch shortly.”
The line goes dead. I stare at the phone in my hand for a long moment before setting it back in its cradle with exaggeratedcare, as if sudden movements might shatter what’s left of this surreal morning.
Slava makes an impatient sound, still trying to escape his high-chair. His dark hair sticks up in impossible directions, sticky with banana, and there’s a smear of the fruit across his cheek. He looks so beautifully, heartbreakingly alive.
I stand on unsteady legs and go to him, lifting him out of the chair and into my arms. He settles against me immediately, that perfect trust that children give so freely. His small hand pats my shoulder, and when I look down, I realize I’m crying.
“I’m so sorry, little one,” I whisper into his hair. “I’m so, so sorry.”
But sorry doesn’t change anything. Sorry doesn’t bring back his adoptive parents or guarantee him a future that doesn’t involve being shuffled between institutions and strangers.
Sorry doesn’t explain why, as I hold this child who isn’t mine, the thought of letting him go feels like it might actually kill me.
Chapter Fifteen
Osip
The Gulfstream touches down smooth as silk, but my jaw stays clenched tight.
Boston’s familiar skyline spreads before me through the small cabin window— steel and glass monuments to American capitalism, reflecting the dying light of another day I’ve spent separated from my boy. The last time I stood on this soil, my world cracked open— discovering my son existed, that he breathed the same air I’d been poisoning with my sins for a year without knowing.
Now I’m back to claim what’s mine.
Fuck the lawyers.
Fuck the system.
Fuck anyone who thinks they can keep my blood from me.
The rental agency delivered exactly what I requested— a black Range Rover with enough horsepower to outrun my own demons if necessary. I slide into the driver’s seat, and the weeks of vodka and sleepless nights feel heavy in my bones. The engine roars to life, and I peel out of the private airfield, weaving through traffic with the precision of a man who’s spent his life calculating risks and accepting consequences.
The speedometer climbs. Sixty. Seventy. Eighty on city streets.
Let them try to stop me.
Beacon Hill Orphanage materializes ahead, its red brick facade worn smooth by decades of Boston winters. Ivy crawls up the walls, and the windows reflect nothing back at me— dark, empty eyes in an institutional face. The building squatsbetween two residential streets like it’s trying to blend in, trying to pretend it’s not a warehouse for broken childhoods.
I park with a squeal of tires and slamming of doors and stride through the front entrance. The lobby smells of industrial disinfectant and something else— the particular sadness that clings to places where children wait for families that may never come. Fluorescent lights buzz overhead, casting everything in harsh relief. Motivational posters line the walls, their cheerful messages obscene in this context.
Simpson emerges from an office down the hall— a thin man in his fifties with carefully cropped gray hair and wire-rimmed glasses that he adjusts constantly. His suit is off-the-rack but pressed, his shoes polished but not expensive. He moves with the quiet economy of movement of someone who’s spent his career managing other people’s tragedies.
“Mr. Sidorov,” he says, extending a hand I don’t take. His professional smile wavers when he sees the violence radiating from every line of my body. “Thank you for coming so quickly.”
“Where is he?” The words come out as a growl, my eyes scanning the sterile hallway. Every cell, every fiber of my being screams with the need to see Slava, to touch him, to confirm he’s real and safe andmine.
“Don’t worry, Mr. Sidorov. Slava is safe,” Simpson says, his voice carefully modulated. He adjusts his glasses again, a nervous tic. “His nanny is taking care of him at the Vorobev residence. She agreed to stay until we could arrange a place for him here at the orphanage. Shall we go collect him?”
The word “nanny” lights something savage in my chest. Some stranger has been feeding my son, bathing him, comforting him when he cries. Tasks that should have been mine. Rights that were stolen from me before I even knew they existed.
A fucking nanny.
“What’s the address.” It’s not a question. I’m already pulling out my phone, calling up the map app.
Simpson rattles off an address that I punch into the GPS as I turn and walk off. He follows me to the Range Rover, and I can see him hesitate before climbing into the passenger seat. The man has good instincts— he should be afraid.
