Page 38 of Scarlet Chains
The engine launches us forward with enough force to press us back into leather seats. Boston traffic becomes an obstacle course I navigate with the cold calculation of a man who’s driven through war zones. Simpson grips the door handle, his breathing shallow and quick as I take corners sharp enough to leave rubber on asphalt.
“Mr. Sidorov, I’d like to make it there alive…” he ventures when I blow through a yellow light that’s already turning red.
I don’t respond. Words are worthless right now. Only action matters. Only getting to Slava matters. The city blurs past us— storefronts, pedestrians, other cars all reduced to mere obstacles between me and my son.
The GPS announces our arrival just as a sprawling mansion materializes ahead, all colonial elegance and old money arrogance. The kind of place that speaks in whispers about trust funds and boardrooms while my world operates in the language of bullets and broken bones.
My boots hit the front steps with purpose, Simpson trailing behind like an anxious shadow. I raise my fist to knock, but the sound of footsteps approaching from the other side makes every muscle in my body coil tight.
The door swings open.
Time fractures.
The woman standing before me stops my heart mid-beat. Blonde hair catches the porch light, falling in waves around her shoulders. Blue eyes— the color of ocean water on a clear day— widen in recognition. Full lips part in shock. She’s holding achild against her chest, and every detail of her face burns itself into my consciousness with devastating clarity.
What the…
Ilona?
The word explodes in my skull, leaving me blind and deaf to everything except the impossible sight before me. She stands in the doorway of this mansion, cradling my son, and for one insane moment, I wonder if all that Stoli and insomnia have finally driven me over the edge into full psychotic break.
But no. She’s real. The same woman who haunted every bottle, every sleepless hour since I returned from Boston to find my home empty, her clothes gone, no trace of her except the lingering scent of her perfume.
How?
The question lodges somewhere between my chest and throat, choking off oxygen. Of all the cities, all the houses, all the fucking impossible coincidences in this godforsaken world— she’s here. With my son.
The elegant foyer behind her stretches into shadows, crown molding and hardwood floors speaking of untold wealth. Crystal chandeliers throw scattered prisms of light across marble surfaces, but all I can see is her.
She’s been taking care of Slava.
My Slava.
The thought hits me with the force of a sledgehammer. This woman— the one I’ve ached for, the one whose absence carved hollows in my chest— has been mothering my child. Feeding him. Singing to him. Probably reading him bedtime stories while I drowned myself in vodka and rage three thousand miles away.
Recognition crashes across her features. I watch her face cycle through the same disbelief that’s currently turning my guts to mush. For just one fraction of a heartbeat, something thatmight be joy flickers in her eyes— so brief I could have imagined it. I probably did. But then her expression shuts down, color draining from her cheeks until she looks like she’s witnessed a horrible crime.
She clutches Slava tighter, maternal instinct overriding whatever complicated emotions are warring behind her eyes. The sight of her protecting my son does something violent and primal to my chest cavity.
Mine.
Both of them.
The thought comes unexpectedly, dangerous in its intensity.
“Osip,” she whispers, and my name on her lips makes my throat tighten.
“Ilona,” I rasp the word, then take a step forward, drawn by invisible chains that have apparently survived whatever spell she cast when she vanished from my life. But she stiffens, every line of her body screaming retreat even as her eyes remain locked on mine.
The air between us sparks with enough voltage to power half of Boston. Shock, longing, the phantom heat of remembered skin against skin— it all swirls together into something so potent I’m surprised the doorframe doesn’t burst into flames.
Bozhe moy!
My body responds to her proximity the way it always has, blood heating and pulse accelerating despite the surreal circumstances. Even now, even with my son in her arms and confusion thick as smoke between us, the attraction burns bright enough to blind.
Simpson clears his throat behind me, a sound that cuts through the charged atmosphere. “You two know each other?”
Know each other?
