Page 44 of Scarlet Chains
“I’ll have one of the nurses come in,” Simpson goes on. “Someone to keep him company until he settles.”
“Oh-okay.” Ilona makes a small sobbing sound, and Christ, I don’t know what hurts more, leaving him here, or seeing how it’s affecting her.
“He will be out of here soon,” I murmur, low enough that only she can hear. “I’ll make sure of it.”
The promise is for both of us.
She doesn’t respond, but I see her shoulders relax slightly. I don’t know what kind of connection she’s forged with my child, but it’s a strong one, and that feels right to me somehow.
As we walk back down the hallway, past the cheerful children’s artwork and institutional attempts at warmth, I’m already making plans. Phone calls to be made, favors to be called in, wheels to be set in motion. Slava won’t stay in this place longer than absolutely necessary.
Behind us, I can hear him making soft baby sounds, and it takes everything I have not to turn around and go back.
Soon, Son.
Papa’s coming back soon.
Chapter Eighteen
Ilona
The lights of the orphanage corridor burn my retinas as we step toward the exit.
My legs feel unsteady, like I’m walking on the deck of a ship in rough waters. Everything that just happened with Slava— seeing his little face confused and reaching for me as we left him behind— sits heavy in my chest, a weight that makes each breath feel deliberate.
Osip walks beside me, close enough that I can smell his cologne mixed with something sharper. Stress, maybe. Fear. The scent that clings to him when he’s barely holding himself together, the same smell that filled the BMW when he drove like a madman through Budapest’s streets, racing against time while I bled our baby’s life away in the passenger seat.
I force that memory down, but it claws at my throat anyway.
The heavy wooden doors require Osip’s shoulder to push them open, the hinges creaking in protest. The sound reverberates through the hallway behind us, final and irreversible.
Outside, the world has transformed. What had been a gray, overcast afternoon has become something biblical— rain falling in torrents that turn the street into a river. The downpour pounds against the pavement with such violence that I can barely see the cars parked along the curb.
It feels appropriate.
I pause at the threshold, watching the water cascade from the building’s overhang. Each drop catches what little lightfilters through the storm clouds before disappearing into the darkness below. The metaphor isn’t lost on me.
This is what goodbye looks like, I think.This is what it sounds like when everything you care about gets washed away.
“Blyad,” Osip mutters behind me, and I hear the rustle of fabric as he shrugs out of his suit jacket.
Before I can protest, he’s draping it over my shoulders. The material is warm from his body heat, and it smells so distinctly of him that my throat tightens. The gesture is automatic, protective— the same way he used to wrap me in his shirt when we’d spend lazy Sunday mornings in bed at the Budapest house, when I was still naive enough to believe he was just a restaurant owner with kind eyes and gentle hands.
Before I knew those hands had taken my father’s life.
I can’t look at him.Won’tlook at him. Because if I do, I’ll see those storm-gray eyes that used to make me feel like the center of the universe, and I’ll remember what it felt like to believe in forever with a man who turns out to be a cold-blooded murderer.
Instead, I pull his jacket tighter around myself and step into the rain.
The water soaks through my hair immediately, turning the blonde strands dark and heavy against my skull. It runs down my face, mixing with the tears I didn’t realize had started falling again. My shoes squelch against the wet pavement with each step, the leather offering no grip on the slick surface.
One foot in front of the other, I tell myself.Just keep walking. Don’t think about Slava’s confused little face. Don’t think about the way Osip’s jaw tightened when the orphanage director told us to leave before we upset him. Don’t think about how this feels like losing another child.
“Hey.”
His voice cuts through the rain, rough and urgent. I feel rather than see him reach for me, the air shifting as his hand moves toward my arm.
I jerk away so violently that I nearly lose my balance on the wet street. “Don’t.”
