Page 49 of Scarlet Chains
“It’s not a fucking case,” I snarl, my free hand tangling in my hair. “Slava is my son!”
“We all know that,” Melor says, his tone level in that way that means he’s trying to talk me down from a ledge. “But as far as the system is concerned, you weren’t there when Slava needed you. The Vorobevs were. Not to mention that there’s no official DNA test on record. But more damningly, the system thinks you abandoned your child.”
“Then what the fuck am I supposed to do?” The words come out as a growl, barely human.
“Well, marriage is a good start.”
“Who the fuck am I supposed to—?” I start, but the words die in my throat as something clicks in my brain. A lightbulb going off in the darkness that’s been suffocating me for weeks.
Ilona.
Why the fuck am I just now thinking about this? Maybe Iamlosing my mind, spending so much time wallowing in rage,booze, and self-pity that I can’t see the obvious solution staring me in the face.
She’s perfect. She’s always been perfect.
The only problem— and it’s a big fucking problem— is that she doesn’t want to be anywhere near me. She won’t even talk to me, let alonemarryme. Getting her to agree would be like trying to tame a wildcat with gentle words and good intentions.
And I’m not a man who’s good with either of those things.
“Bratok, you still there?” Melor’s voice cuts through my racing thoughts.
“Leave it with me,” I tell him, ending the call and flinging the phone onto the bed where it bounces once before settling into the rumpled sheets.
But my mind is already spinning, pieces clicking into place like a well-oiled machine. Ilona isn’t just the solution to my bureaucratic nightmare— she’s theonlysolution that makes sense. She’s the only person I trust with Slava, the only one who’s already proven she loves him like her own. And Slava loves her too. I’ve seen it in the way his whole face lights up when he looks at her, the way he reaches for her like she’s his anchor to the world.
If she agrees— and that’s a mountain-sized if— it solves everything. We can be a family. A real family. The three of us together, the way it should’ve been from the beginning.
Except I don’t know how the fuck I’m supposed to convince her. The woman who used to melt under my touch now looks at me like I’m something she scraped off her shoe. She’s built a wall between us, and it’s made of ice and steel and whatever poison she thinks she knows about me.
But I’m not a guy who’s scared of impossible odds. I’ve built an empire from nothing, survived wars that would’ve broken lesser men, clawed my way up from the gutter to stand at the top of the food chain.
Impossible is my bitch.
I walk to the window, my hand pressed against the glass. The city sprawls out below me, full of people living their small, safe lives while I plot how to tear down the barriers between me and everything I want. The rain has stopped, leaving the streets gleaming under the streetlights.
Somewhere out there, Ilona is probably getting ready for bed, brushing that silky gold hair I used to tangle my fingers in. Maybe she’s thinking about me too, remembering what we had before whatever happened happened. Maybe she’s lying awake, wondering what the fuck went wrong between us.
Or maybe she’s sleeping peacefully, content in the knowledge that she’s finally free of the dangeroussukawho brought nothing but chaos into her ordered world.
It doesn’t matter. Whatever walls she’s built, whatever reasons she has for shutting me out, I’ll find a way through them. I have to. For Slava. For the future I can see so clearly it makes my chest ache with want.
The three of us in a house somewhere safe, somewhere the shadows of my past can’t reach. Slava laughing as I teach him to throw a proper punch, his small hands in mine as we work on his homework together. Ilona in my arms at night, her breath warm against my neck as she tells me about her day.
It’s a fantasy, maybe. The kind of domestic dream that men like me aren’t supposed to have. But I want it with a hunger that threatens to consume me from the inside out.
That’s it.
The decision crystallizes in my mind. Clear. Unbreakable. Final.
Ilona is going to be mine. Not just for the bureaucrats and their paperwork, not just to make Slava’s adoption easier. She’s going to be mine because shebelongswith me, because webelong together. Because I’m done pretending I can live without her.
For Slava— for my son— I’ll find a way. I’ll tear down every wall, break through every defense, use every weapon in my considerable arsenal until she remembers what we almost had. What wewillhave.
And we can all be together. The way it should be. The way it’s going to be, no matter what it takes.
I drain the last of the vodka and set the glass down with steady hands. The rage has turned into something sharper, more focused. Purpose flows through my veins.
Tomorrow, the real work begins.
