Page 83 of Scarlet Chains
I think about it for a moment, considering all the logistics and complications. “Soon,” I decide. “I want to marry you soon.”
“Done,” he agrees easily, and I can hear the smile in his voice. “Soon, you’ll be Mrs. Sidorova.”
The name sends a thrill through me that I feel all the way to my toes. Mrs. Sidorova. Ilona Sidorova. His wife, his partner, the mother of his children.
“I like the sound of that,” I murmur against his skin, and his arms tighten around me in response.
Chapter Thirty
Ilona
The next few days blur together in a whirlwind of legal documents and stolen moments.
Osip becomes a force of nature, all focused intensity and relentless efficiency as he navigates the bureaucratic maze of marriage licenses and paperwork. I watch him make phone calls in rapid-fire Russian, watch him spread documents across the desk in his hotel suite like a general planning a campaign, watch him move through the world with the kind of purpose that bends reality to his will.
“Birth certificate,” he mutters, adding another paper to one of several neat stacks. “Divorce decree— not applicable. Medical records— Christ, they want everything but a blood sample.”
“They might want that too,” I say from my spot curled up on the couch, trying to focus on the book in my lap instead of the way his dress shirt pulls across his shoulders when he reaches for another file.
He looks up at me with those impossibly beautiful eyes, and the corner of his mouth lifts in something that’s part smile, part predatory grin. “If they want blood, they can have it. I’ll give them whatever they need to make you mine legally.”
The possessive edge in his voice sends heat spiraling through me, the same heat that’s been burning under my skin since the moment I said yes. Since the moment his ring claimed my finger and his promises claimed my heart.
The evenings are when that heat consumes us both.
The moment the last document is filed, the second we close the hotel room door behind us, we’re on each other likestarving animals. He fucks me against the wall in the hallway, on the bar counter, in the shower until the water runs cold. I ride him on the couch while he grips my hips hard enough to leave bruises, arch beneath him in our bed as he drives into me with a desperation that matches my own.
It’s like we’re trying to claim each other completely before the rest of the world can interfere. Like we know that once we’re married, once we’re official, the protected bubble of these few days will burst and reality will come crashing back in.
But even in the middle of all that intensity, there’s a shadow that follows me everywhere I go.
Mom.
I visit her every single day, sometimes twice. The hospital becomes as familiar as my own apartment— the antiseptic smell, the soft-soled shoes squeaking on linoleum floors, the steady beep of machines that measure heartbeats and hope. Room 314 has become my second home, the place where I sit vigil beside the woman who gave me life while watching that life slowly ebb away.
She looks smaller every day. More fragile. The revolutionary treatment Osip arranged— the one that costs more than most people make in a lifetime— hasn’t started yet, but even the preparations seem to drain her. Blood draws and scans and consultations with specialists who speak in careful, clinical terms about experimental procedures and cautious optimism.
“You don’t have to come every day, sweetheart,” she tells me during one afternoon visit, her voice paper-thin but still carrying that maternal concern that’s been the soundtrack of my life. “You have a wedding to plan.”
I adjust the pillow behind her head, the simple gesture feeling both natural and heartbreaking. “There’s not much to plan. We’re keeping it simple.”
“Simple can be beautiful.” Her fingers find mine, and I’m shocked by how cold they are, how the bones feel too close to the surface. “Tell me about your dress.”
I haven’t bought a dress. Haven’t even thought about it, really. The idea of shopping for something white and symbolic while my mother lies dying feels impossible, like choosing jewelry for a funeral.
“I’ll find something,” I say instead, squeezing her hand gently. “Maybe we can look at pictures together? You could help me choose?”
Her eyes light up with something that looks like joy, the first real brightness I’ve seen there since I told her about the wedding. “I’d love that. Though I think you’d look beautiful in anything.”
The words hit me harder than they should. She won’t be there. She won’t see me walk down any aisle, won’t help me get ready, won’t cry happy tears during the ceremony. This conversation about wedding dresses might be the closest she gets to participating in the most important day of my life.
The unfairness of it all crashes over me. My father is dead, killed by the man I’m about to marry. My mother is dying, her time measured in weeks rather than years. And I’m planning a wedding that feels both like the beginning of everything and the end of everything all at once.
But then Osip appears in the doorway, and something in my chest loosens slightly.
He’s been coming with me to the hospital more often, despite my initial protests. The first time I brought him, I was terrified— this was the man who wielded the knife that made me fatherless, standing beside the hospital bed of my dying mother. The guilt nearly choked me. How could I expose her to him? How could I let the cause of so much pain into this sacred space of grief and love?
So, I didn’t tell her. There are some things she never needs to know. Still, it was nerve-wracking to bring this overwhelming, obviously lethal man into the room occupied by the most important woman in my world.
