Page 87 of Scarlet Chains
And maybe it is. Maybe happiness isn’t about perfect circumstances or uncomplicated love stories. Maybe it’s about finding someone who makes you want to be brave enough to build something beautiful despite everything working against you.
Maybe it’s about choosing love even when love is complicated, even when it comes wrapped in danger and moral ambiguity, even when it requires forgiveness for things that seem unforgivable.
Maybe it’s about my mother, weak from cancer treatment but radiant with joy, reaching for Osip’s hand and telling him,“Welcome to the family, son,” in a voice that carries a lifetime of love and acceptance.
Maybe it’s about the way he kneels beside her wheelchair and kisses her cheek with the same reverence he shows me, this dangerous man who’s learned that real strength comes from protecting the people you love rather than destroying the people who threaten you.
Maybe it’s about the way Melor claps me on the shoulder and says, “Dobro pozhalovat’ v sem’yu, sestrichka”— welcome to the family, little sister— in Russian that sounds like a language I want to learn as soon as possible.
Maybe it’s about the way Radimir, usually so serious and tech-focused, grins at me and says, “Now you’re stuck with all of us. No returns, no exchanges.”
Maybe it’s about the way the future stretches ahead of us, uncertain but full of possibility, marked by Mom’s treatment starting next week and Slava waiting for us back at the orphanage and a thousand small moments of ordinary happiness that we’ll build together day by day.
As we leave the hospital— husband and wife, Mr. and Mrs. Sidorov, two people who found each other in the darkness and chose to build something luminous together— I realize that I couldn’t be happier. The future is looking up in ways I never dared to imagine, painted in shades of hope and love and the kind of forever that survives anything.
Even cancer.
Even murder.
Even the complicated mathematics of forgiveness and redemption.
Even us.
Especially us.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Osip
Ilona and I step into the building of Beacon Hills Orphanage, and even though we’ve been here countless times during this whole fucked up process, it feels different now.
My heart pounds in my throat, just like it did the night I first held my son. But this time, the pounding isn’t from grief or shock— it’s from anticipation. From the knowledge that I’m walking toward the moment I’ve dreamed of for months. The moment I finally get to take my boy home.
As always, the institutional smell hits me first— that blend of chemicals and tears that clings to places where broken things get put back together. My free hand clenches into a fist at my side while my other hand holds tight to Ilona’s fingers, anchoring me to the present. She’s here. My wife. The woman who made this possible in ways that go far beyond legal paperwork.
Cameron Simpson greets us with the kind of professional warmth that comes from years of facilitating family unions.
“Right this way,” he says, guiding us down a quiet corridor. There’s quiet understanding in his bearing. He knows what this moment means to a father who thought he’d lost everything.
Ilona’s hand tightens around mine, and I feel her strength flowing into me through that simple contact. She knows. She understands the magnitude of what’s about to happen, even though Slava isn’t her blood. The way she’s stood by me through this nightmare, the way she fought alongside me when the system tried to keep us apart— Christ, I love this woman more than my next breath.
The corridor stretches endlessly ahead, each step bringing me closer to the future I never thought I deserved. My reflection catches in the polished floor tiles— expensive suit, perfectly groomed, every inch the respectable businessman. Nothing about my appearance betrays the violence that lives in my past, the blood that stains my hands. Today, I’m just a father coming to collect his son.
We stop in front of a door. Plain wood, brass handle, a small window at eye level. Behind that door is everything that matters in this world.
Mr. Simpson opens it quietly, gesturing for us to enter.
And there he is.
Slava is there, sitting on the floor, his tiny hands stacking colorful blocks with careful concentration. The sight of him steals every bit of air from my lungs. My breath catches. For a moment, I can’t move. All I can do is watch him, this little miracle who survived when everything else around him died.
So beautiful. My perfect little kid who experienced way too much hardship in life, in just over one year.
He’s bigger than I remember, more solid. His hair has grown out, dark waves that catch the afternoon light streaming through the window. The institutional clothes— simple jeans and a red sweater— can’t diminish the natural grace in his movements, the way he approaches each block with an intensity of focus that I recognize in myself.
This is my son. My flesh and blood. The boy who carries half my DNA and nearly all my hopes for redemption.
Slowly, I lower myself to the floor, careful not to startle him. My knees protest against the hard surface, and my expensive suit will probably be wrinkled beyond repair, but none of that matters right now. Nothing matters except the sixteen-month-old boy who holds my entire future in his small hands.
