Page 141 of Scarlet Thorns
The rain hits my face the moment I step outside the building, cold and merciless as the truth I’ve just been force-fed. Boston’s autumn weather has turned vindictive, the sky weeping the tears I refuse to shed in front of these people. Cold trails stream down my cheeks, but I don’t bother wiping them away.
What’s the fucking point?
My legs carry me to the bench just outside the ornate iron gate— the same gate that’s now a barrier between me and the son who’s being torn from me. The wrought iron is slick with rain, the metal cold enough to bite through my expensive suit, but I collapse onto it anyway. The discomfort is nothing compared to the gaping wound where my heart used to be.
I close my eyes and let myself break.
For the first time since Galina died and my future was destroyed, I let the grief consume me completely. It pours out of me like blood from a severed artery— months of denial, weeks of desperate hope, and now this crushing, final blow.
My son is alive.
My son is being taken away from me.
My son will grow up never knowing that his father flew across an ocean to find him, only to arrive too late.
The rain soaks through my jacket, through my shirt, through to my skin. I don’t care. I sit there like a statue of misery, letting Mother Nature wash away whatever dignity I have left. The cold seeps into my bones, but it’s nothing compared to the arctic wasteland that’s opened up inside my chest. Time passes but I’m barely aware of it.
How long have I been sitting here?
The thought drifts through my mind. Could be minutes. Could be hours. But the rumble of an approaching engine cuts through my self-pity, and I force my eyes open.
A massive Land Rover idles at the gate, waiting for the security system to grant it access. Even through the rain-blurred windshield, I can make out the registration: VOR 0014.
Vorobev.
The name burns itself into my retinas like a brand.
These are the people who are stealing my son.
Adrenaline floods my system, cutting through the haze of despair. I’m suddenly alert, sharp. I surge to my feet, every instinct screaming at me to act, to fight, to do something other than sit here like a broken dog. The window on the driver’s side slides down, revealing a professional-looking Russian couple in their mid-forties. He’s got the bearing of a man accustomed to respect and deference. She’s elegant in that polished way that comes from never having to worry about money.
Old money.
Clean money.
Everything I’m not.
The man’s eyes find mine through the rain, and there’s a moment of mutual assessment. He’s probably wondering why a disheveled stranger is loitering outside an orphanage. And me?I’m wondering how much pain I can inflict before his security detail puts me down.
But violence won’t get me what I want. Not here. Not now.
“Da.Can I help you?” His accent is educated, refined. Boston Russian elite, not gutter trash like me.
“Mr. Vorobev, can we speak?” The words come out in Russian.
His expression sharpens, and he kills the engine. The car door opens with the solid thunk of German engineering, and he steps out onto the wet pavement. Everything about him screams success— the cut of his coat, the confidence in his posture, the way he moves like a man who’s never been denied anything in his life.
“How do you know my name?”
“I heard Cameron Simpson call you that on the phone not long ago. And your vehicle registration…” I glance to the grille of his car, letting him guess how I put two and two together.
“Ah.” His eyes rake over me, taking in my red-rimmed eyes, my unshaven jaw, the way my expensive clothes hang on my frame like wet rags. “I see.” There’s disdain in his voice now, the kind reserved for drunks and derelicts. “What can I do for you, Mr…?”
“Sidorov.” The name should mean something to him, considering that he’s the man standing between me and my son. But I know he’s never heard it. The system didn’t know I existed until this afternoon. “Look…” I continue. “I’m Slava’s biological father. There’s been a misunderstanding, and I want to take my boy home.”
For a moment, neither of us moves. The only sound is the drumming of rain on metal and concrete.
“Oh.” His tone goes from dismissive to carefully neutral. “I’m afraid that’s impossible. Slava is our son.”
