Page 47 of Scarlet Chains

His son, I think.Not mine. Never mine.

Just another lie I told myself.

I nod silently, not trusting my voice. Then I force myself to keep walking, one foot in front of the other, away from the man who still owns pieces of my soul I’ll never get back.

The rain follows me into the darkness, washing away everything except the ache in my chest and the taste of goodbye on my lips.

Chapter Nineteen

Osip

Fuck.

Fuck.

And more fuck.

I sit here like some patheticmudak, staring out at the rain-slicked window of this sterile hotel room in Boston. The droplets streak down the glass, distorting the city lights into blurred smears of yellow and white. The vodka in my glass has gone warm, untouched for the past hour while my mind churns through the same goddamn loop.

Ilona.

Walking away from me.

Again.

Her spine rigid as a steel rod, those long, beautiful legs carrying her away from me with the kind of determination that makes my chest feel like it’s being crushed in a vise. The way she wouldn’t meet my eyes when I found her in that parking lot—blyad, it’s eating me alive. She looked through me like I was nothing. Like I was a stranger.

What the fuck happened?

The question pounds in my skull like a migraine. Weeks ago, she left me without explanation. Before that, we’d been navigating the careful balance around her recovery from the miscarriage— the baby we’d lost, the one that had brought us closer than we’d ever been during those fragile months. I thought we were finding our way back to each other. Then she was gone.

What’s she hiding?

I drain the glass in one burning gulp and pour another. The liquid catches the lamplight, reminding me of her eyes when she used to look at me with something other than ice-cold indifference. Back when she trusted me. Back when she didn’t know what kind of monster I really am.

But does she know?

Could she have found out what I did?

The thought churns in my gut. My hand stills on the glass. Stanley. Thatsukacould’ve opened his mouth, could’ve told her about our business. About the trade in unwanted babies to families who’d pay top dollar. It didn’t feel like a bad thing at the time. Morally gray, perhaps, but for the families who were made whole, I’m pretty sure they didn’t see it that way.

But it’s worse than that. Stanley made it clear he’d hurt her if I didn’t back off. The memory of his threat burns through me— the casual way he’d said her name, like he was already planning how to make her suffer. If thatgovnuktold her what I did to her father…

Could Stanley have told her?

Blyad!

I slam the glass down so hard vodka sloshes onto the mahogany desk. The sharp crack echoes in the silence, but it’s nothing compared to the rage building in my chest.

I’ll tear his fucking throat out with my bare hands.

But even as the rage burns through my veins like acid, another thought claws its way to the surface.

Slava.

My son.

My blood.