Page 129 of Scarlet Thorns

“Boston? What the fuck—?”

“My son is alive, Melor. Galina’s baby survived.”

Silence. Then: “Bozhe moy,Osip. You can count on me,bratok.Go get your boy.”

I end the call and pause at the bottom of the stairs. Ilona is up there, probably resting, probably still healing from the nightmare I put her through. Part of me wants to tell her. Part of me wants to bring her with me.

But this is something I need to face alone. My son. My failure. My chance to make it right.

The staff I hired to care for Ilona bustles around quietly, ensuring she has everything she needs. A nurse checks on her regularly. A cook prepares special meals to help her regain strength. They’re good people, but they’re not me. And I’m abandoning her just like I abandoned my son.

But I can’t stay.

Not when Slava is out there, waiting.

I grab my jacket and head for the garage. The engine roars to life, and I peel out of the driveway like the hounds of hell are after me. Maybe they are. Maybe this is my chance at redemption, or maybe it’s just another way to destroy something innocent and pure.

The highway stretches ahead, and I push the accelerator harder. For the first time in months, I feel something other than numbness. It’s not relief— it’s terror mixed with desperate hope.

Hold on, Slava.

Papa is coming.

And this time, I won’t run away.

Chapter Fifty-One

Osip

The next hour passes in a blur of movement and numbness.

My private jet is already fueled and waiting on the tarmac. The flight attendant offers me food, drinks, conversation— I wave her off. I need silence. I need to think. Or maybe I need to stop thinking entirely, because every fucking thought leads back to the same place.

You failed him.

You failed your son, you coward.

The leather seat cushions me, but nothing can cushion the blow of reality. Thirty thousand feet above the ground, trapped in this metal tube hurtling through clouds, I finally let myself feel it.

My son has been alive this entire time. Growing. Learning to smile, to laugh, to trust strangers who fed him and changed him and held him when he cried. Strangers who became his family because his father was too much of a fuckingpizdato stay and fight for him.

The attendant dims the cabin lights, and I close my eyes, but sleep won’t come. Instead, I see flashes of what I’ve missed. First steps that happened without me. Tiny hands that reached for comfort from people whose names I don’t even know. A voice calling “Papa” to someone else’s face.

The captain’s voice crackles over the intercom. “We’ll be beginning our descent into Boston shortly.”

Boston. The city where everything went to hell a year ago. The city where my son has been waiting for a father who never came.

The plane touches down with a slight jolt, and I’m moving before the engines finish winding down. My phone buzzes with a text from the driver— black sedan, waiting outside Terminal 3. I don’t remember arranging a car, but Radimir thinks of everything. Always has, even if I generally give him shit.

The driver is a middle-aged man with tired eyes and calloused hands. He takes one look at me and doesn’t try to make conversation. Smart. I slide into the back seat and give him the address to Beacon Hill Home.

“Visiting family?” he asks as we pull away from the curb.

I stare out the window at Boston’s familiar skyline. “Something like that.”

The drive takes forty minutes through afternoon traffic. I watch the city roll past— brick buildings and narrow streets, places where I used to conduct business. Dark business. The kind that very likely led to Galina’s death and my son’s orphaning.

We turn onto a tree-lined street, and suddenly there it is. The orphanage rises before us like something out of a Disney movie. Red brick with white trim, manicured gardens, children’s toys scattered across a fenced playground. It looks safe. Wholesome. Everything I’m not.