Page 89 of Scarlet Thorns

The question hits harder than I anticipated. My chest tightens until breathing feels optional, memories rushing back with the force of a freight train. Galina’s hand over our child in her belly. The nursery I’d started planning. Tiny feet kicking against my palm when I talked to my unborn son in Russian, teaching him his first words before he was born.

“Net.” I shake my head, the word coming out gruff. “It’s not a good idea for a man like me.”

“Oh man, it’s the best thing in the world,” Pétersays, his gaze following Dénes with unmistakable pride. “Hard work raising these little assholes, don’t get me wrong. But it’s worth it at the end of the day. Everything you do has more meaning when you’re doing it for them.”

The words cut deep.

Everything you do has more meaning.

I think about the empire I’ve built, the money I’ve accumulated, the respect I’ve commanded through violence and fear. All of it feels hollow without someone to pass it to, someone to protect, someone to love unconditionally the way Péterloves his son.

I stay for another thirty minutes, watching this father-son dynamic that should feel foreign but instead feels like glimpsing a life I was supposed to have. When I finally make my excuses and head back to my car, the weight in my chest has transformed into something sharper, more desperate.

Sitting behind the wheel in the parking lot, I close my eyes and let the memories crash over me.

Coming home that night. Galina on the cream sofa. The cord around her throat, professional and neat. And then—God, then—the movement beneath her dress. My son, still alive inside his mother’s corpse, fighting for a life he’d never get to live.

The paramedics working frantically while hope died in my chest. “Sir, you should stay here. There’s nothing you can do at the hospital now.”

Because they already knew. Had already pronounced her dead, had already determined that saving my child was impossible. I should have been holding my son right now. Should have been teaching him to walk, to say “Papa” in Russian, to be strong but never cruel.

Instead, I’m sitting in a parking lot in Budapest, remembering the weight of dreams that died with a cord around Galina’s throat.

But Péter’s words echo in my skull:“It’s the best thing in the world.”

The idea hits me like lightning.

I could try again. Could build the family that was stolen from me. But with whom? Definitely not Anett— that bridge has been burned, and even before that, she never felt like mother material. Too focused on herself, too calculating about what children could do for her image rather than what she could do for them.

Then, something, somewhere clicks.

A lightbulb goes off.

Ilona’s face invades my mind with sudden, overwhelming clarity.

Ilona, who talked about wanting children before her endometriosis made it difficult. Ilona, who has the kind of gentlestrength that would make her an incredible mother. Ilona, who trusts me enough to surrender completely.

Blyad.

The temptation is so strong it leaves me shaken.

I could give her everything— financial security, protection. Could watch her belly grow round with my child, could hold my son or daughter, and know they were safe from the violence that claimed their half-sibling.

What are you thinking, you idiot?

The rational part of my brain— the part that’s kept me breathing through wars and betrayals— screams warnings. It’s already fucked up that she’s living in my house. Already twisted beyond repair that I killed her father and she has no clue I’m the man from Boston. Adding a child to that equation would be…

Insanity.

Sheer insanity.

But the seed is planted now, growing with every goddamn heartbeat. The image of Ilona pregnant with my child, of teaching my son or daughter to be strong and honest and everything I failed to become. Of having something pure and clean to balance the blood on my hands.

I could make it work. Could protect them both from the truth, from the consequences of my past. Could be the father I never got to be.

The dangerous hope spreading through my chest feels like salvation and damnation wrapped in the same package.

Bozhe moy,what am I becoming?