Chapter Eighteen
Ilona
The lights of the orphanage corridor burn my retinas as we step toward the exit.
My legs feel unsteady, like I’m walking on the deck of a ship in rough waters. Everything that just happened with Slava— seeing his little face confused and reaching for me as we left him behind— sits heavy in my chest, a weight that makes each breath feel deliberate.
Osip walks beside me, close enough that I can smell his cologne mixed with something sharper.
Stress, maybe. Fear. The scent that clings to him when he’s barely holding himself together, the same smell that filled the BMW when he drove like a madman through Budapest’s streets, racing against time while I bled our baby’s life away in the passenger seat.
I force that memory down, but it claws at my throat anyway.
The heavy wooden doors require Osip’s shoulder to push them open, the hinges creaking in protest. The sound reverberates through the hallway behind us, final and irreversible.
Outside, the world has transformed. What had been a gray, overcast afternoon has become something biblical— rain falling in torrents that turn the street into a river. The downpour pounds against the pavement with such violence that I can barely see the cars parked along the curb.
It feels appropriate.
I pause at the threshold, watching the water cascade from the building’s overhang. Each drop catches what little light filters through the storm clouds before disappearing into the darkness below. The metaphor isn’t lost on me.
This is what goodbye looks like , I think. This is what it sounds like when everything you care about gets washed away.
“ Blyad, ” Osip mutters behind me, and I hear the rustle of fabric as he shrugs out of his suit jacket.
Before I can protest, he’s draping it over my shoulders.
The material is warm from his body heat, and it smells so distinctly of him that my throat tightens.
The gesture is automatic, protective— the same way he used to wrap me in his shirt when we’d spend lazy Sunday mornings in bed at the Budapest house, when I was still naive enough to believe he was just a restaurant owner with kind eyes and gentle hands.
Before I knew those hands had taken my father’s life.
I can’t look at him. Won’t look at him. Because if I do, I’ll see those storm-gray eyes that used to make me feel like the center of the universe, and I’ll remember what it felt like to believe in forever with a man who turns out to be a cold-blooded murderer.
Instead, I pull his jacket tighter around myself and step into the rain.
The water soaks through my hair immediately, turning the blonde strands dark and heavy against my skull.
It runs down my face, mixing with the tears I didn’t realize had started falling again.
My shoes squelch against the wet pavement with each step, the leather offering no grip on the slick surface.
One foot in front of the other , I tell myself. Just keep walking. Don’t think about Slava’s confused little face. Don’t think about the way Osip’s jaw tightened when the orphanage director told us to leave before we upset him. Don’t think about how this feels like losing another child.
“Hey.”
His voice cuts through the rain, rough and urgent. I feel rather than see him reach for me, the air shifting as his hand moves toward my arm.
I jerk away so violently that I nearly lose my balance on the wet street. “Don’t.”
The word tears from my throat, raw and desperate. I can’t have him touching me. Not now. Not when my defenses are already crumbling, when seeing Slava’s innocent trust has stripped away every wall I’ve built around my heart.
Because the truth is, Osip’s touch still sets me on fire.
Even after everything— after learning what he did to my father, after the miscarriage that felt like punishment for loving a monster, after the way I had to sneak out of his house like a thief in the night— his skin against mine still feels like coming home.
And I can’t afford to come home. Not to him. Not to this.
He murdered Dad . The words cycle through my mind like a curse, a mantra to keep me strong. He ripped the life from the man who raised me, who sang me lullabies in Russian and taught me to make Borscht and told me bedtime stories about brave princesses who saved themselves.
I keep walking, my shoes making small splashing sounds with each step. The rain is relentless, turning my vision blurry. Whether from the water or the tears, I can’t tell anymore.
“Ilona, why…?”
I stop walking. Turn around slowly, letting the rain wash over my face as I look at him for the first time since we left that little boy behind.
“Why did you—?” he tries again.
“Stop.” I raise a hand, knowing he wants to take me to places I’m not prepared to go right now. “Promise you’ll be there for him,” I say instead.
Osip stands about ten feet away, his white dress shirt already transparent from the rain.
The fabric clings to his chest, outlining the muscles and scars I used to trace with my fingertips in the dark.
His dark hair is plastered to his forehead, making the sharp angles of his face even more pronounced.
But it’s his expression that stops my breath.
He looks… defeated. Broken in a way I’ve never seen before.
This is a man of power, who built a life of careful control and measured responses.
I’ve seen him frustrated, seen him worried sick when I lost the baby, seen him coldly furious when someone threatened his business. But I’ve never seen him look lost.
Good , I think viciously.
Let him hurt.
Let him know what it feels like to lose something precious.
“Of course. Of course I’ll be—”
“I said promise it!” My voice cuts through the rain like a blade. I take a step closer, close enough to see the way his jaw tightens, the way his hands clench and unclench at his sides. Even soaked and vulnerable, he’s still imposing. Still dangerous in ways I’m only beginning to understand.
But right now, he’s also just a man who’s about to lose a child he clearly loves. And despite everything— despite the hatred burning in my chest, despite the betrayal— I need to hear him say it.
“I don’t know why you were not there for him.” Each word comes out roughly. “And maybe I don’t have to know. But promise me you will never betray him again.”
The way you betrayed me , I don’t say. The way you let me think we had a future while you carried the weight of my father’s murder like a secret between us.
He opens his mouth, and I see the exact moment he starts to reach for me. His hand lifts slightly, fingers spreading like he wants to cup my face the way he used to when he was trying to make me understand something important.
I step back immediately, shaking my head. The movement sends water droplets flying from my hair.
His hand falls to his side. “I promise. Of course I promise. He’s my son. There are a lot of things you don’t understa—”
“Good.” I cut him off again. I don’t want to hear his explanations. Don’t want to know what justified keeping me in the dark about who he really was while I fell deeper in love with an illusion. Some things can’t be explained away, no matter how silver his tongue is.
He probably doesn’t even know that I know , I realize with bitter clarity. He has no idea why I really left. He thinks it was the miscarriage, the loss of our perfect little family fantasy.
Should I tell him?
The question swirls in my head for a moment before I crush it.
Right. Confront a cold-blooded killer about the blood on his hands.
My father’s blood.
Maybe I’ll be next. Although, somehow I don’t think that would happen. Still, the knowledge I carry is damning enough. Enough to walk away again. To keep secrets of my own this time.
“Be there for him. Be a good father. Goodbye, Osip.”
I turn to walk away, but his voice stops me.
“I’ll take you home.”
Not a question. Not a request. A statement delivered with the same quiet authority he uses when he’s making decisions for both of us. The same tone that used to make my pulse race when we were together, when his protectiveness felt like safety instead of suffocation.
Home . As if I have one anymore. As if anywhere could feel like home when it’s built on lies and blood.
I don’t respond. Can’t respond. Because if I open my mouth, I’ll either scream at him or break down completely, and I’m not sure which would destroy me more.
So I just keep walking.
The tears come then, hot and fast despite the cold rain.
They stream down my cheeks, mixing with the water until I can’t tell where one ends and the other begins.
My heart is breaking all over again— for Slava, who deserves better than a father who abandons him; for the baby I lost, who will never know either of us; for the man walking behind me, who I once loved; for the girl I used to be, who believed love could overcome anything.
Not murder , I think bitterly.
Never that.
My chest aches with each sob I try to swallow. The rain pounds against the pavement, against my skin, washing away my makeup and leaving me raw and exposed under the gray sky.
“Ilona.”
His footsteps are getting closer, splashing through puddles. I can feel his presence like heat at my back, the way I always could. Even in a crowded room, I could sense exactly where Osip was without looking.
Some primal recognition , I used to think it was. Soul calling to soul.
Now I know it was just my prey instincts recognizing a predator.
“Let me take you ho—”
“NO!”
The word explodes out of me with such force that it echoes off the surrounding buildings. I whirl around to face him, my hair whipping across my face, chest heaving.
He’s closer than I expected— close enough that I can see the water droplets clinging to his eyelashes, the way his shirt has molded to him. Close enough that I can see the confusion and hurt flickering across his features before he can hide it behind his usual mask.
He lowers his hand that he’d extended to me, like he’s trying not to spook a wild animal. Maybe that’s what I am right now— cornered and dangerous and ready to lash out at anything that comes too close.
I turn away from him again, wrapping my arms around myself. His jacket is soaked through now, useless against the cold, but I can’t bring myself to give it back. It smells like him, like the man I used to wake up next to, and I’m not ready to let go of that small comfort.
Pathetic , I think.
Clinging to pieces of a monster who destroyed your family.
My feet slip slightly on the wet pavement as I start walking again. Each step feels like an effort, like I’m walking through quicksand instead of puddles. The street stretches endlessly ahead of me, and I have no idea how I’m actually going to get anywhere. No idea where I’m even going.
But I can’t get in a car with him. Can’t sit in that intimate space, breathing his air, pretending to be okay when every cell in my body remembers what it felt like to be his.
When every cell in my body still wants to be his , I admit to myself.
Even knowing what he is.
Even hating him for it.
“Thank you.” His voice is quieter now, hard to hear above the rain.
I stop walking but don’t turn around.
“Thank you for what you did for my son.”
The words hit me hard. Because that’s what this is really about, isn’t it? Not us. Not what we were or what we lost. Just gratitude from a father whose son I helped care for, whose broken child I loved like my own for the brief time we were together.
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.