Chapter Nineteen
Osip
Fuck.
Fuck.
And more fuck.
I sit here like some pathetic mudak , 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. That suka could’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 that govnuk told 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.
The one pure thing in this cesspit of a world, and he’s stuck in some bureaucratic nightmare while I sit here wallowing in self-pity like a pizda .
I would do anything for him. Anything. I’ll bribe every single fucking bureaucrat in Boston if I have to.
Hell, I’ll buy the entire adoption agency if that’s what it takes.
Money talks louder than morals in this world, and I’ve got enough green to make even the most righteous svoloch sing a different tune.
It’s only a matter of time before we can reunite and make up for all the time we lost. All those months I didn’t even know he existed— his first steps, his first words, the nightmares I wasn’t there to chase away because I thought he’d died with his mother.
The guilt gnaws at me, but I push it down.
Focus on the future.
Focus on getting him back.
The shrill ring of my phone snaps me back to reality. I snatch it up after glancing at the screen.
“Any news?” The words tear from my throat before fucking Simpson can even speak.
“There’s progress, Mr. Sidorov,” his voice grates through the speaker, “but I need to be upfront. It looks like the process can take months. It’s extremely bureaucratic. We need to verify your documents, review custody laws, and navigate the courts.”
Months?
The word leaves me reeling. My vision blurs red around the edges, and I have to grip the desk to keep from putting my fist through the wall.
Months of my son in some sterile orphanage, thinking no one wants him.
Months of him sleeping in a sterile crib surrounded by strangers while his real father sits in hotel rooms drinking himself into oblivion.
“I want my son!” The words explode from me, echoing off the walls of this suffocating room. A lamp rattles on the nightstand from the force of my voice.
Mr. Simpson’s tone remains maddeningly calm, though I can hear the faintest hint of irritation bleeding through his professional mask.
“Look, I understand your frustration. I assure you, I’m on your side. But the laws are in place to ensure the child’s best interests. This process isn’t designed for speed, Mr. Sidorov.”
Child’s best interests.
The phrase makes me want to reach through the phone and strangle this debil . As if anyone knows what’s best for Slava better than his own father. As if some pencil-pushing bureaucrat gives a shit about my boy beyond the paperwork on his desk.
“How can we speed it up then?” I grunt, fighting to keep my voice below a roar.
The pause stretches long enough that I wonder if the line went dead. Then Simpson clears his throat, and I can practically hear him choosing his words carefully.
“Well,” he starts, then stops. Another pause. “It would be a lot easier if—”
“If what?” I bark, my patience hanging by a thread so thin it’s practically transparent.
“If you were married.” He finishes his sentence with the tone of a man delivering a cancer diagnosis. “Single fathers don’t have strong standing in custody cases, especially when the child has been previously adopted and the situation involves international jurisdictions.”
Fuck!
Fuck bureaucracy.
Fuck this entire goddamn system.
“This is fucking bullshit,” I snarl, ending the call before he can respond. I pace the room like a caged wolf, my fists clenched so tight my knuckles crack. The walls feel like they’re closing in, the city lights outside mocking me with their indifference.
I need answers. I need solutions. I need someone who understands how this fucked-up world really works. Someone knows how to navigate bullshit bureaucracy.
Melor. He’ll know what to do. He always does.
My brother picks up on the second ring, because he usually does. It’s one of the things I’ve always respected about my vor —he’s reliable when it counts.
“Tell me,” I snap, skipping any pleasantries because pleasantries are for people who have time to waste. “I’m told it would be quicker for the adoption to go through if I was married. Is it true?”
“It’s common sense, mudak ,” he says, and I can picture him rolling his eyes on the other end of the line. “It doesn’t take a legal genius to figure that out. I hope you didn’t lose your temper with some bureaucrat, Osip. Losing your cool doesn’t exactly help your case.”
The casual way he says it makes my teeth grind. Like this is just another business problem to be solved, not my entire fucking world hanging in the balance.
“It’s not a fucking case,” I snarl, my free hand tangling in my hair. “Slava is my son!”
“We all know that,” Melor says, his tone level in that way that means he’s trying to talk me down from a ledge.
“But as far as the system is concerned, you weren’t there when Slava needed you.
The Vorobevs were. Not to mention that there’s no official DNA test on record.
But more damningly, the system thinks you abandoned your child. ”
“Then what the fuck am I supposed to do?” The words come out as a growl, barely human.
“Well, marriage is a good start.”
“Who the fuck am I supposed to—?” I start, but the words die in my throat as something clicks in my brain. A lightbulb going off in the darkness that’s been suffocating me for weeks.
Ilona.
Why the fuck am I just now thinking about this? Maybe I am losing my mind, spending so much time wallowing in rage, booze, and self-pity that I can’t see the obvious solution staring me in the face.
She’s perfect. She’s always been perfect.
The only problem— and it’s a big fucking problem— is that she doesn’t want to be anywhere near me. She won’t even talk to me, let alone marry me. Getting her to agree would be like trying to tame a wildcat with gentle words and good intentions.
And I’m not a man who’s good with either of those things.
“ Bratok , you still there?” Melor’s voice cuts through my racing thoughts.
“Leave it with me,” I tell him, ending the call and flinging the phone onto the bed where it bounces once before settling into the rumpled sheets.
But my mind is already spinning, pieces clicking into place like a well-oiled machine.
Ilona isn’t just the solution to my bureaucratic nightmare— she’s the only solution that makes sense.
She’s the only person I trust with Slava, the only one who’s already proven she loves him like her own.
And Slava loves her too. I’ve seen it in the way his whole face lights up when he looks at her, the way he reaches for her like she’s his anchor to the world.
If she agrees— and that’s a mountain-sized if— it solves everything. We can be a family. A real family. The three of us together, the way it should’ve been from the beginning.
Except I don’t know how the fuck I’m supposed to convince her. The woman who used to melt under my touch now looks at me like I’m something she scraped off her shoe. She’s built a wall between us, and it’s made of ice and steel and whatever poison she thinks she knows about me.
But I’m not a guy who’s scared of impossible odds. I’ve built an empire from nothing, survived wars that would’ve broken lesser men, clawed my way up from the gutter to stand at the top of the food chain.
Impossible is my bitch.
I walk to the window, my hand pressed against the glass. The city sprawls out below me, full of people living their small, safe lives while I plot how to tear down the barriers between me and everything I want. The rain has stopped, leaving the streets gleaming under the streetlights.
Somewhere out there, Ilona is probably getting ready for bed, brushing that silky gold hair I used to tangle my fingers in. Maybe she’s thinking about me too, remembering what we had before whatever happened happened. Maybe she’s lying awake, wondering what the fuck went wrong between us.
Or maybe she’s sleeping peacefully, content in the knowledge that she’s finally free of the dangerous suka who brought nothing but chaos into her ordered world.
It doesn’t matter. Whatever walls she’s built, whatever reasons she has for shutting me out, I’ll find a way through them. I have to. For Slava. For the future I can see so clearly it makes my chest ache with want.
The three of us in a house somewhere safe, somewhere the shadows of my past can’t reach. Slava laughing as I teach him to throw a proper punch, his small hands in mine as we work on his homework together. Ilona in my arms at night, her breath warm against my neck as she tells me about her day.
It’s a fantasy, maybe. The kind of domestic dream that men like me aren’t supposed to have. But I want it with a hunger that threatens to consume me from the inside out.
That’s it.
The decision crystallizes in my mind. Clear. Unbreakable. Final.
Ilona is going to be mine. Not just for the bureaucrats and their paperwork, not just to make Slava’s adoption easier. She’s going to be mine because she belongs with me, because we belong together. Because I’m done pretending I can live without her.
For Slava— for my son— I’ll find a way. I’ll tear down every wall, break through every defense, use every weapon in my considerable arsenal until she remembers what we almost had. What we will have.
And we can all be together. The way it should be. The way it’s going to be, no matter what it takes.
I drain the last of the vodka and set the glass down with steady hands. The rage has turned into something sharper, more focused. Purpose flows through my veins.
Tomorrow, the real work begins.