Chapter Fifty-Three
Osip
Mr. Simpson leads me through corridors that stretch endlessly.
Every door we pass could be hiding my son, and the uncertainty is eating me alive from the inside out.
When he finally stops, it’s in front of a door that looks no different from any other. Plain wood, brass handle, unremarkable.
“You can see Slava,” he says, his voice careful and measured, “but you can’t meet him. This is all I can do for you.”
No, goddammit!
But I force myself to nod because speaking might crack whatever’s left holding me together.
He opens the door, revealing a room divided by glass. Observation glass. The kind they use in police stations when they need you to identify a body.
I step through and my world stops.
There he is.
Slava, my only son, sits on the floor of what looks like a play area— soft mats, colorful toys scattered around him like promises of a normal childhood.
He’s the most perfect thing I’ve ever seen.
Fair hair catches the afternoon light streaming through windows, and every feature on his tiny face is a mirror of my own.
The nose, the shape of his eyes, even the way he tilts his head— it’s like looking at myself three decades ago.
My son.
My flesh and blood.
Living and breathing and real .
A young woman sits beside him— early twenties, blonde, wearing scrubs that mark her as institutional staff. She’s probably one of the volunteers, someone who spends her days caring for children whose parents can’t or won’t. The thought makes my chest tighten yet again.
Slava pushes himself up on unsteady legs, his balance uncertain but determined. He takes one wobbly step, then another, before his little legs give out and he lands hard on his diapered bottom. The impact doesn’t faze him— he just grins and pushes himself back up again, ready to try once more.
Those little legs.
The same little legs I saw kicking desperately against Galina’s dead stomach that night in Boston.
The memory sucks the air from my lungs— the death, the sirens, the paramedics who told me there was no hope.
But he fought then, just like he’s fighting now.
Still determined to live, to stand, to move forward despite everything that happened to him.
“He started walking just a few days ago,” Mr. Simpson says beside me, his voice distant and professional.
“Is that normal for his age?” I ask, wondering if my son is unusual in any way. Because why wouldn’t I think that? Why wouldn’t I imagine that my boy would be extraordinary?
“Every child is different,” Simpson responds. “Some of our kids are walking at one, some prefer to crawl for longer, some even scoot on their bottoms until they’re two.”
“ Der’mo ,” I say beneath my breath. No son of mine would ever drag himself around on his ass. Never. My boy is… perfect.
I watch, almost breathless, as he tumbles, stands and falls again. Spirited. Fearless. Just as I knew he would be. I swallow hard, blinking quickly as my eyes begin to burn.
And then, as if summoned by some invisible force, Slava turns his head toward the glass. Our eyes meet through the partition, and the world goes silent except for the sound of my heart shattering into a thousand pieces.
He stares at me with wide blue eyes— not quite my gray-blue, but close enough to be unmistakable. The intensity of his gaze is unnerving for a one-year-old. It’s like he can see straight through the glass into my soul, like he recognizes something in me that he can’t name but feels in his bones.
We stay locked like that for what feels like hours but is probably only seconds. Neither of us blinking, neither willing to break the connection. My chest is so tight I can barely breathe, and there’s a pressure behind my eyes that threatens to undo me completely.
The young woman notices Slava’s fixation and follows his gaze to the window. She can’t possibly know who I am, but she sees him staring and takes action. Gently, she reaches for his tiny hand and waves it in my direction.
“Say hello to the man,” I see her mouth move, though I can’t hear her through the soundproof barrier.
Slava gives me the faintest smile as she manipulates his little hand into a wave, but his eyes never leave mine.
They’re haunted in a way that children’s eyes should never be— like somewhere deep in his developing consciousness, he knows this moment matters.
Like he understands that we’re supposed to be together but can’t.
He recognizes me.
The thought leaves me reeling. This tiny boy who’s never seen my face before today, who’s been raised by strangers since birth— he knows. Somehow, he knows. Blood calls to blood. Father to son across glass and grief and all the mistakes that brought us here.
I raise my hand and wave back, trying to smile through the moisture gathering at the corners of my eyes. Without thinking, I press my fingertips against the glass as if I could somehow reach through and touch his soft skin, hold him close, whisper all the things a father should say to his child.
“That’s enough, Mr. Sidorov.” Simpson’s hand lands heavy on my shoulder. “You’re only torturing yourself.”
“Please.” The word comes out broken, ragged. I’ve stared death in the face more times than I can count, negotiated with guns pointed at my head, but nothing has ever felt as vital as this. “Let me hold him for just one minute. To say goodbye. He is my son. My own flesh and blood.”
My voice cracks on the last words. Flesh and blood— the same phrase I’ve used to justify a hundred violent acts, a thousand moral compromises. But here, with my child on the other side of the glass, it means something pure. Something worth dying for instead of killing for.
“I’m afraid you can’t, Mr. Sidorov.” His tone is final, not unkind but immovable. “I warned you this would happen. We must go. Come.”
He guides me toward the door with gentle but firm pressure. I don’t have the strength to resist— all my fight has been drained by sixty seconds of looking at my son. My legs feel like they belong to someone else as we move back into the hallway.
The corridor suddenly feels like a tomb. Every step away from that room is a step toward a future where Slava doesn’t know my name, doesn’t know I exist, doesn’t know how much his father wanted to be better than the man he turned out to be.
It’s all your fault, dolboyob.
It hits me all at once— every brutal moment of the past year crashing down like an avalanche.
Galina’s death. Seeing her broken body. Meeting Ilona and thinking maybe I could have a future, something with meaning.
Killing Igor Shiradze and watching Ilona’s world crumble when she learned the truth.
Her pregnancy— the hope that bloomed like spring after winter.
Then the miscarriage that took even that small miracle away.
And now Slava.
My son.
The child I thought was dead, living and walking and waving at strangers while his father stands behind glass like a criminal in a lineup.
It’s too much. Even for a man who’s survived wars and betrayals and enough violence to fill a graveyard. Even for someone who’s learned to bury his emotions so deep they can’t hurt him. The wall I’ve built around my heart crumbles completely, and the tears come without permission.
I collapse against the institutional wall and break down like a child myself.
Great, heaving sobs tear from deep within my chest and echo off the sterile tiles.
Years of suppressed grief pour out— for Galina, for Ilona, for the father I’ll never get to be, for the son who will grow up thinking he was abandoned instead of taken.
Mr. Simpson pulls a tissue from his jacket pocket and offers it without comment. When I’ve composed myself enough to look up, his expression is sympathetic but resolute.
“We men can’t be strong all the time, can we?” he says quietly.
I don’t respond. I just stare at nothing, like I’m lost in a void, in a world where my son can be with me.
Simpson’s phone rings, cutting through the moment. A blessing in disguise because I need a few moments to collect myself. He steps away to answer, his voice dropping to professional levels.
“Yes, Mr. Vorobev,” he says. “Yes, Slava’s ready.”
The name makes my head snap up, eyes narrowing on Simpson as he ends the call.
Vorobev.
I know that name— Leonid Vorobev, one of Boston’s most influential venture capitalists. Old money, legitimate business, the kind of man who collects philanthropic awards and sits on hospital boards. The perfect adoptive father for a child with a complicated past.
Mr. Simpson returns, his expression carefully neutral. “That’s all I could do for you, Mr. Sidorov. Slava’s adoptive parents are coming to take him to his new home later today.”
Later today.
In a few hours, my son will disappear into a life of privilege and proper education, designer clothes and trust funds. He’ll have everything I could never give him— safety, respectability, a future untainted by my bullshit.
Maybe it’s better this way.
“Rest assured, we carefully vetted all applicants,” Mr. Simpson continues. “He’ll be in a very good, wealthy family.”
“I… understand,” I say, although my heart doesn’t fucking understand at all. Worthless piece of meat never learned how to process emotions like this.
His hand returns to my shoulder, heavier this time. “Let him go, Mr. Sidorov. He’s going to have a great life.”
Let him go.
As if it’s that simple. As if I can just walk away from the only piece of myself that’s truly innocent. As if love can be switched off like a light when it becomes inconvenient.
My heart shatters again, finding new ways to break that I didn’t know existed.
There is nothing I can do.
Nothing.
The truth of it settles over me. All my power, all my connections, all the fear my name once commanded— none of it matters now. I am just a man whose past disqualifies him from the most fundamental human right: to raise his own child.
I straighten up, wiping the last of the tears from my face with the back of my hand. If this is goodbye, then I’ll say it with whatever dignity I have left. My son deserves better than to see his father fall apart completely.
Through the glass, Slava has gone back to practicing his steps, tottering between toys under the watchful eye of his caregiver. He’s already forgotten the man who waved at him through the window. Already moving forward into a life where I don’t exist.
Maybe that’s how it should be. Maybe some loves are too dangerous to claim, some connections too toxic to pursue. Maybe the greatest act of fatherhood I can perform is to walk away and let strangers give him the life I never could.
But as we head toward the exit, one truth burns itself into my soul with the permanence of a brand: I will remember every detail of this moment for the rest of my life.
The way he smiled.
The recognition in his eyes.
The sound of his tiny hands clapping together as he celebrated his own steps.
Slava Vorobev will grow up safe and loved… and distant.
And Osip Sidorov will carry the weight of that like a cross for whatever years he has left.