Epilogue 2
Kiara
The clouds outside the window grow darker by the minute, threatening to unleash what looks like a full-blown storm at any second. Powerful gusts bend the trees around the gazebo so violently that the scene is beginning to resemble something straight out of a horror movie.
Yet I absolutely love it.
I let my head fall back against the chair, drained from writing even though it’s not even the middle of the day. The library sits quietly around me, filled with the rich scent of books and wood.
My dream library. My dream office. The one he built for me right under our roof, and still my favorite place in the entire house.
The sound of tires on gravel pulls my attention toward the window.
Natalya’s home.
I close my laptop, apparently finished with work for the day, just as my phone starts ringing.
The name flashing across the screen catches me off guard. It’s the director of the orphanage I once wrote about, the one doing such remarkable work that I ended up writing far more articles about it than I’d originally planned.
I answer the call, and her kind voice rumbles through the speaker as we exchange a few polite greetings.
“Listen, this is probably a long shot,” she says hesitantly. “But I couldn’t help thinking of you.”
I frown.
“Me? Why?”
“You once told me about you and your husband. About where he came from.”
“Yeah,” I murmur as my palms begin to grow damp. “I remember.”
“We recently took in a little boy from a war-affected country. He lost his family and was brought here a few weeks ago.” Her voice softens. “He’s having a difficult time settling in.”
I turn toward the window, watching the trees sway violently in the wind and suddenly feeling as though it’s me being pulled off balance.
“He barely speaks,” she continues. “Actually, no one here speaks his language fluently. We even brought in someone who does, but he still doesn’t seem to trust anyone.”
For a moment, neither of us says anything.
“I’m not suggesting anything,” she adds quickly. “I just thought that maybe your husband could understand him better than most people. Maybe he could talk to him. That’s all.”
My eyes fall shut as something twists painfully inside my chest.
A little boy.
Alone.
A war-torn country.
“He’s six years old,” she continues when I don’t respond. “He’s—”
“We’ll be there tonight.”
“Tonight?”
“Yes.” I open my eyes and already start pacing through the library. “We’ll be there tonight.”
The smile in her voice is impossible to miss.
“Oh, that’s wonderful.”
I hear the front door open downstairs.
“I can’t promise anything,” I add. “But we’ll come.”
“Thank you,” she says warmly. “Thank you so much.”
“I’ll call you when we’re on the road. See you soon.” I practically fly out of the library, my face twisted into something caught between nervousness and excitement.
The house is enormous. Since none of us could imagine spending our lives too far apart, we ended up building one home divided into two separate wings, one entirely mine and Kasien’s, the other belonging to Adrien and Natalya.
That was the plan, anyway.
In reality, we spend so much time together that the whole thing barely matters.
As I make my way toward the central living room we all share, I find Natalya standing motionless in front of the couch, watching something in complete silence.
She’s wearing one of her fitted black suits, her black hair pulled into a long ponytail, and it remains deeply unfair that she somehow still looks like a supermodel after carrying and giving birth to four children.
I come to a stop beside her, but before I can say a word, she shushes me.
“This is too wholesome,” she whispers, a hint of amusement tugging at her mouth. “Don’t wake them up.”
Only then do I notice what she’s looking at.
Kasien and Adrien are sprawled across the couch, passed out as though they both gave up halfway through something exhausting.
Little Damien and Sebastien—or the other way around, I still occasionally have to think about it since they’re twins—sit beside their father, absorbed in the important task of coloring Adrien’s arm tattoos with markers.
The girls are giggling somewhere on the other side of the couch, where Kasien sleeps peacefully with at least two ribbons tied into his hair.
Natalya stands quietly beside me, savoring the last few seconds of peace before any of her children realize she’s home.
I remain frozen as well, caught somewhere between happiness and hesitation.
I should tell him about the call.
I probably should’ve asked him first.
None of us were ever particularly eager to expand our family beyond the one we’d already built.
I’ve always been more focused on my work than anything else.
Kasien spends most of his time managing the businesses and Adrien fully embraces his role as a professional father. Our lives already feel incredibly full.
I never wanted children.
Not really.
I never pictured us with anyone beyond the four little gremlins currently terrorizing this house.
At least not until I found out I couldn’t have them. Not until a doctor casually informed me that the choice might never be mine to make.
The possibility of never giving Kasien that future, even if we changed our minds one day, shattered something inside me in a way I never saw coming.
Octavia is the first to notice us and immediately lets out a delighted squeal before launching herself toward Natalya.
The movement is enough to wake Adrien, who jerks upright so abruptly it’s almost impressive.
“I wasn’t asleep,” he blurts out instantly, looking around as though he’d just been caught committing a crime. His eyes begin counting children straightaway. “I have everything under control,” he adds once he confirms all four are still present and accounted for.
Then his gaze lands on Kasien and a laugh bursts out of him.
Kasien scowls, pulls out his phone, and checks his reflection in the camera. A grin slowly spreads across his face as he takes in the ribbons braided into his hair.
“Look how pretty I am,” he wheezes.
He reaches for the youngest and pulls her into his lap without a second thought, cradling her.
Despite all the years we’ve spent together, despite everything we’ve survived, he’s never once brought up having children of our own.
I’m still not sure whether it’s because he doesn’t want to make me feel guilty for something neither of us can change, or because he genuinely doesn’t need anything more than this chaotic family we’ve somehow built around ourselves.
Either way, he’s never asked. Never hinted. Never made me feel like I was failing him. The realization only makes my chest ache more.
I step toward him and lean down, lowering my voice enough that only he can hear me.
“We’re going on a trip.”
He sets Percy down on the couch before reaching for me and pressing a kiss to my forehead.
“Where?”
“You’ll see,” I say quietly through a smile.
?
The director leads us through the long entrance hall of the orphanage. It’s a beautiful building, bright and well cared for, filled with colorful drawings, photographs, and evidence of children everywhere. The kind of place that has clearly been built with love rather than money.
Kasien hasn’t said much since we arrived beyond the polite conversation required of him, but I know him too well not to notice what’s happening beneath the surface.
He’s nervous.
So nervous that he still hasn’t let go of my hand.
“We’re only here to talk to him,” I remind him quietly for what must be the third time.
His fingers tighten around mine.
“I know.”
He gives me a tight half-smile, the kind he wears whenever he’s trying very hard to look like his pulse isn’t currently doing something concerning.
It only makes me smile more.
“His name is Artem,” the director says as she guides us deeper into the building. “And as I mentioned on the phone, he doesn’t speak English. We brought someone who does speak his language but he didn’t respond.” Her voice quiets. “I think he’s just scared.”
A dull ache blooms beneath my ribs.
“We thought maybe you could help,” she continues. “Or maybe not. No pressure. Even if nothing comes of it, I wanted to try.”
“We’d love to help,” Kasien says beside me, and there isn’t a second of hesitation in his voice.
The hallway eventually opens into a large common room filled with toys, books, games, and clusters of children scattered across different corners. Some are drawing, some are playing, others are running around loudly enough to make me wonder how the staff survives this every day.
The director slows to a stop near the center of the room. My gaze follows the direction of hers and immediately finds him.
A little boy sits alone at one of the tables, surrounded by noise yet somehow separate from it, his small shoulders hunched forward as he stares down at whatever he’s drawing on a sheet of paper.
Kasien glances at me, looking more nervous than I’ve seen him in years.
“He’s going to be scared of me,” he murmurs quietly, making sure only I can hear him.
My eyes widen.
“And why would you think that?”
“Because of my hands.”
His voice is so soft it almost disappears beneath the noise of the room.
My focus drops to our intertwined fingers, tracing the familiar network of scars running across his skin before I tighten my hold on him.
“Your hands are beautiful,” I tell him. “And if anything, he’s going to think they’re pretty badass.”
A reluctant expression tugs at the corner of his mouth, but he still looks pale, as though he hasn’t taken a proper breath since we walked into the building.
“Just talk to him,” I encourage gently. “You speak his language.”
For a second he remains hesitant.
Then he finally lets go of my hand and starts walking toward the table. I stay where I am, suddenly unwilling to move.
The room continues buzzing around us with children’s voices and distant laughter, yet everything seems to fade into the background as I watch him approach.
Then the boy looks up from his drawing and my breath catches.
He has black hair and dark blue eyes, but that’s not what steals the air from my lungs. It’s the way his body tenses at first, instinctively preparing for disappointment, only for something in him to soften when Kasien says a few quiet words in a language I can’t understand.
The smallest hint of a smile appears on the boy’s face. Barely there and gone almost as quickly as it came.
But it’s enough to make my heart stumble.
A moment later, Artem shifts slightly in his chair, silently allowing Kasien to sit beside him.
Minutes pass as I watch them together, my entire being suspended in the moment while my attention narrows until they’re the only two people left in the room.
Kasien doesn’t rush him, doesn’t pressure him, doesn’t try to force a conversation that clearly isn’t ready to happen. He simply sits beside him, speaking every now and then, allowing the silence whenever it comes, as though he understands it better than anyone else in the room ever could.
Then, suddenly, Artem says something.
I don’t hear it. I just see his small lips moving for a few seconds.
Kasien visibly freezes, his eyes lifting from the paper to find me across the room for the briefest moment before a smile spreads across his face.
He turns instantly back to Artem, answering him in a voice too quiet for me to hear.
Warmth floods through me at once.
Because I know that smile and I know exactly what just happened. I can’t help feeling that something inside Kasien has just healed a little.
A tear slips down my cheek before I even realize it’s there.
I quickly wipe it away and let out a breathless laugh, my gaze still fixed on the two of them.
Yeah.
We’re definitely adopting him.