“I just...” I faltered, glancing away, suddenly aware of how far I’d overstepped. “He’s not happy.”
The silence that followed was suffocating.
It stretched. Thick. Punishing.
I almost wished he would shout. Rage would have been easier to bear than this controlled stillness, this gathering storm.
Then he spoke.
His voice dropped—lower, rougher—stripped of polish and power, edged with something raw and exposed.
“I’ve tried every single fucking thing to make him happy.”
The words hit hard.
“The best child psychiatrist in Los Angeles—three sessions a week for two years,” he continued, pacing now, slow and restless. “The top trauma specialist from Boston—I flew her in monthly. Art therapy. Music therapy. Equine therapy.” A bitter huff of breath. “I bought him a damn horse.”
He laughed once—short, humorless.
“I built him a playroom bigger than most houses. Imported toys from Europe. Tutors who spoke five languages. I read him stories every night until he stopped asking. Until he stopped wanting me there.”
His voice tightened.
“I held him through every panic attack,” he said. “Sat on the floor outside his door when he wouldn’t let me in. Listened to him cry on the other side while I stayed quiet so I wouldn’t scare him more.”
He stopped moving.
“You think it doesn’t hurt?” he asked softly, dangerously. “Never hearing your own son speak to you for three years?”
My chest constricted.
“The first time he spoke after Maria’s death,” Ruslan went on, voice lowering further, “was yesterday. He called me. Told me to get dressed and come to a church.”
His jaw flexed.
“I didn’t know he was arranging a wedding for me,” he admitted. “But the joy in my heart when I heard his voice again—after all that silence—was unquantifiable.”
For a moment, the man in front of me wasn’t a tyrant.
He was just a grieving father.
Then he looked at me again.
Sharp. Focused.
“It’s obvious now you’ve played a role in that,” he said.
I dropped my gaze, throat burning. I hadn’t meant to do anything. I’d just listened. Held. Stayed.
“I don’t know what you’ve done to make him warm up to you,” he continued, taking a step closer, “when he won’t warm up to anyone—male or female.”
Another step.
“But whatever it is,” he said quietly, “keep doing it.”
My heart hammered.
“Because that,” he finished, “is the only thing keeping you alive.”
