Because she trusts me enough to send him.
Becausehewants me.
And because maybe, just maybe, there’s a way back.
CHAPTER 43
KAIRO
The apartment feels too big when he’s gone.
It’s strange, really—how something as small as a child’s voice can fill every corner of a space. How its absence can hollow it out.
Ben’s been at the orphanage for only a few hours, but I’m already pacing like I’ve lost him. I told myself I’d stay busy—clean the kitchen, fold the laundry, maybe even answer the messages stacked in my inbox. I’ve done none of it. The dishes are still piled high. The clothes still sit, wrinkled, accusing.
Instead, I circle the living room for the third time, barefoot on the cool laminate, arms folded, stomach twisting itself into knots. The afternoon light cuts through the blinds in narrow gold stripes, painting bars across the walls. The hum of the fridge sounds like breathing. I hate it.
I told him he could go. I meant it.
Jav deserved that much.
But now that Ben’s actually there, my mind won’t stop feeding me images—Jav with his scars and his quiet eyes, standing too close to danger even when he’s trying to stay safe. My son walking beside him, tiny hand in a man’s grasp that once broke bones for a living.
I know who Jav is.
I also know who he’s trying to be.
And that’s the part that scares me most.
Because maybe he’s finally changing, and I don’t know what to do with that.
The compad sitson the table where I left it—a stack of unread messages glowing faintly in the afternoon haze. Most are business inquiries, the kind my agent would have handled if I hadn’t burned every professional bridge in a fifty-mile radius.
I scroll half-heartedly until one subject line stops me cold.
“To Kairo — from Prison (unsent drafts recovered)”
My breath hitches. I don’t remember downloading these. They must’ve been archived automatically, buried in the server somewhere between grocery receipts and overdue notices.
My thumb trembles as I open the folder.
Five messages. Dated years ago.
I almost close the file, but something—maybe guilt, maybe longing—makes me pressopen.
The first few are rambling: apologies half-finished, sentences breaking mid-thought, the tone brittle with shame. He talks about the boy he never met, the woman he never stopped seeing every time he closed his eyes.
And then the last one.
It’s short. Barely two lines.
Tell our cub he’s not a mistake. Tell him he’s everything.
—?J.
That’s it.
No greeting. No sign-off.
