CHAPTER 67: (GIVING HIM PEACE)

IVAN

“Daddy!”

The word struck me like a blow. A small, bright voice that carried an innocence I didn’t deserve but still somehow claimed me.

The boy’s little arms wrapped around my legs, warm, insistent, familiar in a way that rattled the bones of my pride. I bent instinctively, hands scooping him up before my mind caught up with my body.

He was light, yet solid. His small frame nestled against me as though he’d always belonged here— in my arms, in this house, in my world.

And then I saw it.

The resemblance.

His dark hair that fell across his forehead in a stubborn wave. His piercing gray-blue eyes that looked at me with unfiltered joy. The set of his jaw, the tilt of his small chin, even the faintest expression when he smiled.

My son.

My blood.

And Danica had kept him hidden from me.

Anger coiled in my chest like a snake. For years I had mourned, searched, raged in silence at her absence. And all the while, she had kept this boy— my boy from me.

“Daddy,” he said again, giggling, as t