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“No. She’s fine,” the woman reassures us quickly. “I need to talk to you both. Come back up to the ward. They’ll let you through.”

Within minutes, we’re already outside Masha’s room, and we’re invited inside.

Only the little girl and Elena are there. The woman watches me carefully as I walk over to Masha, take her hand, and ask worriedly how she’s feeling.

“Masha, you and I already talked, and you spoke very positively about Nazar and Ann. I think they finally want to ask you something,” the woman says with a slight smile, giving us an encouraging look, and we realize the moment has come.

“Masha, please tell us,” Nazar says to the confused little girl, and it’s obvious he’s nervous as hell. I take his hand because I’m shaking like a leaf myself. This is so much more nerve-racking than it seemed in my head. “We know you already have guardians, but… would you want us to become your official guardians instead? Me and Anya.”

Masha stares at us wide-eyed like she can’t believe what she just heard, then slowly shakes her head. Her gaze finds Elena Egorovna, and with hope in her voice she asks:

“Is that… even possible?”

“There’ll be a lot of paperwork, commissions, and bureaucracy,” the woman explains softly, “but your current guardians clearly aren’t coping. To put it mildly…”

We hear the girl sniffle, and she looks at us with such desperate hope that my soul feels like it’s being torn apart. I can’t handle that emotional torture either and hug the little girl tightly, bursting into tears right along with her.

“Really?” we hear her ask again through our sobbing, disbelief still heavy in her voice, and those gray eyes look at us desperately. “You really want this?”

“Oh, Masha…” Nazar finally cracks too, wrapping both of us in his huge arms. “It’s pretty damn hard to force us to do something we don’t want,” he jokes, flicking the blonde lightly on the nose, and she smiles.

“That’s good… then Lucas will have someone when I’m gone…” the little girl whispers with an exhausted smile and immediately runs into our furious stares.

“Hey!” my boyfriend raises his voice sternly. “Don’t you dare! I don’t want to hear that crap again! You’re going to get treatment and we’ll get through this! All together!”

“Why would you even bother with us?” Masha sighs, wiping away her tears.

“Because we love you, silly girl,” I whisper to her, and she starts sniffling all over again, burying her face against my chest.

When you truly want something with all your heart, you’ll do everything possible to achieve it.

Masha and Lucas’s guardians lost custody rights in record time. And on top of that, they were hit with criminal charges on multiple counts involving deliberate neglect of their duties as guardians, negligence, and child endangerment. They were also charged for failing to provide necessary medical treatment for a critically ill child, effectively leaving her in mortal danger.

Honestly, to me it looked a hell of a lot like attempted murder.

They were sentenced to a massive fine and up to three years in prison.

Masha needed urgent treatment abroad, and that’s where, thank God, Mr. Yartsev stepped in and helped us get guardianship paperwork processed unbelievably fast.

The moment those documents landed in our hands, we immediately flew to one of the world’s best medical clinics, praying with everything we had left that it still wasn’t too late for our daughter.