Inevitably, I end up swiping a pair of her panties from the laundry basket and kicking off my shoes as I fall into her bed. When I close my eyes, I can still see her, naked and wet and wanting. I drag the panties to my nose and unzip my jeans, fisting my cock roughly as the scenario plays through my mind. Maybe I could fuck her one last time. Taste her one last time. Wrap my fingers around the beating pulse in her throat one last time as I demand her to tell me all her secrets.
My balls contract and the muscles in my legs grow rigid as I drag my palm along the length of my cock. It’s too fucking much, but it’s not nearly what I want. My breath sputters as I release my pent-up frustrations across my abdomen in jets. When I collapse back onto her bed, I toss the panties onto the floor and wipe my hand on her pillow because I’m a sick fuck, and this is the only way I can be close to her.
After cleaning myself up, I move on to the other parts of the house. Again, I realize that Kat’s absence hasn’t much improved her life. She owns the basics but not much else. The boy’s room is sparse but cozy with a twin bed and an animal theme that seems to brighten up the place. Books are scattered on the nightstand as well as a photograph of Kat and Josh together in a frame. I pick it up and stare at their faces, trying to decipher what I recognize staring back at me. His eyes and his features are familiar in a way that makes my gut churn, but I can’t accept it. Not until I see proof.
Finally, in the living room closet, I hit the jackpot. There’s a fireproof cabinet with hanging file folders organized into categories. I grab the one labeled Josh and do a quick scan, noting health records, daycare files, and a birth certificate. One glance at the date of his birth has me collapsing back onto the sofa in stunned silence.
He was born just a little over three years ago. Or approximately eight months after she ran from Philadelphia. The space for the father’s name on the certificate is notably absent, but I don’t need to see it to know the truth.
Josh is my son. And Katerina thought she could keep him from me.
* * *
The school is dark and quiet as I walk down the hall leading to Kat’s classroom. It’s been a long day, and I’m running on little sleep. But now that I know the truth, I’m hungry for information.
A bullet to the head would have hurt less than discovering I have a son who has no idea who I am. He is half mine. Katerina and I made him together. But she took it upon herself to steal him away, never informing me of his existence.
I am all too aware of the pain of growing up without a father, so I wouldn’t want that for my son. He deserves better than this. He deserves more than living a life where he doesn’t know there’s a man who would do anything to protect him. A man who loved him the second he became aware of the truth. It’s not something I can explain or rationalize, but this changes everything.
Josh is my son. My blood. And blood is stronger than anything. Kat is about to learn what that means to me. She thinks she can run away, but there is nowhere left to hide. I’ve lost the first three years of his life, and I can’t get those back. But I will die before I let him live a life where he doesn’t know his father.
The door to Kat’s classroom is locked, but it doesn’t take long to find the right key on the ring of spares I had made. Once I’m inside, I take a seat at her desk and unlock the drawers, rifling through her things.
Between the erasers and pens and markers, I find little of importance. No flash drive to speak of. But there is something that catches my eye. A sticky note beneath the keyboard with an alphanumeric password scrawled across it.
Stirring her desktop computer to life, I enter the password, and sure enough, it grants me access. But after a bit of poking around, I find it isn’t quite the gold mine I was hoping for either. There are no odd files lying around. Regardless, I send everything to Alexei to let him determine if anything seems suspect.
In Kat’s search history, I am not surprised to see frequent searches regarding Nina’s death and any updates in the case. But I am surprised to find that she has been searching my name too. Is she hoping that I’m in prison? Or is she checking up on me? That I can’t say for certain, but her workspace only leaves me with more questions than answers.