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Waste our time? Is this how he sees this child’s situation? As wasting time?
The kid reaches for yet another cookie but frowns when he catches air as he polished all of them from the plate. “I have no words, Octavius.” I get up, huffing and crossing my arms. “None.” Somehow I expect him to show more compassion toward the child, given his circumstances, but maybe I expected too much.
Just because he treats me nice and acts all soft around me doesn’t mean it changes anything about his true character. These men are cruel for a reason, right?
“Why are you angry?” Now he sounds offended, as if I said something to upset him.
“Hey, kid,” Florian speaks up, clearly reading the tension in the air. “I heard they have good ice cream in the kitchen.”
I groan inwardly. More sugar? We won’t be winning any awards in anything at this rate.
The kid’s eyes light up, but he glances at me and Octavius first. Once my husband nods in approval, he gets up and darts to Florian. “Let’s go, kiddo. Calling dibs on the strawberry flavor!” The boy grins at this, and they disappear down the hallway. It still astonishes me how trusting he is toward strangers.
Or maybe kids have some intuition, and they feel on a subconscious level who is good or bad. Then again, you can develop such skills if you grew up among bastards.
Octavius drops on the couch and leans back. “Go on. Speak up.”
“Oh, thank you for permission. I didn’t think I needed it.” He rolls his eyes, and somehow, this pisses me off even more. “He’s traumatized. While his wounds are not deep and fresh, which tells me they never hit him before, still.” At least I’m happy the bastards didn’t touch him. “Also, he’s non-verbal.”
“I’m aware of all these things.”
“So why won’t you give me some time to prepare him and maybe help him adjust better in the foster care system?”
He frowns. “Foster care?”
“You said it yourself. To start working on the paperwork. That’s what you meant, right?” He shakes his head, and now it’s my turn to frown. “What did you mean, then?”
We stare at one another while indescribable emotion settles on his features, and he watches me carefully before speaking. “I meant to legally adopt him.”
Octavius
Isla’s mouth opens and closes, and she finally shakes her head, sitting back on the couch while rubbing her forehead. “Adopting him?” she repeats as if in a trance. “You want to adopt him?”
Annoyance burns at her lost tone. I understand this is huge, but somehow I expected her to be more supportive of the idea because, what the fuck is all this talk about foster care?
I won’t count on the lucky chance to find good people to care for him there.
“It makes sense.” I’m logical and pragmatic if nothing else, but I still have a conscience. While my friends took the bastards to the dungeon, I stayed behind.
Some victims are so deep in what happened to them that they act a certain way around their abusers, so I gave the kid's mother the benefit of the doubt. That maybe she loved her child and said all those things because she was traumatized as well. I was willing to help her get her life on track so her kid can have a good childhood.
However, the minute we were alone, she offered herself to me, and after I pushed her away, she started cursing at me and saying how she was on the way to become a supermodel when the unplanned pregnancy ruined all her plans. The kid’s father promised her a rich lifestyle, only to leave her when he found a better option for himself, and she was stuck with a kid she didn’t want.
Then she finally met Rick, a man who, according to her, worked his ass off to provide for her. She finished it all with saying that the kid isn’t her responsibility as he just ruins everything for her.
As I stared at her when she gave me this monologue, I thought about my mother, who also used excuse after excuse just to justify a simple fact. She was a shitty mother and shouldn’t have been one in the first place. I could see that if the kid went back to her, she’d find another asshole to fill up the void, and this time around, things might turn into bigger hell for him.
In short, there was no curing her indifference toward her child.
I did what always worked with my mother.
Offered her a decent amount of money, and she signed all the papers protecting the child and my family in the future from her. She almost fell on her ass at the proposition, willing to sign the papers right away, and I barely controlled my rage.
I contacted our family lawyer, and he drew up the paperwork in record time, along with starting the adoption process, promising to handle it as soon as possible. When you have our kind of wealth, power, and connections, you tend to get results quicker than most.
“It makes sense to adopt him?” Isla asks, tearing me away from my thoughts, and I focus on my beautiful woman. Her chest rises and falls while her cheeks heat, probably from all this frustration. “Do you hear yourself?”
“I do. Once we adopt him, he’ll have the best life he could possibly have. We’re the right fit for him. He's already bonded with you, and like it or not, you claimed the boy the minute you invited him into your apartment months ago.”
