Chapter 21 Nadya #2
“It’s not the time to despair,” Dr. Halberd says gently. “This isn’t the end. It’s just the beginning of treatment.”
“What does that mean?” I ask, trying to steady my voice.
“It means we need to run a full genetic panel. For both of you,” he says, nodding to me and Konstantin. “We have to determine who’s the closest match to Nikolai for a bone marrow transplant.”
My blood runs cold. “A transplant?”
“Yes. It’s urgent. His immune system is already showing signs of compromise, and we need to get ahead of this. We’re not just treating symptoms anymore. We need to replace his marrow entirely to rebuild his immunity and manage the cardiac degeneration.”
Konstantin doesn’t speak. He doesn’t move.
“And Mila?” I ask, my voice breaking slightly. “You said she’d have to be tested too?”
“Yes,” he says. “Siblings are often good candidates, especially fraternal twins. We’ll take a painless swab from her today.”
“I’ll do it,” I say immediately.
“I’ll do it too,” Konstantin says, voice tight.
The doctor gives a firm nod. “Good. I’ll have the nurse draw the samples today. I’ve already flagged the lab. We’ll expedite everything.”
I glance toward the window, where the twins are stacking plastic blocks and making little explosion noises. Nikolai is laughing. He doesn’t know what’s coming.
I’m not sure I do either.
The hallway smells like antiseptic and something sterile, artificial—too clean to feel safe.
Mila is in the nurse’s care for her test, and Nikolai is with the pediatric techs, coloring in a chair with a blanket draped over his knees like it’s some kind of armor.
He doesn’t understand what’s happening, not really.
Konstantin and I sit on one of the narrow benches outside the lab. Not touching. Not talking. Just…waiting. We’ve already given our samples to be tested. It hurt a bit, but it’s nothing compared to what Nikolai is going through.
I twist my fingers in my lap, unable to stop replaying the doctor’s words.
I feel like I’m balancing on the edge of a blade.
Konstantin exhales beside me. The sound is low, strained, like he’s forcing air into lungs that don’t want to cooperate.
“I had an uncle,” he says, voice low and flat. “My father’s younger brother. Igor.”
I turn to look at him, unsure where this is going.
“He was a cruel bastard,” he says. “Drank like a fish, hands like iron. He used to grab me by the neck when my father wasn’t around. Called me names. Said I wasn’t really my father’s son. Said my mother was a whore. Called me a bastard. Over and over.”
His voice doesn’t waver, but something about the way his hands clench in his lap tells me this is the first time he’s said any of this aloud.
“I was ten when he died,” he says. “Heart attack. Unexplained. One moment he was yelling at a maid for scuffing the marble floor, and the next he was on the ground, choking. Nobody could figure out what happened.”
He leans back against the wall, eyes unfocused, staring straight ahead.
“And I was happy,” he says softly. “Not just relieved. Happy. Like something bad had finally been erased from the world.”
A pause.
“I didn’t know what it would mean for me,” he finishes.
A broken thread in the bloodline. And this cruel uncle—this man who once tormented him—might have been carrying the same thing, undiagnosed and destructive, like a curse running through their veins.
His voice cracks.
My heart twists so hard I have to grip the bench to steady myself.
This should be the moment I hate him.
He’s the reason our son is lying in that bed, waiting on test results and doctors and prayers. His blood. His legacy. His goddamn family.
And yet…
I can’t bring myself to feel it.
Because I see the pain carved into his features. The way he’s unraveling in silence. The shame. The helplessness. The man who once ruled entire rooms with a glance now looks like he’s barely holding himself together.
He would trade places with Nikolai in a heartbeat. That much I know.
So I don’t tell him what part of me is thinking—that if he hadn’t disappeared from my life, maybe we would’ve caught this sooner. That if he’d known his family’s medical history instead of burying it in vodka and violence and old Russian myths, maybe Nikolai wouldn’t be here now.
But I also don’t tell him that I forgive him.
Because I’m not sure I do.
I just sit there, shoulder to shoulder with him, our arms not quite touching.
The silence stretches between us, taut and full of things neither of us has the strength to say.
A nurse steps out with Mila, who’s munching on a lollipop, completely unfazed. Her eyes brighten when she sees me, and she runs into my arms with sticky fingers and that fierce, all-consuming love only small children are capable of.
“All done,” she chirps, lollipop bumping my cheek. “The lady with the glasses gave me stickers too. Want one?”
“Of course I do.” I hug her tighter than I probably should.
She wiggles, then leans in and whispers, “Did I do good?”
“You were perfect.”
Konstantin crouches beside us, resting a hand gently on her back. She turns and loops her arms around his neck without hesitation.
He doesn’t say anything. Just closes his eyes and lets her hold him. Like he needs it more than oxygen. I watch the way his fingers curl into her shirt. How tightly he clings. The way his throat bobs like he’s fighting something down.
He thinks he’s failing them.
And maybe I should say something to comfort him. Reassure him.
But I’m too raw. Too wrecked.
“Where’s Kolya?” Mila asks.
“He’s still finishing his drawings,” I lie, brushing her hair off her forehead.
“Will he get a sticker too?”
I smile. It feels fragile. “I’m sure he will.”
She plops back onto the bench, content with her lollipop and her sticker sheet, completely oblivious to the storm swirling just outside her tiny orbit.
“I can take her for a walk around the courtyard,” Konstantin offers, standing.
I glance up, surprised. “You don’t have to.”
“I need to move,” he says. “I can’t sit here and wait.”
I hesitate, then nod. “Ten minutes,” I say softly. “They’ll be calling us soon.”