Chapter 13
Alina
I wake up with a headache, which is normal for me these days. Except… my head is sore too. On the outside.
Confused, I bring my hand to my head, and as my fingers brush over the thick bandage on my skull, the memories rush in.
Bright lights blinding me.
People in surgical gowns and masks hovering over me, telling me to do this and say that.
No pain but a terrifying awareness that they’re cutting into my head as they bend over me with their surgical instruments.
Holy fuck. I survived an awake brain surgery.
It’s done, and I’m alive.
And… feeling largely like myself.
I open my eyes to see Alexei bending over me.
His dark gaze is intensely concerned. “How are you doing?” he asks, tenderly stroking my arm. “Are you in any pain?”
I moisten my dry lips. “Not really. Just a little sore. Could I… have some water?”
He’s already handing me a cup with a straw.
I greedily suck down a few sips. “So how did it go? Did they get it all?” I know that’s unlikely, but what if—
“We’re still waiting for the pathology results,” he informs me, taking back the cup I hand to him. “Hopefully, we’ll have them by—”
The door opens, and Ingels walks in. “You’re awake. Good.” He approaches the monitors and checks everything, then takes my vitals before saying, “Everything’s looking good. How are you feeling?”
“Surprisingly okay,” I tell him, and he smiles widely.
“That’s our goal. As the sedation wears off, you may feel some soreness and discomfort, along with continued headaches.
That’s absolutely normal and expected. If it gets to be too much, you can press this button”—he hands me a remote-like device attached to a small screen with lots of buttons—“and the PCA pump will dispense more pain medication. And, of course, don’t hesitate to let us know if anything is bothering you.
Our team will do whatever we can to make you comfortable. ”
I happen to glance at Alexei in that moment and catch him frowning at the device.
For a second, I’m confused, but then it dawns on me.
Is he afraid I’ll abuse this like I’ve done with pain pills in the past?
On impulse, I touch his hand to get his attention. “I won’t,” I say quietly in Russian when his eyes meet mine. “I won’t even push the button. You don’t have to worry.”
For some reason, despite the difficult road ahead, I don’t feel the same need to escape reality as I did in the past. I don’t know why that is, and I’m not ready to delve too deeply into it.
Alexei’s stare is piercing, even as his reply is soft. “Okay. I trust you.”
My breath escapes in a soft exhale, and I look away, not wanting to acknowledge how his words make me feel.
I trust you.
Why does he? He shouldn’t. We’re still enemies, or at the very least adversaries in this relationship he’s forced us into. But he said he trusts me, and for some reason, I believe him. Does that mean I trust him? The man who puppet-mastered his way into my life using both violence and guile?
Once again, I don’t know, and I don’t want to think about it. The headache that I woke up with is getting worse, and I’m starting to feel mildly nauseated.
I close my eyes to combat the sensation, and when I open them next, my brothers are standing over me, with Alexei behind them, and it’s getting dark out.
I must’ve drifted off without realizing it.
“Hey,” Valery says softly. “You’re awake. How are you feeling?”
He’s speaking slowly, as if I’ve lost the ability to understand language. Which, I suppose, I could’ve. I mean, they cut into my freaking brain.
I don’t know what prompts me to do it, but I make my face go slack and emit a zombie moan before growling in a mixture of Russian and English, “Brains, mozghee, brains…”
Valery sucks in a sharp breath, his face going a shade paler as he exchanges an alarmed look with Konstantin, but Alexei lets out a crack of laughter.
I grin, glad at least someone got the joke.
“Are you messing with us?” Valery asks incredulously, looking back at me, and I nod, laughing.
“Sorry. The opportunity was too good to miss.”
Konstantin cocks his head. “It was, wasn’t it? I take it you’re feeling okay.”
“I am. Definitely.” And it’s true. The headache is better, and I’m no longer nauseated. I’m also feeling a bit… euphoric.
Shit. Did they pump something into my IV while I was out? If so, I’ll have to tell them not to. I promised Alexei I wouldn’t abuse the pain meds, and I don’t want the doctors to make a liar out of me.
I’m not sure why it matters to me so much, that I don’t betray Alexei’s trust in this, but I gave my word and I intend to honor it… even if the way I’m currently feeling is nice. So nice that—
“That’s it. You’ve seen for yourself that she’s fine, and now she needs to rest,” Alexei says, no longer laughing, and I blink, realizing I’ve closed my eyes again. “You can visit again tomorrow, and I’ll send you an update as soon as we get the pathology results back.”
I’m about to object, but he’s already herding my brothers out of the room, so I let my lids drift shut and enjoy the pleasant sensation of only a mild headache and no nausea.
A low murmur of voices and some beeping pulls me out of another inadvertent nap.
I open my eyes and see that it’s still dark.
A nurse is in the room, speaking quietly with Alexei as she checks my vitals.
Noticing that I’m awake, she asks me a few questions, including such basics as my name, the current year, and who the president of Russia is.
I’m tempted to pull the zombie routine on her, but I don’t.
Instead, once I answer the questions to her satisfaction, I tell her, “No more pain meds,” and then I reiterate it as she fiddles with my IVs.
“Alinyonok…” Alexei’s voice is gruff as he steps up to me. “You don’t need to—”
“I do. I want to see how I really feel.”
As I speak, I notice the dark circles under his eyes and the thick stubble on his jaw. Has he been at my side this whole time? I look past him and spot another bed in the room, a hospital gurney with unmade sheets that they must’ve recently wheeled in here.
My chest squeezes. He has been here this whole time.
Why? He could’ve gone to sleep at his nearby penthouse, in his luxurious, king-sized bed.
He knows I’m getting the best medical care money can buy, and if anything had gone wrong during the night, he would’ve been only minutes away.
But he insisted on staying here, in my hospital room—just like he’s been at my side at all times ever since this nightmare began.
At all times except when I ran away.
“All done,” the nurse cheerfully announces and hurries out of the room, leaving us alone.
On impulse, I extend my hand to Alexei. When he takes it, I wrap my fingers around his palm and say, “You should go and get some rest. You look tired.”
A shadow of a smile touches his lips as he perches on the edge of my bed and brings my hand to his mouth to brush another kiss over my knuckles. “It’s sweet of you to worry about me, Alinyonok, but I’m fine.”
“You don’t look fine,” I say. “You look like you haven’t slept in a week.”
He chuckles. “That sounds about right.” Gently, he places my hand on the bed and says, “How about we make a deal? You sleep, and I’ll sleep.”
Here, he means. By my side.
I sigh and close my eyes, not wanting to dwell on what it all means.
Not wanting to question if I’ve been wrong about him this whole time.
I’m woken up twice more during the night by nurses checking on me, and each time, Alexei is there. Finally, it’s morning, and Fasseu comes in, a printout in his hands.
Without preliminaries, he announces, “We have the pathology results.”
My heart leaps into my throat, and Alexei, who’s sitting on my bed, visibly tenses.
“As my colleague, Dr. Kressler, suspected, it’s a high-grade oligodendroglioma,” the doctor continues.
“However, there is some good news as well. The tumor has a characteristic that makes it more susceptible to radiation and chemotherapy—specifically, the codeletion of 1p/19q—which, combined with the frontal lobe location and your age, leads us to believe that a favorable outcome is more likely than not.”
“So… better than a fifty-percent five-year survival rate?” I ask cautiously. Because that would be amazing. That would be—
“Maybe as high as eighty percent,” the doctor says and smiles. “There’s also an immunotherapy trial I’d like to enroll you into. We can do it in conjunction with the chemotherapy protocol, or prior to it—depending on your risk tolerance.”
“Tell us more,” Alexei orders, and the doctor launches into the explanation of the immunotherapy in question and how it harnesses the patient’s own killer cells to fight the cancer.
He goes over all the risks, many of them having to do with autoimmune reactions, and then he launches into the radiation protocol that I’d need to undergo regardless of whether I opt in for the trial or not.
“It will be for six weeks, starting as soon as possible,” he tells us.
I do my best to listen attentively and take it all in, but there’s one question I can’t stop dwelling on that the doctor isn’t addressing. “What about freezing my eggs?” I ask as he pauses for breath. “Where does that fit in?”