51. Chapter 51
51
Bella
“ I ’m impressed with your recovery,” Dr. Katya says, jamming yet another needle into my arm with what I can only describe as professionally sanctioned sadism. “The human body is remarkable.”
“So is my pain threshold,” I mutter, watching my blood fill the fourth—or possibly fifth?—vial. “Are you collecting samples or preparing for a vampire convention?”
Her dark brown hair is tied back in a low, severe bun, tiny gold hoop earrings barely peeking out. Thin gold-rimmed glasses perch on her sharp nose, and her tailored black pants and navy silk blouse somehow make her lab coat look like part of a power suit.
Dr. Katya’s lips twitch almost imperceptibly behind her glasses. “Blood work is essential for—”
“Monitoring my recovery, preventing infection, checking organ function, and making sure I’m not secretly harboring alien DNA,” I finish. “I’ve memorized the speech. Two weeks of daily samplings will do that.”
She caps the vial smoothly. “Your sense of humor remains intact. Another positive sign.”
“Are you impressed enough to let me walk out of here without a wheelchair escort?”
Her mouth twitches. “No.”
My stomach growls loud enough to register on the Richter scale. “My appetite is strangely increasing. Any chance my medical confinement includes food that doesn’t taste like seasoned cardboard?”
“I’ll have Nurse Ivanov bring something.” She pockets the vials in her tailored black pants and begins the familiar ritual of checking my vitals. Cold stethoscope against my chest. Blood pressure cuff strangling my good arm. Penlight blinding me, one eye at a time.
The gold hoops in her ears catch the light as she leans in—the only personal touch in her otherwise impeccably professional appearance.
Yelena, perched in the corner like some brooding gargoyle, just keeps watching. Silent. Intense. It’s been her new hobby lately—showing up without warning, sitting there like a ghost judge, eyes tracking every breath I take.
If I didn’t know better, I’d think she was trying to solve a crime I hadn’t committed.
I give her a small, uncertain nod. Yelena meets it with the barest incline of her chin. A reply, if not quite approval.
Could be worse.
Her head tilts slightly to the left just before the sound of quick little footsteps scatters across the hall.
A small whirlwind of pink glitter and bouncing curls bursts into the room, followed by a harried-looking nanny.
“BELLA! You’re awake! I waited ALL MORNING AND AFTERNOON!” Alya climbs onto the foot of my bed with care, avoiding my injured leg.
“Indoor voice, malyshka ,” the nanny reminds her.
“But I haven’t seen Bella since YESTERDAY,” Alya explains, as if 24 hours is equivalent to several decades. She’s wearing the backpack we picked out together. My heart squeezes painfully, but not from any physical injury.
“I’m so sorry I missed your first day of school, sweetie pie.”
Alya studies me quietly for a moment—too quietly. Her eyes flick over the bruises on my arm, the bandages on my leg, the tiredness I haven’t been able to hide.
“You got hurt,” she says softly. “We were… worried.”
I swallow. “I’m okay now.”
She nods, like she’s the adult. “It’s okay. Babushka and Mariya took me to school. Mariya even let me pick the music in the car—but only the first two songs, because she says Russian pop is too dramatic for morning time.”
I force a smile, but my chest feels like it’s shrinking inward.
Two weeks. I’ve been out of commission for two full weeks . I haven’t checked in at work, haven’t seen Julian or Lila since the day everything blew up. I haven’t even opened the laptop Konstantin had delivered to my bedside.
Julian threatened to leave school if I didn’t “introduce the damn husband” soon. That was three days before the crash. Since then? Barely a word. No sarcasm. No late-night texts. Just… silence.
But Konstantin’s men keep me updated. I know Julian’s still going. I know he’s keeping his head down. Which is almost worse than the yelling.
Alya waves a tiny hand in front of my face. “Bella, what are you thinking?”
“Sorry,” I say, blinking fast. “What did you want to show me?”
She unzips one of the backpack compartments—front left, pink glitter zipper—and pulls out a crumpled sheet of paper.
“I made this in art. It’s our family.”
Family. The word hits like a stone in the gut.
I take it with my good hand, trying to swallow the lump in my throat.
Stick figures of varying heights stand in front of a house that appears to have been designed by a drunk architect with an unlimited turret budget. Konstantin is easy to identify—tallest, scowling, holding what appears to be either a phone or a very small gun. The twins stand identically proportioned. Alya has given herself hair three times the size of her body. And next to Konstantin…
“That’s you.” Alya points helpfully. “See? You have a special arm thing like you do now.”
Indeed, stick-figure-me sports a triangular blue appendage that must represent my sling, and what appears to be a crown.
“Why do I have a crown?”
“Because you’re the queen,” Alya says, as if explaining something obvious to someone particularly dense. “Papa’s the king, so you’re the queen.”
Before I can process this royal promotion, Lev appears in the doorway, hands cupped suspiciously in front of him.
“Bella! Look what I found in the garden!”
Oh, no.
Instinct says “brace for impact,” but the muscles in my side laugh cruelly at the thought. Everything still hurts—my arm is strapped to my chest like I’m auditioning for a zombie movie, and my ribs feel like they were taped together by a drunk.
Lev grins like a maniac and opens his hands.
A beetle—no, a demon disguised as a beetle—crawls across his palm. It’s black, shiny, and the size of a toddler’s shoe. Worse, it’s angry. You can feel the anger radiating off it, like it’s plotting crimes against humanity.
“It’s moving funny,” Lev announces proudly. “I think it wants to bite something!”
“Wonderful,” I wheeze, clutching the bed rail like it might save me.
Dr. Katya edges backward with cool, measured steps, her hand adjusting her glasses like she’d rather be anywhere else but still refusing to show panic. Yelena doesn’t move—because obviously the apocalypse doesn’t scare her.
“Lev, baby,” I say, voice calm but my soul actively packing its bags, “put the Satan bug back outside before it commits a felony.”
He looks devastated. Like I just canceled Christmas.
“But he likes you,” Lev insists.
Nikolai strolls in like the beetle was his opening act. “Lev, no bugs in the sick wing.”
Lev sighs, long-suffering and theatrical, then gently walks his new six-legged pet to the doorway like he’s releasing it into the wild with full military honors.
“You better come back. I’ll know if you don’t.”
I swallow a laugh, my ribs protesting with every breath. I’m about to thank Nikolai for the save when the shadow behind him steps fully into view.
Anatoly.
He doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t need to. The temperature in the room dips ten degrees just from his presence. Black suit. Black tie. Expression carved from stone and possibly disdain.
Fantastic.
I shift in bed, suddenly hyper-aware of the hospital gown I’m wearing—patterned with the world’s ugliest shade of institutional blue and dotted with what I hope are bleach stains. My sling itches. My hair feels like a raccoon nested in it overnight. And here he is—Konstantin’s father, my father-in-law, judge, executioner, old-school Bratva royalty—watching me like he’s trying to locate the nearest trapdoor to throw me through.
Alya doesn’t care. She springs off the bed and runs straight to him.
“ Dedushka ! Look what I drew for Bella!”
She thrusts the crumpled family portrait into his hands like it’s the Mona Lisa. Anatoly takes it, brow furrowing as he studies the childlike chaos of stick figures and pink windows and… what might be a unicorn garden hose.
“She’s the queen,” Alya explains, pointing to the crown on stick-Bella’s head. “Because Papa’s the king. So they match.”
There’s a flicker. Just the tiniest thing. A breath of hesitation in Anatoly’s usually unreadable face. He doesn’t smile—God forbid—but he studies me now, not just the drawing. As if he’s trying to reconcile what he sees with what he’s been told.
I meet his eyes. Hold his gaze. Not out of bravery; more like defiance watered down with pure exhaustion.
He nods once.
Not to me. To Alya.
But it’s something.
“Dinner in twenty,” he says, handing the picture back like it’s State’s evidence. “Yelena, you’ll bring her down.”
My jaw nearly drops.
Yelena? Escort duty?
But then she shifts toward the door without acknowledging me and says, “Get Anya.”
A moment later, the door creaks open, and my maid, Anya—sweet, soft-voiced, allergic-to-eye-contact Anya—peeks inside like she’s worried she’ll get vaporized just for breathing.
Yelena gestures toward me. “She’s cleared for dinner. Wheelchair only. Help her into it.”
Anya nods quickly, nearly dropping the clipboard in her hands. She wheels the chair in from the hall, all blush and nervous movements, and starts adjusting the footrests with the seriousness of a surgeon prepping for open heart.
I hate the damn chair. Hate how it makes me feel like something broken being pushed around. But I know better than to argue with doctor’s orders—especially when the doctor reports directly to Konstantin.
I shift forward slowly, and Anya steps in to support me, one hand fluttering near my elbow like she’s worried she’ll accidentally snap me in half. We move at a snail’s pace, but we get there. I sink into the seat, biting back the wince in my ribs.
Yelena gives me a once-over. Then, just as I brace for her to turn and ghost down the hall like she always does, she speaks.
“How are you feeling?”
Four words. Quiet. Measured. But they land differently.
I blink. Not because of the question—plenty of people have asked it. But because it’s coming from her .
“Like I got run over by a truck full of bricks,” I say, because humor’s easier than admitting the rest.
She raises an eyebrow. Just a little.
“I mean—I’m hungry. Like, all the time. But I guess that’s what healing’s supposed to be, right?” I add quickly, tripping over the words. “I’ve never exactly been kidnapped, gotten into a gun chase, slammed into a car door, driven off a cliff, and then passed out from blood loss before, so—” I stop. Pressing my lips together.
Too much. Way too much.
The silence stretches.
But Yelena doesn’t comment. Doesn’t scold. Doesn’t even look particularly alarmed. She just nods once and starts walking ahead—leaving me with the weight of everything I just blurted out and the unsettling feeling that maybe she understood more than she let on.
I exhale softly. Not quite a laugh. Not quite relief. Just something close to a smile tugging at the corner of my mouth.
Nikolai falls in beside the chair, hands in his pockets, quiet again. Just a flick of his gaze every few steps.
We round the corner, and something shifts.
I smell him.
Cedarwood and bergamot. Heat and danger. Konstantin.
It hits before I see him—before the hallway bends toward the dining room, before I hear the measured sound of his boots on the tile, before anyone says a word.
My heart leaps like it’s got a death wish. Stupid. So stupid. He’s been gone for days—working, I think. The nights blur together in this place. Sometimes, I swore I imagined him—just a shadow in the doorway, adjusting my blanket, brushing his fingers along my wrist like he couldn’t help himself.
But I smell him now. And dreams don’t come with cologne.
I glance down at my current disaster—nightgown, sling, bare feet, the IV bruise still blooming purple-yellow on my arm.
The king is back.
And his queen looks like she lost a fight with a blender.