Chapter 22 Zatanna #2
“Well,” she says softly. “This is awkward.”
My stomach drops.
Aleksei’s voice comes out like stone. “Alena.”
I stare at him. Then at her. Then back again.
No. No, no, no.
The elegant brunette turns to me, not flustered in the slightest. If anything, she looks delighted.
“Not Celeste,” she says. “Though points for effort.”
I actually take a step back. “What?”
Aleksei is already moving again, every line of him hard and furious. “Zatanna. Behind me.”
That should not be hot. It absolutely is.
I obey before my brain catches up, because this night has officially become too strange to process in real time. I move back a pace as Alena, not Celeste, settles into the chair like she owns the entire floor.
“You used a false name?” I ask, still trying to make my thoughts line up.
She looks at me with open amusement. “Technically, yes.”
“You lied in a meeting I arranged.”
“Yes.”
“That is…” I stop, because there are honestly too many possible endings to that sentence.
Aleksei doesn’t bother trying for polite. “What the hell are you doing here?”
Alena folds one elegant leg over the other. “Seeing whether you’d actually show up.”
His eyes narrow. “You impersonated a candidate.”
“You were always so quick.” Her gaze flicks to me. “And she was easier to fool than I expected.”
Aleksei’s laugh is short and cold. “You lied your way into a private meeting.”
“You invited half of Manhattan to audition for marriage. Forgive me for improvising.”
His shoulders go tight in a way that makes the whole corridor feel dangerous.
I stay where I am, a step behind him, trying to catch up. “You know her.”
Alena’s eyes flick to me, amused. “That’s one word for it.”
Aleksei doesn’t look back. “Go downstairs, Zatanna.”
“No.”
Both of them glance at me.
I fold my arms, pulse still racing. “I already messed this up once. I’m not walking away now.”
Alena’s red mouth curves. “She has a spine. That’s inconvenient.”
Aleksei ignores her. “Alena, leave.”
She gives a delicate shrug. “Why would I? We were finally about to have an honest conversation.”
“With you?” His voice drops. “Unlikely.”
For the first time, something like irritation breaks through her polished expression. “You always did think morality was a luxury only you could afford.”
“And you always did mistake appetite for intelligence.”
I look between them, piecing things together from tone more than facts. This is not just some random socialite with a grudge. This is history. Deep history. The kind that still has teeth.
“What is this?” I ask. “Who is she?”
Aleksei’s jaw flexes. He doesn’t answer.
Alena does. “We were together,” she says. “Once.”
I blink. Oh. That explains the loaded stare. The easy venom. The way he said her name like it was a weapon.
“She likes to leave out the part where she was also useful to my father,” Aleksei says flatly.
Alena’s gaze sharpens. “Useful is such an ugly word.”
“It fits.”
“You make it sound like I betrayed some sacred thing.” Her laugh is brittle now. “You never trusted anyone enough to be betrayed.”
Something moves in Aleksei’s face then, dark and old. “I trusted you not to sell my weaknesses.” She goes very still. “And yet,” he says, “here we are.” The words barely finish leaving his mouth before the corridor glass behind us explodes.
The sound is enormous. Shattering crystal and a sharp crack that my brain only recognizes a second later as a gunshot.
Everything happens at once.
Aleksei turns, fast, but I’m already moving on pure panic. I slam into him with both hands, hard enough to knock him sideways just as another shot rips through the wall where his chest had been a heartbeat earlier.
We crash to the floor.
His arm wraps around me instantly, curling over my head as glass rains down. Someone is shouting. Maybe me.
Aleksei rolls, dragging me behind the heavy carved console outside the suite door.
“Stay down,” he snaps.
Alena has flattened herself behind the table, silk and diamonds suddenly meaningless in the middle of gunfire. Her mask finally slips. She looks frightened now. Really frightened.
Aleksei rips a gun from the inside of his jacket. Of course he has one. He glances toward the shattered window, then back at Alena with murder in his eyes.
“You brought them here.”
Her face drains. “No.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“I didn’t.” For the first time, she sounds genuine. “I swear I had no idea.”
Another shot cracks from outside, punching into the wood above us.
Aleksei starts to rise, fury rolling off him, but his focus is wrong. Not on the shooter. On her.
He’s going to kill her.
I grab his arm with both hands. “No.”
He looks at me like he doesn’t understand the word. “She could be lying,” he says.
“She could,” I shoot back, ducking as another round hits somewhere too close, “but maybe deal with the person actually trying to shoot us first?”
That earns me a look that is somehow both furious and almost offended. Then he exhales once through his nose, cold control dropping back into place. To Alena he says, “Leave.”
She hesitates.
His voice turns lethal. “Now.”
This time she moves, crouching low and scrambling toward the far stairwell without another word.
Aleksei waits two beats, gun raised, listening. Then he shifts his attention fully to me. “You pushed me.”
“Yes.”
“For a bullet.”
“Yes!”
He stares at me for one surreal second in the middle of all this chaos, and something in his expression changes.
Amusement. Actual amusement. Then he hooks one arm under my knees, the other around my back, and lifts me straight off the floor.
“What are you doing?” I hiss.
“Relocating you.”
He kicks open the suite door with one hard shove and carries me inside.
The suite is absurdly elegant. Cream walls, dark velvet, a fireplace, a bed I absolutely do not look at.
He sets me down just inside, locks the door, checks the adjoining corridor, then finally turns back to me.
His tie is half off, glass dusting one shoulder, and he still looks devastatingly composed for a man who was nearly shot thirty seconds ago.
I’m breathing too hard. My hands are shaking.
He notices both. Then his gaze drifts around the room.
The suite.
A slow, dangerous smile touches his mouth. “You booked this for us.”
My face flames. “I did not book it for us.”
“No?” He takes one step closer. “Then tell me, Zatanna, where exactly did you think that dinner was going to go?”
I open my mouth. Close it. Because there is no answer to that which doesn’t humiliate me.
He watches the realization hit, and his smile deepens just enough to make me want to throw something at him.
“This was for the date,” I say weakly.
“With another woman,” he says.
“Yes.”
“And yet here you are.” Another step. “In the suite you arranged.”
“Under duress,” I mutter.
He laughs, low and rough. “You saved my life and dragged me into a hotel suite. Your methods are getting bolder.”
I glare at him. “Someone is shooting at us.”
“Yes.” He glances once toward the locked door, then back at me. “And somehow that is still not the most interesting part of my evening.”
My pulse stutters.
He comes close enough to touch me, but doesn’t. Not yet. “You pushed me out of the way,” he says quietly.
I look down, suddenly unable to hold that gaze. “You were about to get shot.”
“And you decided that was unacceptable.”
I lift my chin. “Don’t make this weird.”
His hand finally comes up, brushing a shard of glass from my hair with impossible gentleness. “It’s far too late for that.”
From outside, somewhere down below, men start shouting. Doors slam. More footsteps. His people, maybe. Security. Chaos spreading.
But in here, for one suspended second, there’s only the two of us.
His eyes drop to my mouth. Mine drop to his.
And despite the gun in his hand, the shattered glass in the corridor, the danger still breathing outside the suite door…
All I can think is that this room is now exactly where I never wanted him to be.
Alone. With me.