Chapter 33 Aleksei #2
A real laugh almost gets out of me. “Both.”
That earns the faintest twitch at the corner of her mouth.
The front doors open before we reach them. One of the staff steps back at once, trained enough not to ask questions. We walk in.
The foyer is double-height, all stone floors and dark wood and a staircase that splits at the landing.
A chandelier hangs overhead, old and severe, something my grandmother chose before taste in this house became subordinate to practicality.
To the left is the formal sitting room no one uses.
To the right, the library where my father used to pretend newspapers mattered more than people.
Straight ahead, my mother is already waiting. She should be resting.
Instead, she stands in the hallway in a pale cashmere robe, one hand lightly braced against the table behind her. She looks better than she did in the hospital only because the house light is kinder. Not because she is well.
She is still too pale. Still too thin. Still recovering.
The moment she sees Zatanna, something in her face softens, even through the tiredness. Then her eyes come to me, and I know immediately she understands more than she says.
“Zatanna,” she says first.
Zatanna blinks, clearly caught off guard. “Hi Daria.”
My mother smiles faintly. “You look like you need food and sleep. Possibly in that order.”
Zatanna glances at me as if to confirm this is a normal greeting in my family.
It is not. Which probably reassures her not at all.
Then my mother’s attention shifts back to me. “You brought her here.” Not a question.
“Yes.”
“And she is staying.”
“Yes.”
My mother studies my face for one long second, then nods once, as if some private conclusion has just been confirmed.
“Good,” she says.
That surprises me. It must surprise Zatanna too, because I hear her let out the smallest breath beside me.
My mother turns to one of the staff. “Prepare the east suite.”
Of course she picks that one. Quiet, private, overlooking the garden instead of the street.
Zatanna starts to protest. “I don’t want to inconvenience anyone—”
“You were attacked,” my mother says mildly. “You can inconvenience the upholstery for a few days.”
That shuts her up.
I look at my mother and see it clearly then. The pallor, yes. The exhaustion around her eyes. But also, the steel. Still there, even now.
Her gaze slides once over Zatanna’s belly, then back to my face.
Not accusing. Not curious. Just noting it.
I feel my whole body tighten.
She notices that too. But she says nothing.
Not here. Not in front of Zatanna. One more kindness I may not deserve.
Instead, she steps closer and touches my sleeve once, barely there. “You look tired, Alyosha.”
I don’t answer. Because tired is too small a word for what the last day has done to me. Because there is a pregnant woman in my house, under my protection, carrying a child she says is not mine.
My mother insists on taking Zatanna herself.
She does it in that quiet way she has, the one that makes refusal feel childish. One hand rests lightly on the banister, the other gestures toward the hallway upstairs as if this is all already settled.
“Come,” she says to Zatanna. “If my son shows you the room, he’ll only stand in the doorway pretending not to worry.”
Zatanna glances at me.
I keep my face neutral.
My mother is not wrong.
Zatanna gives me the smallest, exhausted almost-smile and lets herself be led down the corridor. I watch them go for one second too long. My mother moving slower than she should, pale but upright. Zatanna careful with each step, one hand unconsciously at the base of her back.
Then I turn away before the sight of them together does something I can’t afford.
By the time I get back downstairs, Sergei and Anton are already in the study waiting for me. They know my face well enough by now to understand that whatever patience I had left ended on that sidewalk.
I shut the door behind me. “No delays,” I say. “I want everything.”
Sergei nods once. “We have the man from the street.”
“Then start there.”
Anton steps forward. “He’s talking?”
“Not enough,” I say. “Fix that.”
Neither of them reacts. Neither of them needs clarification.
I move behind the desk but don’t sit. Sitting would imply this is a normal briefing. It isn’t. “Find out who sent him,” I say. “Not guesses. Not theories. Names.”
“So far,” Sergei says carefully, “there’s nothing linking the attack directly to your father.”
That buys him exactly one second of silence.
Then I say, “Then look harder.”
He inclines his head. “We are.”
“No. You were. Now you start acting like a woman eight months pregnant was nearly dragged off my street and I had to be the one who got there first.”
The room goes still.
Anton glances once at Sergei, then back to me. “You think she was the target.”
“I know she was the target.”
They say nothing.
Because they know I’m right.
A random attack doesn’t call her by name. A random attack doesn’t wait until she’s almost at her door. A random attack doesn’t come with a knife and a plan.
I put both hands on the desk and lean forward.
“I want every call, every meeting, every payment tied to that man from the street. I want to know if Alena’s family touched this.
I want to know if my father blinked in the wrong direction.
I want every leak in this city squeezed until it gives me something useful. ”
Sergei nods. “Understood.”
“And until then,” I continue, “nobody gets near her. Not at the café. Not at the doctor. Not at this house. Nobody.”
Anton’s mouth tightens. “You think they’ll try again.”
“They already failed once,” I say. “That usually makes men either disappear or get desperate. I’m not interested in finding out which.”
Sergei opens the folder in his hand. “We can put a tighter perimeter on the house tonight. More cameras, more rotation outside the east wing.”
“Do it.”
“And her old building?”
“Keep watching it. If they were comfortable hitting her there, someone may go back looking for what they missed.”
The truth is, I should have told them sooner. I have been keeping an eye on her for weeks.
Not openly. Not enough for her to notice, I thought.
Just enough to know when she left the café, when she made her doctor’s appointments, when she changed routes home, when she looked tired, when she looked frightened, when she looked almost happy and I hated myself for being relieved by something so small.
Since the day I saw her through that restaurant window, I have not really left her alone.
I told myself it was protection. That was true.
I told myself it was caution. That was also true.
What I did not say out loud, to anyone, was the part that mattered most: I could not bear not knowing where she was.
And last night, that failed her. Because I was not there.
I was too far away. A few streets over, finishing a meeting I should never have prioritized, trusting distance and timing and men with instructions instead of my own instincts.
By the time her name came through my phone, by the time the location hit my screen, by the time I reached that block, she had already been hit.
Already been afraid. Already been forced to run while carrying a child and groceries and the weight of a life I should have protected better.
If I had been with her, the man never would have gotten close enough to say her name. Never would have touched her. Never would have seen fear on her face. Instead, she had to look up and find me arriving after the damage was done.
Too late. Not fatally. But too late all the same.
I stand in the study with my hands braced on the desk and feel that guilt settle where anger already was, making it worse.
I have been watching her for weeks like a man who could not decide whether he was preparing to bring her back or proving to himself she could survive without me.
And still she got hurt. That is on me.
Not the attack. Not the order. Not the man who carried it out.
But the gap. The space.
The mistake of believing I could keep her safe from a distance while wanting her up close.
I straighten slowly and look toward the door. No more distance.
If she hates me for it, fine. If she fights me, fine. If she lies to my face about the child again, fine. I can take all of that.
What I cannot take is another night like that one. Another sidewalk. Another scream. Another second of seeing blood on her face and knowing I should have been there first.
The guilt does not lessen. It hardens into certainty.
She does not get hurt again.
Someone came for her. Now I’m going to find out who.
And when I do, they are going to wish they’d chosen me instead.