Chapter 30
ELLE
Ihate hospitals. And of course my mother's parting gift was sending me straight to one.
Hospitals have this smell that crawls into your brain and makes a home there. The beeping. The slow-ass clock above the nurse's station that I swear is moving backward just to mess with me.
But most of all, I hate sitting here not knowing if Nikolai's okay.
He got shot. Bled all over me. I held him while he slipped in and out of consciousness, screamed until my throat burned, until Jeffrey had to physically pull me off him to get him into the car. Now I'm shaking in the waiting room while Natalia and Jeffrey pace behind me.
The nurse says the bullet went clean through his side. Through and through. Missed all the major organs, thank God.
But that doesn't change the fact that he was bleeding out in my arms. That I almost lost him.
The doctor said a few hours before he wakes.
That was four hours ago.
I've counted every second.
I shift in the hard plastic chair, wrapping the scratchy blanket tighter around my shoulders. It's not cold. It's just something to hold. Because if I let myself think about what almost happened, I'll shatter.
Natalia brings me vending machine coffee. I don't drink it. Just hold it and stare at the hallway, willing someone to appear with good news. My hand presses against my stomach. The doctor ran a scan. Everything looks good. Baby is strong. Seven months to go.
Seven months to go. And I almost became a single mother.
Finally, a nurse pokes her head into the waiting room. "Raphaella Ivanov?"
I'm on my feet before she finishes. "It's Elle. Yes. Is he... can I see him?"
She smiles. "He's awake. Groggy, but asking for you."
I bolt down the hallway. Natalia and Jeffrey follow, but I don't stop. Don't breathe right until I see him.
Room 214.
I push the door open and there he is.
I've seen better-looking leftovers. And still, I've never seen anything more beautiful in my life.
He's pale, bandaged, hooked to machines. His eyes are half open, silver hair a mess against the pillow, and when they land on me, he smiles like I hung the stars.
"Hey," he croaks. Voice like gravel.
Tears spill before I can stop them. "Hey? That's what you say after getting shot?"
His mouth twitches. "Would you prefer 'surprise, I lived'?"
I half-laugh, half-sob, running to his bedside. I kiss his palm, his wrist, his fingers, the ink across his knuckles. Anywhere I can reach.
"Don't you dare joke. You almost died."
"You tackled me," he says. "That's new."
"Shut up. You scared me half to death."
He squeezes my hand weakly. "I'm sorry."
"You're not allowed to die on me. We're having a baby. You don't get to check out early."
His eyes go wide. Like he forgot. "The baby. Are you..."
"Fine. We're fine. Doctor checked everything. Strong heartbeat." I smile through tears. "You're going to be a dad again. Seven months."
"Seven months," he repeats, eyes going glassy.
"You better be healed by then, because I am not pushing a human out of me without you holding my hand and telling me I'm a goddess."
"I'd do that anyway," he whispers.
I laugh and wipe my cheeks. "Damn right."
We sit like that. His hand in mine. My breathing slowly returning to normal. He's here. He's okay.
We're okay.
Then his expression changes. Goes serious.
"I have to tell you something," he says quietly.
I feel it in my teeth. Something awful. My stomach tightens.
"What?"
"It's about Gayle. And who you really are."
I stiffen. "Okay."
"She wasn't your mother, Elle."
"I'm sorry, did you hit your head harder than I thought?"
"I wish I didn't have to tell you this." His voice is careful, steady. "She killed your parents. Murdered them. Took you. Raised you as her own, but she was never your mother. Your real father was her brother. Stephan Donskoy. Bratva. Out of Saint Petersburg."
My brain scrambles. Too big. Too impossible.
"No. That can't be right."
"It's true. Viktor's people have been into Gayle. The trail led back to Russia. To your real family."
He sounds certain. This isn't confusion. This isn't medication.
The room tilts.
"She killed him?" I whisper.
He nods. "Killed your father and your mother. Moved to America with you. Took your name, your inheritance, took control of the U.S. operations. Everyone thought you were her daughter. You're not."
I feel like I'm falling through the floor. The childhood I thought was privileged but sheltered was a prison built on murder. The mother I resented but loved was my parents' killer.
"She kidnapped me?"
"Yeah. That's exactly what I'm saying."
"But why..."
"Your father was grooming you to inherit. She wanted it. So she took it. You were just the key."
I feel sick. All those years. The locked doors. The rules. The secrets. No photographs of my father. No stories. Nothing.
I put a hand over my mouth.
"I thought she loved me," I whisper. "I thought she was strict. Controlling. But she was... what? My aunt? My captor?"
"She raised you. But she stole your life, Elle. She lied to you every single day. If I could bring her back so I could kill her slowly for all the hell she put you through, I would do it in a heartbeat.
Something cracks inside me. Not clean, not quick. Slow and splitting, like ice breaking apart over deep water.
"She told me he died in a car crash." My voice breaks. "My father. She sat me down when I was fourteen and told me he died in a crash. I cried for a week. For a man I never met. Because I thought she was giving me the truth." I look at him. "That was a lie too."
He nods. Just once.
I press both hands over my face. Hold my breath until the pressure builds and my chest feels like it might cave in.
Twenty-six years. Twenty-six years of loving a woman who murdered my parents. I called her Mother. I craved her approval. I curled into a ball every time she was cruel and told myself that's just how she shows love.
She wasn't showing love. She wasn't my mother. None of it was real.
"Why didn't anyone tell me?"
"She kept you locked up for exactly this reason. No one knew who you really were. Not even Viktor, until he started digging."
I sit there, feeling the shape of my entire life rearrange itself around a truth too big to hold. Every rule. Every locked door. Every time she said the world was dangerous and I believed her. She wasn't protecting me from the world. She was protecting her lie from me.
"She wasn't my mother," I say again. Smaller this time.
Nikolai reaches for my hand. He doesn't say it will be okay. Doesn't try to fix it. Just holds on. And somehow that's the only thing keeping me from falling through.
After a long silence: "You're not the girl you thought you were. You're something more."
"What does that even mean?"
A tired smile. "It means you're a very rich woman, Raphaella. Technically, you now control the Donskoy Bratva's U.S. operations."
I stare. Then laugh.
Loud. Sharp. Disbelieving.
"I'll be damned."
"Seriously. You're the legal heir. Your father's money. His title. His power."
"Absolutely not." I spin toward him. "I'm not about that life. I don't want to be anyone's heir. Tell Viktor to dismantle it, sell it, donate it to a dog shelter. I want nothing that came from her hands."
His smile is warm and tired and proud. "Didn't think you would."
"I want a bakery. Another cat. And a husband who doesn't get shot at."
"Two out of three isn't bad."
I laugh, thinking of how he hates yet tolerates Sir Isaac Mewton. I brush his silver hair off his forehead. "We're getting that cat."
"Over my dead body."
"What if it makes me really, really happy?" I bat my lashes.
His face softens. He reaches up to cup my cheek, tattooed fingers warm against my skin.
"I love you, Elle. You know that, right? If I could, I'd get you the stars. Get that cat. Get ten. I don't care."
I swallow hard.
"You mean that?"
His thumb strokes my cheek. "Every word."
"Even the ten cats?"
He groans like I've wounded him. "God help me. Yes."
I grin, eyes still wet, but it's real. That impossible joy when life hands you a second chance you never expected.
"I love you too," I whisper.
We sit in the quiet hum of machines and hallway voices. He's here. I'm here. The world cracked open and gave me a different identity, but I still feel like me.
Maybe that's the strangest part.
"Hey," I say softly. "Whatever comes next, we'll be okay."
"Yeah." He breathes. "We will."
Even if the past was a lie. Even if the future's a mess.
We've got each other.
And I'll be damned if anything takes that away again.