Chapter 23 Bella
BELLA
I surface to the sound of a monitor beeping and something cool on the back of my hand.
For a second I have no idea where I am. White ceiling. Harsh light. The smell of disinfectant. My head throbs, dull and mean, like someone left a brick inside my skull.
I turn my head and see her.
Selene is sitting in a chair by the window, one leg crossed over the other, scrolling on her phone. Her hair is smooth, her makeup perfect, like she just stepped out of a meeting instead of whatever war zone my life has turned into.
I jolt, my whole body flinching. The movement yanks at my IV, and I suck in a breath.
Her eyes flick up immediately. “Easy,” she says. “You try to rip that out, the nurse will yell at both of us.”
For a moment I just stare at her, my brain trying to catch up. Bathroom. Elena. The crack of something against my skull. Black.
Then everything else rushes back all at once.
Lily.
I push myself up on my elbows, panic spiking. “Lily, where is she? Is she okay? Where is she?” My voice comes out rough and too loud.
Selene is already standing, one hand coming up, palms out. “Hey. Hey. Look.” She steps aside so I can see the other bed.
Lily is there, small and curled on her side, an IV taped to her hand, cheeks pink instead of scary, fever red. She’s sleeping, mouth open a little, hair a mess. Breathing. Alive.
My shoulders drop. I let out a shaky breath that’s almost a sob. “Oh thank God.”
Selene watches my face, then sits back down. “She’s fine. Fever broke a while ago. They want to keep her for observation, but she’s fine.”
I sag back against the pillow, every muscle trembling with relief. My head still hurts like hell. When I touch the side of it, I feel a tender lump and a bit of bandage.
“Elena,” I whisper. The bathroom, her smile, then that flash of pain. “She hit me.”
Selene nods once. “Yeah. She did. Aleksander found you in the parking lot. You got a piece of her before she ran, though.” A small smile touches her mouth. “He was very proud.”
Her words pull up another memory. Not sharp, more like pieces of a dream.
Cold asphalt under my back. Blood somewhere, warm and sticky. Someone shouting my name. Aleksander’s face above mine, pale and wild, his hands on me like he’s afraid I’ll disappear if he lets go.
His voice breaking.
You can’t leave me.
I need you.
I love you.
My cheeks heat. I blink up at the ceiling, trying to separate what really happened from whatever my head made up while I was half-conscious.
Did he actually say it, or did I imagine the one thing I wanted to hear right before everything went fuzzy?
I swallow, my throat suddenly tight. “How long was I out?” I ask.
“Couple of hours,” Selene says. “Concussion, nothing worse. They checked.” She leans back, studying me. “You gave him a heart attack, though. For free. You really should charge for that.”
I try to smile, but my mind is still stuck on that moment. On his voice, raw and terrified. On that word.
Love.
I remember the way it felt in my chest when I heard it, like something snapping into place that had been crooked for years. But now, awake and under these bright lights, it feels fragile, like a soap bubble that will pop if I poke it too hard.
“Where’s Aleksander?” I ask, once my heartbeat finally slows down. I try to sound casual and fail. My voice comes out thin.
Selene doesn’t answer right away. She looks at Lily, then back at me. “He’s out,” she says. “Handling things.”
That vague answer makes my stomach pinch. “What things?”
She exhales through her nose, like she’s trying to decide how much to give me. “He’s running out of time,” she says finally.
A chill creeps up my spine. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“Exactly what it sounds like.” She tilts her head, studying me. “You know Aleksander. If he’s not glued to that chair next to your bed, it means he’s chasing something. Usually at full speed and with no plan for what happens to him afterward.”
I frown. “That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one I have,” she says. “His mother doesn’t play long games with ultimatums. When she sets a clock ticking, it’s not decoration.”
I sink back against the pillow, unease curling in my chest. “You talk like you know him better than most people.”
Something flickers across her face—amusement, maybe. “I do.”
I hesitate, then say it. “He told me you two used to be…involved.”
Her brows shoot up. “Wow. I can’t believe he told you that.” She lets out a short laugh, shaking her head. “He really is a whole different person when it comes to you.”
My cheeks warm. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
She doesn’t say anything.
“The lamb fell in love with the lion,” Selene says lightly. “Tale as old as time.”
“I don’t love him,” I shoot back automatically.
The words are out before I can stop them. They hang there, stupid and thin. Even as I say it, my chest tightens, like my own body doesn’t believe me.
Selene’s mouth quirks. “Sure.”
I look away, focusing on Lily’s small hand curled around the blanket. I need to think about something else, anything else.
“Kirov,” I say after a moment. “Do you know who killed him?”
Selene’s expression changes just a little. The humor fades. She leans back in the chair, crossing one leg over the other.
“No. But he was poisoned in business class, and whoever did it managed to do it between service runs without a single passenger in his row claiming they saw a thing.”
Something in the way she says it makes me look up.
“That’s…pretty specific,” I say slowly. “How do you know about the service runs?”
She shrugs. “We know Elena is involved, so it’s safe to say she did it. Only a crew would know how to get away with a murder on a plane.”
“It’s too risky, though,” I say.
“Not for a billion dollars,” Selene says with a small smile, and I suddenly remember what Aleksander told me about her, how ruthless she can be. But she couldn’t possibly be responsible, right?
I don’t call her on it. Not yet.
“Right,” I say instead, lying back against the pillow, letting my eyes drift to Lily again.
The door opens and I look up.
Aleksander steps in, and for a second I barely recognize him. He looks wrecked. Dark circles under his eyes, jaw rough with stubble, shoulders tight like he’s been carrying the whole building on his back. His gaze goes straight to Lily first, then to me, like he’s counting us. Present. Alive.
He stops when he sees Selene.
“What are you doing here?” he asks.
My face heats. Aleksander’s eyes flick to mine, something unreadable there, then back to Selene. There’s a look between them I can’t quite read—history, annoyance, something else—but it passes quickly.
“I’ll let you two have your moment,” Selene adds. She gives me a small nod. “Rest. You’ll need it.”
She walks past him toward the door. As she goes, she glances back at him, and he gives her the kind of look that says not now. Then she’s gone, the door clicking shut behind her.
The room feels quieter without her.
“Hey,” he says softly.
He crosses to Lily’s bed first, brushing a hand over her hair. She doesn’t wake. He slides an arm under her and lifts her carefully, like she’s made of glass. Then he carries her over and sits on the edge of my bed, settling her between us, her small body curled up, head resting against his thigh.
Up close, he looks even more exhausted, but his shoulders loosen a little, like being near us lets him breathe.
To anyone passing by and peeking through the small window in the door, we must look like a normal family. Tired parents at the end of a long day, sitting on a hospital bed with their sleeping kid between them.
“You okay?” he asks quietly.
“Yeah,” I say. “Head hurts. But…yeah.”
“I’ve sent Nikolai down to get some food for you,” Aleksander says.
I nod, fingers picking at the edge of the blanket. My throat still feels dry. “Selene was saying something about a deadline,” I say. “What did she mean by that?”
His jaw tightens. He looks down at Lily for a second, then back at me. “Yeah,” he says. “Things are moving faster than I expected.”
That cold, crawling feeling comes back. “Faster how?”
He exhales slowly, like he’s trying to choose his words. “I can’t let you stay here,” he says.
My spine stiffens. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I’m sending you away,” he says. His voice is calm, too calm. “Somewhere even I don’t know.”
For a second, I just stare at him, the words not sinking in. “Away,” I repeat. “What do you mean away?”
“Out of the city. Out of her reach.” He keeps his voice low, but I can see the strain around his eyes. “You and Lily both. New names. New place. People I trust will handle it, but I won’t know where. I can’t know where.”
My chest tightens. “So you just…decided this?”
“Yes,” he says. No apology, just fact. “After tonight, there’s no more time to pretend this is going to calm down. My mother gave me a clock, Bella. She’s not bluffing.”
I think of Irina’s voice in the garden, the way she looked at Lily like she was a piece on a board. My eyes sting.
“So that’s it?” I ask. “You disappear us and…what? You stay here and wait for her to come after you?”
He looks away briefly, then back at me. “If you’re not here, she has nothing to hold over me,” he says. “Nothing clean, anyway. That’s the only leverage that scares me.”
My eyes blur. “You’re talking like you don’t expect to walk away from this.”
He doesn’t answer. And that says enough.
Tears burn hot, slipping free before I can stop them. I wipe at my face, annoyed with myself. “I don’t want to go,” I say. It comes out small and ugly and honest.
His expression shifts, something raw flickering through before he shuts it down.
“I know,” he says quietly. “But I can’t keep you here.
You saw what happened tonight. Elena walked into a hospital and took you like it was nothing.
My mother’s men are already inside this building.
” He shakes his head. “This is not protection. This is a waiting room.”
I look at Lily, sleeping between us, thumb near her mouth, oblivious. The idea of taking her somewhere new, alone, where I don’t know anyone and Aleksander isn’t just down the hall, makes my stomach twist.
“So I just go,” I say, “and you stay and…deal with all of this by yourself?”
“That was always the deal,” he says. “My mess. Not yours.”
I let out a bitter little laugh. “Bit late for that, don’t you think?”
His mouth pulls into the ghost of a smile, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “Yeah. It is.”
Another tear slips down, and I don’t bother wiping it this time. “I don’t want to leave,” I repeat, quieter now. “I don’t want to be somewhere you’re not.”
He just holds my hand for a long moment, then presses a kiss to my forehead as he rises from the bed. “I need to make a call. I’ll be right back.” He shuts the door softly on his way into the hallway.
Nikolai comes in a few minutes later, balancing a plastic tray with a metal lid and a couple of water bottles. The smell of hospital food hits first, bland and warm.
“Here,” he says, setting it down on the rolling table beside my bed.
As he straightens, he winces, just a flicker, his hand going to his thigh.
“You okay?” I ask, frowning.
He drops his hand quickly. “Yeah. Fine. I banged my leg on the way down,” he says. “Stairs.”
“Oh. Okay.” I nod, but it barely registers. My eyes have already shifted to the door behind him, half expecting Aleksander to walk back in.
He adjusts the table so the food is in front of me, then steps back. “You should eat,” he says. “You lost blood. And you look like you’re about to pass out.”
“Yeah,” I murmur, lifting the lid without really seeing what’s under it. “Thanks.”
“Hey, Bella,” he says. “Do you have your social security card with you? They’re asking for it downstairs for some of the paperwork.”
I blink, dragged out of my thoughts. “Uh…yeah. It should be in my purse. Inside my coat.”
He nods. “Which one?”
“The black one,” I say. “They put it in the closet thing over there, I think.”
He crosses the room, opens the small built-in wardrobe, and pulls out my coat. My purse is still hooked on the inside button. He winces again when he bends, just a tiny catch in his movement, then straightens and sets the coat on the chair.
“Mind if I…?” he asks, already unzipping the purse.
“Go ahead,” I say.
He rummages through, finds my wallet, flips it open, and pulls out the card. “Got it,” he says. “I’ll bring it back.”
“Okay.”
He slips out of the room, closing the door softly behind him.
I stare at the empty chair where my coat was a second ago, a faint prickle at the back of my neck. There’s something I’m supposed to remember. Something important. It presses at the edges of my thoughts, just out of reach.
Gunshot. Cold pavement. Blood.
A knife in my hand. Where did I get the knife? Did I grab it off Elena? She was behind me. Was there someone else? Why can’t I remember?
Someone shouting. A body twisting away, stumbling.
I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to pull the pieces together, but my head throbs and the memories slide apart again like oil on water.