Chapter 42
ARTYOM
I’ve bought so many flowers that the room is overflowing. I’ve offered pay raises to every doctor that treats Nina. And I would do any-fucking-thing under the sun if it meant that my wife could leave this hospital suite today.
If not for our daughter, I would sleep slumped in a chair beside Nina’s bedside, no matter what the damn hospital visitor policy says.
But someone has to make sure Ava’s okay, and I don’t trust a single person in my own family right now. Lily texts me hourly updates about Nina’s condition when she’s on shift.
I’ve had Daniel relocated to another hospital, because I didn’t want him near Nina — or me — in this state. I’m considering making it a permanent state of affairs too, given the hell that he put my wife through.
I don’t think I’ve ever been as terrified as I was on the helicopter flight where we brought Nina to the hospital. She lost consciousness in my arms as we left the basement, but thankfully Ivan had radioed ahead of time. Middlefield Hospital was expecting us to arrive.
The second I stepped out of the helicopter, a team of paramedics whisked Nina away. I knew I had to let them, but I didn’t want to be separated from her. I followed her into the hospital suite, only leaving when I knew it would be too much for Ava to watch.
Despite the centrality of religion in the Bratva — Vanya dragged me along to the orthodox church every Sunday, where the reception always turned into a day-long Bratva Council meeting that made the children lose our minds with boredom — I’ve never been a believer.
Seeing Nina losing color so quickly from the blood loss made me wish I had a god to pray to.
Because when the harsh reality was all I had, standing there cradling our daughter as her mother walked the line between life and death, I almost broke.
It’s been a week now. Nina is conscious, but groggy. She’s slowly regaining the color in her cheeks and every day she seems a little more alert.
This morning, we arrive at the hospital as soon as it opens for visitors.
I help Ava out of the car, waving to the hospital staff as I head down the corridor.
We know the drill now — I take Ava to visit Nina in the morning, and walk her over to the preschool after lunch, so that she has something to do other than visiting Nina’s bedside.
For me though, I talk to Nina and make sure she’s entertained and comfortable like it’s my full-time job.
I came too close to losing my family, and I won’t let it happen again.
“Artyom,” calls out a musical, soft voice just as I round the corner towards Nina’s suite. The voice is the source of so many childhood memories. It used to be comforting. Now all I feel is betrayal.
Vanya’s here. Hovering at the door to Nina’s hospital suite, holding a bouquet of white lilies. An ice-cold anger squeezes at my heart. How dare she show up, wearing her funeral outfit, as though mourning the injuries that she caused?
The only reason that I hold myself back from the venomous words I want to throw at her is that Ava is balanced on my hip, her eyes wide.
“Get out.” I grab the flowers from Vanya with one hand and throw them in the trash.
If Vanya’s displeased with the unfriendly greeting, she doesn’t show it. “Ava, darling,” she steps forward, but I angle my body so that I’m between them.
Ava turns her face against me with a cry. She may not understand what happened in that basement, but she knows that Vanya was there. That she was somehow involved in hurting her mom.
This is the first contact Vanya’s tried since she ordered Polina to kidnap Nina as part of some twisted test, and she’s acting as though nothing has changed. As though she can still be Ava’s babushka.
No apology. No regret. Nothing.
I’m about to enter Nina’s suite, without Vanya, when a thought stops me.
“Who let you in here, anyway?”
I’ve increased security to paranoid levels. They would never have let Vanya through… Unless.
That’s when I spy him, further down the hall, leaning back against the wall of the starkly lit corridor.
The bastard.
Valentin shrugs sheepishly at me, walking towards us with light steps.
“You two need to talk,” he says, gesturing to Vanya. “Our babushka might be batty as a fruit cake, Tyoma, but she’s the only parent we’ve got left.” He claps a hand on my shoulder and I roll it off in disgust.
Vanya taps her cane on the glass of the suite where Nina is sleeping peacefully. She’s slowly gathering more energy, but the skull fracture is making her tired. The specialists need to observe her brain function for another few days before she’s allowed to come home.
“That’s my daughter-in-law. She’s family. Of course they let me in.”
The entitlement — to visit Nina after almost killing her — is astounding.
“Not for long, Vanya. You’ll be lucky if she doesn’t immediately divorce me when she recovers from this.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. It was a test, and a very necessary one, dear boy. She was never supposed to get hurt.”
I am speechless for a second.
“I don’t care what was supposed to happen, Vanya. I don’t care what you had planned. The love of my life was fighting for her life, because of your twisted logic, your need for everyone to prove themselves to you.”
“It was necessary.”
I shake my head, but Vanya continues.
“I needed to know who she was, this woman that you want to stand by your side while you lead this family, Artyom. Whether she could handle this kind of life.”
“That choice was up to me. Not you.”
“I had to be sure. You’ve been so obsessed with her, you couldn’t see the wood for the trees. If she’d jumped off a cliff, you would have too.”
Damn right I would have.
“You wanted me to marry, Babushka. Nina was the only one I was ever going to marry.”
“I wanted to make sure this family had a strong foundation.” She smiles, a look of pride in her watery blue eyes. “Now I know that it does. This family will survive. Our legacy is protected.”
“Protected?” I splutter. “Nina almost died, because of your actions. And now she has blood on her hands, forever.”
Polina’s stab wound was fatal. She could have been saved, if she’d been evacuated from the Basement as quickly as Nina was. I half wonder if Vanya failed to make that arrangement on purpose.
“Nina’s a nice girl, but I didn’t know if she could do what needs to be done. You showed her the glitzy side of the Petrovs. You wanted to impress her. You never showed her the reality of what it means to be in this family.”
“The reality of being in this family is what? Being kidnapped by her own mother in law? Losing so much blood that she could have died? Getting a concussion that will affect her for the rest of her life?”
“I never meant for her to get hurt. That was Polina’s doing.”
“Polina was a wreck after Denis’s death. We all knew it. What were you thinking, sending someone so unpredictable after her?”
Vanya purses her lips. “We needed someone… Expendable. Polina has been nothing but trouble since Denis’s death. And given Nina’s reaction, I chose well. Two birds with one stone.”
“None of that justifies almost killing my wife. You used her and Ava in your own twisted game.”
“Mommy’s awake!” Ava tugs at my hand when we see Nina stirring in her hospital bed. “Can we go in now?”
“Yes, let’s go see your mom.” I don’t look back at Vanya. My priority is my wife.
But just as I open the door, she grips my arm with surprising strength.
“You have to understand, Artyom. This seat on the Council has been my life for the past twenty years. I can’t let it slip out of my hands and into the bloodline of someone who’s too weak to hold onto it. I had to be sure.”
Ava wriggles out of my grip and I let her cross the hospital suite to Nina’s bed.
Closing the door so they can’t hear, I step close to Vanya. My babushka looks up at me, no regret on her face.
I have a promise to make her. I don’t think it’s the one she wants to hear, but I don’t care if it sees me cast out of her family for good. I’ve got my own family now.
“Babushka, make no mistake. If you look at my family wrong, ever again, I’m out. I will turn your legacy into dust rather than cause Nina or Ava to suffer for another second.”
Lily’s latest update on Nina’s condition lights up my screen.
Occupational therapist says the tests are looking good. Discharge possible for next week.
“Finally,” I mutter to myself, reviewing the files that Lily has sent through.
Do I understand the medical jargon? Hell no. But I want every single detail on Nina’s condition and progress.
A call from an unknown number comes through just when I’m squinting at the indecipherable test results.
“Long time, no talk, Petrov.”
The rasping deep voice is instantly recognizable.
Viktor Zakharov. The new Pakhan of the Bratva. Not exactly a friend, because I don’t think he’s capable of forming friendships, but an ally.
“What do you want? And, congratulations, I suppose.”
I’ve had other priorities other than making sure I’m kissing the right asses within the Bratva lately. I probably should have sent a congratulatory Rolex. Or, more appropriately for Zakharov, a custom Kalashnikov.
He just grunts in response to my congratulations. “Welcome to the Council, Artyom. You kept us waiting for a while.”
The call ends. He’s never been a man of many words.