Chapter 38 Zatanna #2
She steps closer to the bed, her movements slow, unhurried, like there is no danger in this room for her at all.
“Because my son confuses weakness with love,” she says.
“Because every generation of men in this family chooses badly when they let their hearts lead. Because I have spent my life cleaning up after that mistake.”
I shake my head, staring at her. “You liked me.”
Another smile. Smaller now. “I understood you,” she says. “That is not the same thing.”
The distinction makes me sick.
I look at Alena on the floor, then back at her. “You framed her.”
“She made it easy.” Her voice is low and steady, which somehow makes it worse. “Besides, I cannot have him marrying a hooker and soiling our family name.”
For a second, I don’t understand the words.
Her words turn to static in my ears. I hear them. But they don’t make sense in the room with the machines and the IV and Alena bleeding on the floor.
Then they do.
And something inside me goes completely still.
“What?” I whisper.
Her face twists. Not dramatically. Just enough to show what’s been under all that softness this whole time.
“I’m not a—”
“Stop your lies,” she seethes. The sudden venom in her voice makes me flinch. She steps closer to the bed, pale and shaking but still terrifyingly controlled. “I have heard those filthy things you said. I know exactly what you are.”
My mouth opens. Closes.
“My son can rarely hide anything from me, you know,” Daria says. “I’m clever, I catch up. And when I heard him mumble your name in his sleep, I knew I had to find out all about you. That’s when I found the tape you sent to him.”
She shoots me a disgusted look.
“That wasn’t even for him,” I say.
Her lips curl into a sneer. “Then I thought right about you.”
For one impossible second, I am back in that office, hearing the laughter, the whispers, the word hooker tossed at me like something rotten. Only this is worse. Because this woman had fed me snacks. Looked at me with kind eyes. Called me by name.
And all along she had already decided what I was.
“You poisoned me because of the recordings?” I say.
“Because of what they proved,” she snaps. “You think I care about some cheap audio? No. I care that a woman who sells filth with her voice thought she could walk into my son’s life and become permanent. You’re nothing but a whore. That’s all you’ll ever be.”
The shame hits fast, hot, ugly.
Then anger burns through it.
“You don’t know anything about me.”
“I know enough.”
Her voice drops again, quieter now, almost trembling with the force of what she’s holding back.
“I know what decent women do not say into microphones for money. I know what kind of men consume that kind of filth. I know what happens when women like you mistake fascination for status and start imagining rings and houses and names that were never meant for them.”
Her eyes flick once to my stomach. Or where it was.
My whole body goes cold. “Alena was right,” I say, because I need to hurt her now. “You wanted him looking the wrong way.”
“Alena is a fool,” she says. “But she was useful. Easy to blame. Predictable. He was always going to suspect her first.”
On the floor, Alena groans softly, trying to move.
I look at her, then back at the woman standing over me, and the entire shape of the last months rearranges itself at once. The attack. The poison. The evidence. The convenient trail. The timing.
All of it.
“You framed her.”
“She framed herself,” Daria says. “I simply let her reputation do the work. You think last night was the first time.”
“You’ve been behind the attack too?” I say.
“Of course,” she says. “Who do you think handed over the recording to my husband, who in turn gave it to Alena to be used against you? Who do you think has been keeping an eye on you for months hoping you and your parasite stay away from my son.”
There’s a lump in my throat.
“I thought I would be merciful, but when I found out he had found you, I knew I had to act fast,” she says.
“That’s why you had me attacked.”
“Yes, and even before, at the hotel. I wanted to scare you off, but you were just too stubborn, or greedy, or an idiot. Even a bullet didn’t do it for you.”
My eyes are welling up with tears.
“And then he took you on that fucking vacation and I thought I almost lost him. He took my family ring with him to propose.” Her face gets really red. “How dare he even think of giving it to you? So, I quickly came up with a plan, gave myself a low dose of arsenic to make it look like I was sick.”
My heart is hammering so hard I can hear the monitor pick it up. “You are insane.”
She smiles. Thin and terrible. “No. I am the only one in this family who understands what must be done before men ruin everything.”
I reach slowly, blindly, for the call button. Her hand flashes out and catches my wrist.
Even weak, she’s stronger than she should be.
“Don’t,” she says. Her fingers dig into my skin.
I can smell her perfume now under the antiseptic and blood and hospital air. Something soft and expensive and false.
“You should have left him alone,” she says. “You should have taken your little secret and gone quietly. Instead, you came back carrying proof. Do you know what that child would have done? Do you know what it would have tied him to?”
“Our child,” I say, shaking with rage now. “You mean our child.”
Her face hardens completely at that. “No,” she says. “I mean my son’s future. Which you were not going to contaminate.”
The word hits me so hard I almost can’t breathe.
Contaminate. Like I am dirt. Like my baby was dirt.
Something fierce and mean surges through me. Bigger than fear. Bigger than shame.
“I love him,” I say.
Her grip tightens. “That is not your privilege.”
I look straight into her face. “He loves me.”
That cracks something. For the first time, the calm slips.
Only for a second. But I see it.
And I know she hears the truth in it.
Her mouth curls. “Then he is weaker than I feared.”
Behind her, Alena makes another sound and shifts, one hand leaving a smear of blood on the floor as she pushes up.
The movement draws Aleksei’s mother’s attention for one fatal second.
She turns her head.
I slam my free hand into the call button.
The alarm goes off, loud and sharp.
Her eyes snap back to me, furious now.
“You stupid girl—”