40. Alana
Alana
Many hours later.
Macie watches me pack my things. She’s got a ‘this is a mistake but I’m too afraid to say anything’ look on her face.
“Don’t look at me like that. It’s not like I ran over your pet rabbit.” I toss the bundle of blood-covered clothes into a tote bag and hand it to her. She’s well aware of our procedure for clothes that could be evidence.
“Uh-huh.” She takes the tote and slides it over her shoulder. “And you’ll come back?” Her eyes have a glassy haze over them. Her face has narrowed, and there’s a sharpness to her since she started working for me.
“You’re my assistant technically, but if you want to work at Mastodon until I return, that’s fine.
” I lift my purse and take one last glance around the room.
“He was right. He pushed me away twelve years ago and it kept both of us safe. Two weeks with me and he was shot.” My annoyance grows every second.
“It’s really obnoxious that he’s better at this than I am, since security is like my whole thing. ”
Yeah, it’s my pride, that’s why I’m doing this, not fear. Ego, not terror.
Macie turns her back to me and looks out the hospital window. “At least say goodbye to him.”
I don’t want to, but I’m not going to leave him with the same questions and fears he left me with all those years ago.
And I don’t want to deal with a disappointed Macie either.
My heart stings at the thought of going into his room.
My chest hurts and it’s still tight to breathe, but the little nanobots did their job.
It should take about a week to feel one hundred percent again.
Not too shabby for getting shot through the chest.
With my purse over my shoulder, I leave Macie and walk down the hallway toward Grae’s room. Hold it together. One deep breath. Two more for good measure. I push open his door.
Grae’s sitting up. His hair is flat against his forehead between the sweat and grime of the past few days. There’s more color in his cheeks than I expected. And while I can see the EKG leads on his open shirt, they aren’t hooked to anything.
He’s on his phone but turns off the screen when he sees me. “You live!” He means it as a joke. The nurse said the first thing he asked about was me. Of course it was.
“So do you.” I wrap my arm around my stomach.
“Yeah, about that.” He raises his eyebrow. “Care to explain?”
“You were injected with a serum containing thousands of nanobots that fix damaged cells. They take one quick tour of your body and assess the highest-needed areas. But it needs adrenaline to work for that first pass, so it hurts like hell. The second shot knocks you out and blocks your brain from remembering the pain. And since your brain is a ninja master at blocking out painful memories, you should be fine.”
“How do I get them out?”
“You don’t. They are most effective for the first five years, then their enhancement rate drops by twenty percent a year. We don’t know all the effects of it, but models indicate that they could add ten years, and an overall higher quality of life.”
“Nice.” He lifts his arms over his head and leans back. “Why doesn’t everyone have it?”
“Because it’s expensive, even by Olympian standards.” I say, and he gives me a side-eye. “I got the shot a few months ago. So did Markus.”
His features darken and he turns his head away. “That’s why you tense every time I touch your stomach?” He doesn’t want me to answer, so he sighs, “You were right.”
I can’t repress my smile. “Those are my favorite words.”
He turns back to my direction but drops his gaze to the floor. “I did something stupid.” He doesn’t fill in the second part—‘and now you’re going to run away.’
“You were trying to do the right thing.” I kiss his forehead and he holds onto my wrists. I need to leave. It’s better this way. “I’ll go get you some coffee. Ok?”
He picks at his hospital blanket and smiles at me, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. He knows. “Sure.” And he lies anyway.
I push open his door, and there’s a part of me that thinks my body will magically walk down to the cafeteria and get him a cup of coffee, but in reality, I know I'm not coming back.
“So, this is how it’s going to be, right?” Amanda asks, quietly coming to my side. “You’re going to leave?”
“Yeah. I mean… we both know you took better care of him than I ever did.” My throat tightens.
“So that means we’re not hanging out anymore either.” Amanda’s voice drops, and it cracks something inside my chest. I didn’t think I meant that much to her. But she looks small right now—like a lost kid wandering around a grocery store, trying to find her mother.
“No,” I say softly. “I’ve been hanging out with you for three days and you got kidnapped. So, we’re going to call it what it is. It’s better for everyone if I step away. But you and Lena? You can stay friends. That’s fine.”
I glance to where she stands on the other side of the hall, and Lena crosses her arms and shifts into her little defensive stance. “It sucks,” she declares flatly. “It would’ve been nice to see you happy again.”
Ouch.
I swallow. “I’ll talk to you later.” I turn and walk down the hall toward the elevator.
That’s where Lance stops me. “Are you sure about this?”
“Yeah. I am.”
He sighs and stares up at the ceiling like he’s summoning up all his patience. “He’s not a total bag of shit, okay?” That might be the nicest thing Lance has ever said about Grae. Still, not exactly a glowing defense.
I turn down the next hallway. Hospitals are labyrinths built by sadists, with emotional minotaurs waiting at every corner. The fathers are lined along the wall… disappointed. Of course they’re disappointed. None of them say anything, except Andrey.
“Coward,” he mutters under his breath.
After everything I’ve dealt with for you? Go fuck yourself.
Teddy surprises me most. He’s leaning against the wall, one foot braced behind him, shoulders back like he’s trying to look casual. “You know,” he says. “Grae would’ve fit in perfectly fine. He had one bad day.”
“He’s had lots of bad days,” I reply. “And they’re all connected to me.”
Silence.
I’m finally halfway to the elevator when Uri steps forward, blocking my path. “You know what?” he says. “We should get matching jackets.”
“What?”
“Chicken-shit jackets. Because we’re both too afraid to go after what we want.”
A bitter laugh escapes me, “Yeah. I’ll have my designer work on that. It’s been a while since I’ve called her anyway.” I hit the elevator button, but someone steps directly in front of me.
Donny.
“You are a bitch,” he says flatly. I blink. “I’m not allowed to be in love?” he continues. “I’m not allowed to be happy, because you choose to be miserable? Fuck you, Alana. I had your back for everything. And this is what you do? You run.”
The elevator doors open. I shove past him and slam my fingers against the close button. You’ve survived the emotional gauntlet. Just get to the car. The elevator dings and opens again on the garage level.
And Nonna is standing there. Of course she is.
“You’re allowed to be happy,” she says calmly. “All warriors are.” She studies me with those sharp, knowing eyes. “Out of all my granddaughters, you are the one who worries me most. Because you would never choose your own happiness.”
This is too much. Too many emotions hit me at once. Run. I have a family. I don’t need any more. “I’m not your granddaughter.”
“Family is not only who you are born to,” she replies.
“It is who you choose. You were not born into this world. You chose it. And now you will choose it over your own happiness. Over your future.” Her voice hardens.
“You need to choose forgiveness. For yourself. For him. For the entire world around you.”
It’s going to hurt too much when it’s over. They’re all better off without me. “Thank you,” I say quietly. “But I’ve made my decision.” I step toward the garage, my footsteps echoing in the concrete corridor connecting the hospital to the parking lot.
And there they are. The final bosses: the kids.
Maria looks confused and on the verge of tears. Shae’s expression is bored, except I see the nerves under it. Drew looks scared. Ian is furious.
“You’re going to walk away?” Ian demands. I stare at him. Has he ever been this mad? Maybe, but not at me. He’s not the scared boy from Russia I rescued. He’s on the verge of his teenage years.
“I’ve learned a lot of lessons in my life,” he continues.
“But if you walk away from him, then I’ll learn that love is temporary.
That it’s easily broken. Easily forgotten.
” His jaw tightens. “And that’s not a lesson I want to learn.
” He’s always going to have Dimitri and Katya, and everyone else. None of them need me.
Maria pushes her bangs out of her face to glance up at me. “Does this mean you’re going to leave us too?”
Fuck. That. Is. It. I can handle the men being mad. I can handle disappointment and bitterness. But this? This is too far. I grab Ian’s arm and yank him forward.
“Come on.”
“Um… Aunt Alana?” he winces. “You’re hurting me.”
“You’ll live.” I snap. “You’ve got a lesson to learn.” I drag him back toward the elevator. Nonna is still standing there, smirking. “Not a word,” I warn her. “Not a single word.”
We go back upstairs. Donny is still in the hallway, scrolling on his phone. “Oh, you’re back already?” he says lazily.
“Fuck you.” My brain flashes a replay of his rescue of Lena. With one hand still gripping Ian’s arm, I slam my other forearm against Donny’s chest and pin him to the wall.
“What the hell?” he growls.
“You speak Russian?”
“Yeah. And Italian, Spanish, and enough Mandarin to get by.”
“And you didn’t know what the words ‘Dos Oruguitas’ meant?”
He blinks. “You’d be surprised how infrequently the word ‘caterpillar’ shows up in my daily business conversations.”
I stare at him. “We’re going to have a talk about all of this later.”
“That’s fine,” he says, like he’s already won. Teddy’s gone—thank God. I can’t deal with him too. Actually, the hallway has mostly cleared out.