NINA
By the second morning in the hospital, I hate the room so much that I start taking it personally.
The walls are too pale. The curtains are too clean.
The machines make soft little sounds that somehow become louder the longer I listen to them.
Nurses come in with kind smiles and questions I have answered already.
Pain level? Dizziness? Nausea? Blurry vision?
Can I sit up? Can I follow the finger? Do I know my name, date, and where I’m?
Yes, unfortunately, I know exactly where I am.
I’m in a private hospital room with a concussion, a lump at the back of my head, and a life that seems to have become impossible the moment I accidentally sexted my boss.
I lie against the pillows with my phone in my hand and call Misha for the eighth time.
It rings. And rings. And rings.
Then voicemail.
I end the call before his recorded voice can start because I cannot hear it again without wanting to throw the phone across the room.
For two days, nothing.
No call. No visit. No furious lecture about how I should have let Luka walk me upstairs.
It doesn’t make any sense.
Misha is annoying, overprotective, secretive, and impossible, but he’s not careless with me.
Even when we fight, even when he thinks I’m making terrible decisions, even when he disappears into work and pretends everything is fine, he always comes back.
He checks. He calls. He sends food I did not ask for and then gets offended if I don’t eat it.
Now I’m in the hospital because someone attacked me inside my own apartment, and my brother has not answered once.
I press call again. No answer.
My throat tightens. “Pick up,” I whisper, as if saying it out loud will make him hear me.
He doesn’t.
I lower the phone to my lap and stare at the screen.
I should call my parents.
The thought comes and goes in waves.
They don’t live in the city anymore. If I call and say I’m in the hospital, my mother will panic before I finish the sentence, and my father will start arranging tickets while pretending to sound calm.
They will ask where Misha is. They will ask why he is not with me.
They will ask what happened, and I don’t have an answer that does not sound like the beginning of a crime documentary.
I cannot scare them with half information. Not yet.
Maybe that is selfish. Maybe it’s stupid. Maybe I’m doing exactly what everyone around me keeps doing, holding back the truth because I have decided other people cannot handle it.
I open my contacts and scroll without meaning to.
There are names, of course. Work people. Old classmates. Women I used to get coffee with and then stopped calling when work became too much. A cousin who will immediately tell my mother. Two friends who live in other cities and know me mostly through birthday messages and forwarded memes now.
I have people.
I just don’t have many people I would call from a hospital bed.
That’s a lonely thing to learn at eight in the morning under fluorescent lights.
My phone shows a missed call from Meredith.
I stare at the name for a moment, surprised.
Then I call her back.
She answers on the second ring.
“Nina?” Meredith says.
Her voice is sharper than usual, but not cold. Never cold. Meredith always sounds like she is managing three crises and already disappointed in two of them.
“Hi,” I say.
There is a pause.
Then Meredith says, “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” I say automatically.
Meredith says, “That is a stupid answer. Try again.”
A laugh slips out of me and immediately makes my head ache.
I wince. “Ow. Don’t make me laugh.”
“Good,” Meredith says. “Your brain is still working enough to recognize pain. Now answer me properly.”
“I’m okay now,” I say. “Concussion. They kept me for observation. I’m being discharged today, I think.”
“I heard there was an incident at your apartment,” Meredith says.
I look toward the door, but it is closed. “Who told you?”
“Don’t insult me,” Meredith says. “The office is pretending not to know anything, which means something serious happened.”
“That sounds like the office.”
“It does,” Meredith says. “Mr. Kazan has cancelled two meetings, postponed one investor call, and frightened legal into silence. That’s not normal even for him.”
My chest does a strange little thing.
“He’s been here,” I say before I can stop myself.
“I assumed,” Meredith says. The way she says it makes me sit up slightly, then regret it.
“What does that mean?”
“It means he has been behaving like a man one inconvenience away from dismantling the city,” Meredith says. “I assumed you were the inconvenience.”
Despite everything, I smile faintly. “That’s almost sweet.”
“It is not sweet,” Meredith says. “It’s administratively disruptive.”
“That sounds more like him.”
Meredith is quiet for a second. When she speaks again, her voice is softer. “Nina, do you need anything?”
The question almost breaks me because it is simple and normal.
A toothbrush. Clothes. A charger. Someone to sit with me. Someone to be angry on my behalf.
I swallow. “No. I’m okay.”
“You’re lying,” Meredith says.
“Everybody keeps saying that to me lately.”
“Perhaps improve.”
I huff out a breath. “I don’t know what I need.”
“That’s a better answer,” Meredith says.
I rub my thumb over the edge of my phone. “I’m worried about Misha.”
“Your brother?”
“Yes,” I say. “He hasn’t answered. He was staying with me, sort of, but he hasn’t come back, and now I can’t reach him.”
Meredith does not dismiss it. That helps. “When did you last hear from him?”
“After the gala. He texted that work ran late, and he would come tomorrow.”
“And nothing after?”
“No.”
“Do you share location?” Meredith asks.
“Usually,” I say. “He forced it on me years ago after I came home late once, and then I forced it back on him because fairness.”
“Check it.”
“I did yesterday,” I say. “It was off.”
“Check again,” Meredith says.
I pull the phone away and open the location app while keeping her on speaker.
Misha’s name appears, but there is no moving dot, no address, no updated time.
Location unavailable.
The words make my stomach twist.
“It’s still off,” I say.
Meredith’s silent for a moment.
Then she says, “That’s strange.”
“I know.”
“Does he turn it off often?”
“Never,” I say. “Not really. He complains about privacy and then leaves it on anyway because he wants mine on.”
“Then treat it as strange,” Meredith says.
I close the app and open my messages with him.
The last message from him sits there.
Don’t wait up. Work ran late. I’ll come tomorrow. Lock the door.
I type before I can talk myself out of it.
Misha, pick up. I’m in the hospital. I’m okay, but I need to know where you are. Your location is off. Call me now.
I stare at the message. Then I send it.
The little delivered mark appears.
Nothing else.
I hate that delivered mark.
“Nina?” Meredith says through the speaker.
“I texted him,” I say.
“Good.”
“I don’t want to call my parents yet.”
“Then don’t until you have enough to tell them.”
“Is that wrong?”
“It is human,” Meredith says. “Wrong can wait until you’ve slept.”
That makes my eyes burn. I blink hard. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me. It makes me uncomfortable.”
“Fine. You’re rude.”
“Better,” Meredith says. “Call me if you need clothes, food, or someone to frighten a nurse politely.”
“I think Luka has the frightening covered.”
“I’m sure he does,” Meredith says. “Still, I’m available.”
After we hang up, I sit there with the phone in both hands and stare at Misha’s message thread.
No reply. No typing bubble. No location.
I think about the way he looked when he showed up at my apartment.
Jumpy, tired, too alert. The way he checked the window.
The way he asked to stay even though his own apartment is nicer than mine in every possible way.
The way his phone lit up and he turned it over too quickly.
The way he asked if I had resigned from Luka’s company with more urgency than irritation.
He was scared.
Then somebody broke into my apartment. Were they looking for him?
My head starts aching harder. I close my eyes and lean back.
A knock comes at the door. Before I can answer, Luka steps in.
He’s wearing a dark suit, not a tuxedo this time, though somehow he still looks like he has never known what an ordinary morning is supposed to be.
His hair is slightly damp, like he has showered at some point, but his face looks tired in a way that shaving cannot fix.
There are shadows under his eyes. His left shoulder is held carefully, and I can see the line of a fresh bandage under his shirt collar.
He pauses when he sees me awake with the phone in my hands. “Nina.”
“If you ask me how my head is, I’ll scream.”
Luka says, “How is your head?”
I glare at him.
His mouth moves slightly. “You’re improving.”
“That was a trap,” I say.
“Yes,” Luka says.
He comes closer and places a paper bag on the side table. “Clothes. Your dress is at my house. It needed cleaning.”
I look at the bag. “At your house?”
“Yes,” Luka says.
“Why is my dress at your house?”
“Because my mother sent someone to collect your things from the hospital before I could stop her,” Luka says.
I blink. “Your mother has my dress?”
“My mother has opinions about everything,” Luka says. “The dress is one of them.”
I almost smile, then remember everything else. “Any word from Misha?”
Luka’s expression shifts. That is answer enough. “No.”
I look down at my phone. “His location is still off.”
“I know,” Luka says.
My eyes lift. “You know?”
“I checked,” Luka says.
“Of course you did,” I say, but I’m too tired to be properly angry.
Luka studies me for a second. “Did you call your parents?”
“No.”
His face doesn’t judge me.
I appreciate that more than I want to admit. “They don’t live here,” I say. “If I call now, they’ll panic, and I don’t know what to tell them. I don’t even know where Misha is.”
“We will find him.”
I frown. “You keep saying that.”
“Because I mean it.”
I look away before my face does something embarrassing.
Another knock comes at the door, and Mirov enters without waiting for permission.
He checks my chart, asks me questions, shines a light in my eyes, annoys me professionally, and tells me I can leave if I promise to come back immediately for vomiting, confusion, fainting, severe headache, or any symptom he lists in a tone that suggests I might purposely ignore all of them.
“I’m not stupid,” I say.
Mirov looks at Luka.
Then he looks back at me. His look says enough. He’s a brave doctor.
Mirov gives me discharge instructions, makes Luka listen to them as if he is the actual patient, and leaves after telling me not to work, drink, drive, make major decisions, stare at screens too long, or get knocked unconscious again.
“That last one feels difficult to plan around,” I say after he leaves.
“We’re planning around it.”
Something in his voice makes me look at him. He’s standing too still.
“What does that mean?” I ask.
He picks up the bag and sets it closer to me. “Get dressed. I’m taking you somewhere safe.”
I stare at him. “My apartment?”
“No,” Luka says.
“That wasn’t a real guess,” I say.
“No,” Luka agrees.
“Where?”
“My house.”
The room goes quiet.
I sit up a little straighter. “Your house.”
“Yes,” Luka says.
“I’m not moving into your house,” I say.
“You are staying there until your apartment is secure and Misha is found.”
I narrow my eyes. “You decided this already.”
“Yes,” Luka says.
“Luka.”
“Nina,” he says, and then he stops himself.
I see the effort.
He exhales and starts again. “Your apartment was broken into. You were attacked. Your brother is missing. I can put security at a hotel, but hotels have staff, cameras, elevators, service corridors, and too many strangers. My house is controlled, and my mother is there.”
“Your mother being there is supposed to make me less nervous?”
“Yes,” Luka says.
It does, unfortunately. A little.
I look at the bag again, then at him. “Does she know I’m coming?”
“Yes,” Luka says.
“Does she know why?”
“Yes,” Luka says.
I don’t like how careful his face becomes.
“What exactly does your mother know?” I ask.
“She knows you were attacked and discharged today,” Luka says.
“That’s not all.”
He says nothing.
I stare at him. “Luka.”
He looks at me directly. “Don’t worry. My mother knows about the arrangement.”
I go still. The word lands like a dropped glass.
“The arrangement,” I repeat.
“Yes,” Luka says.
I turn my head slowly and look at him properly.
“What,” I ask, “does she know?”