NINA
Four days after the attack, there’s still no sign of Misha.
I call him every morning. I call him every night.
Sometimes I call him in the middle of the day because I convince myself that maybe he is finally somewhere with signal, or maybe his phone died and came back, or maybe he has been waiting for me to try at the exact right moment like the universe is some badly designed puzzle.
He never picks up. His location stays off.
His messages stay unread after the one I sent from the hospital.
At first, I was scared.
Now I’m scared and angry, which is worse, because anger gives me energy I’m not allowed to use.
I’m staying in Luka’s house, in the blue guest room, pretending I’m not getting used to the quiet.
That may be the most dangerous part.
The house is huge, but it does not feel empty. It has staff moving through it quietly, guards outside doors I’m not supposed to notice, Yelena’s presence like warmth in the walls, and Luka everywhere even when he is not in the room.
I know, even though he tries not to show me, that Misha’s disappearance is making him restless.
He has not said it in so many words. Luka does not say most things in so many words. But I see him checking his phone more often. I see him pause before answering Pavel’s calls. I see the way his face hardens whenever my phone rings and it is not Misha.
On the fourth morning, I find him in the breakfast room, standing by the windows with his phone in his hand and untouched coffee on the table behind him.
Yelena is not there. For once, the room is empty except for us.
I’m wearing one of the soft sweaters she bought me and loose trousers that make me feel like an invalid with excellent fabric options. My head still hurts if I move too fast, but the dizziness is better.
Luka turns when I enter.
“Did you sleep?” Luka asks.
I say, “Some.”
“That is not an answer,” Luka says.
“It is the answer you’re getting,” I mumble.
His mouth moves faintly, but it does not become a smile.
He looks tired again. I hate that I notice.
I sit at the table and pour myself tea. “Any news?”
Luka looks at me for a second too long.
My hand stills around the teapot. “What?”
“Alina is missing,” Luka says.
I blink. “Missing?”
“Yes,” Luka says.
“Since when?” I ask.
“Since the night you were brought to the hospital,” Luka says. “She disappeared from her apartment where she was being watched.”
I absorb that slowly.
I know this is serious. I know it probably connects to everything else. I know a missing pregnant woman is not something I should turn into a personal feeling.
Still, jealousy moves through me before I can stop it.
It’s ugly and unwanted, and I say nothing because I’m not proud of it.
Luka watches me. “Nina.”
I pour the tea too carefully. “You’re trying to find her?”
“Yes,” Luka says.
“Good,” I say.
He comes to the table and sits across from me. “She’s part of this.”
“I figured,” I say.
“That’s the only reason I’m telling you now,” Luka says.
I look up at him. “Not because I asked you not to shut me out?”
“That too,” Luka says.
At least he admits it.
I lift the cup and take a small sip. The tea is too hot, and I regret it immediately. “Do you think she ran?”
“I don’t know,” Luka says.
“Do you think someone took her?”
“That is possible,” Luka says.
“Because of you?”
His face does not change much, but his eyes narrow slightly. “Because of what she knows.”
I want to ask if he is worried about her. I want to ask if he feels responsible. I want to ask if some part of him still cares about her because once, even if he says not recently, she was close enough to him that she could walk into his office and make a claim like that.
I don’t ask any of it. Because I love him.
That’s the problem.
I know it now with a certainty that has become harder to ignore each morning I wake up in his house and hear his voice outside my door, each time he stops himself from giving me an order and rephrases it like a man learning a language he hates, each time he looks at me as if he is one bad moment away from saying something neither of us can take back.
I love him, and I have no idea what to do with that.
Loving Luka Kazan is not a small feeling. It’s not safe, and it is not simple, and it does not arrive with any guarantee that I will survive it with my career, family, or sanity intact.
So, I sit across from him at breakfast and say nothing about love.
Luka says, “You are quiet.”
“People keep telling me that lately.”
“I dislike it.”
I look at him. “That sounds like a you problem.”
“It’s becoming one,” Luka says.
I almost smile.
Before he can say anything else, my phone vibrates on the table.
Meredith.
I answer quickly, partly because I’m grateful for the interruption and keep the phone on the table in case it gives me a headache.
“Hi,” I say.
“Nina,” Meredith says. “Are you resting?”
I look at Luka.
He watches me like he already knows the answer is no.
“I’m sitting,” I say.
Meredith says, “That’s not the same thing.”
I say, “Everyone has become very strict since I got attacked.”
Meredith says, “Yes, because apparently you cannot be trusted around open doors.”
I close my eyes. “That was mean.”
Meredith says, “Sorry.”
Luka’s mouth moves.
I point at him in warning even though Meredith cannot see it.
Meredith says, “I’m taking over your desk until you are cleared to return.”
I sit straighter. “What?”
Meredith says, “You have a concussion, and Mr. Kazan has already told the office you are on medical leave.”
I look at Luka. “He did?”
Luka raises a brow.
I say into the phone, “Apparently he did.”
Meredith says, “Transfer the last few months of working files to me. Calendar notes, vendor trackers, donor lists, board follow-ups, the hospitality matrix, meeting prep, executive travel, legal routing notes, and anything else you have been hiding in your terrifying folder system.”
I stare at the table. “It’s not terrifying.”
She laughs. “Please, I saw what you name your folder. What was it… urgent but not emotionally urgent.”
I sigh.
Meredith says, “Send everything.”
I sigh. “Fine. Give me an hour.”
Meredith says, “Give yourself two because you are going to realize halfway through that you have been doing the work of four people.”
She hangs up before I can argue.
I glance at Luka.
He says, “Urgent but not emotionally urgent?”
I say, “Don’t start.”
He says, “I want to see this folder system.”
“No,” I say.
He says, “It concerns my company.”
“It concerns my personal survival method,” I counter.
He leans back slightly. “Send Meredith what she needs.”
“I was going to,” I say. “I’m not a child.”
“I did not say you were,” Luka says.
“You thought it in a suit,” I say.
His eyes warm a little, and for a moment everything between us feels almost normal.
After breakfast, I take my laptop to the small sitting room attached to my bedroom. Mirov said limited screen time, so I set a timer, which feels ridiculous but also makes Luka less likely to stand in the doorway and accuse me of harming my brain.
I start transferring files to Meredith. At first, it’s simple.
Calendar exports. Vendor sheets. Meeting notes.
Contact lists. Hotel preferences. Investor briefing decks.
Procurement timelines. Confidential routing notes.
Gala follow-up. Legal correspondence flags.
Board materials. Car schedules. Security-adjacent instructions that I was never supposed to call security-adjacent.
Flowers, gifts, seating, apologies, coded reminders for Luka’s temper, and tiny notes about which people should never be allowed near each other without someone from legal present.
Then I keep going.
And going.
By the time I reach the third folder, I start to understand what Meredith meant.
I was doing too much.
Some of it was my fault. I liked being useful. I liked knowing things before other people did. I liked being the person who could make chaos behave. I liked that Luka depended on me, even when I pretended I hated it.
That last thought is dangerous, so I push it away.
Luka comes in just as I’m attaching another file.
“You have been on that for forty minutes,” Luka says.
I say, “Mirov said an hour.”
“I say forty minutes is enough,” Luka says.
I look at him over the laptop screen. “Mirov outranks you medically.”
“I outrank him in this house,” Luka says.
“That’s not how healthcare works,” I say.
He walks closer and looks at the open folder list. His face changes slightly.
“What?” I ask.
He says, “Meredith was right.”
I look back at the screen. “About what?”
“You were doing the work of four people,” Luka says.
I shut the laptop halfway. “Don’t make that face.”
“What face?” Luka asks.
“The face where you realize something and decide to fix it with money, force, or a meeting,” I say.
He says, “All three are useful.”
I say, “Luka.”
He sits across from me, careful with his shoulder. “Why did you not tell me?”
“Tell you what?” I ask.
“That this much was sitting on your desk,” Luka says.
I laugh once. “Because you put most of it there.”
His jaw tightens.
I regret saying it only a little. “It’s fine.” I blow him off..
“No,” Luka says. “It’s not.”
I say, “I handled it.”
“That does not mean it was fine,” Luka says.
I look away because that answer is too reasonable, and I don’t know what to do with reasonable Luka when I’m already emotionally unstable around him.
He says, “When you return, your role changes.”
I look back at him. “Excuse me?”
He says, “You will not go back to being buried under everyone’s overflow because you are competent enough to catch it.”
“Are you promoting me while I have a concussion?”
Luka says, “No. I’m telling you I noticed.”
I go quiet.
He says, “The promotion comes after you recover, when we can discuss it properly.”
My chest tightens. “You can’t promote me now.”
His eyes sharpen. “Why?”
“Because everyone will say it’s because of this,” I say. “Because of us.”
“No one knows about us,” Luka says.
“People always know something,” I say. “They may not know the truth, but they know enough to make their own version.”
He studies me for a moment. “Then we do it the proper way.”