“I’ll let you two have your moment,” Selene adds. She gives me a small nod. “Rest. You’ll need it.”
She walks past him toward the door. As she goes, she glances back at him, and he gives her the kind of look that saysnot now. Then she’s gone, the door clicking shut behind her.
The room feels quieter without her.
“Hey,” he says softly.
He crosses to Lily’s bed first, brushing a hand over her hair. She doesn’t wake. He slides an arm under her and lifts her carefully, like she’s made of glass. Then he carries her over and sits on the edge of my bed, settling her between us, her small body curled up, head resting against his thigh.
Up close, he looks even more exhausted, but his shoulders loosen a little, like being near us lets him breathe.
To anyone passing by and peeking through the small window in the door, we must look like a normal family. Tired parents at the end of a long day, sitting on a hospital bed with their sleeping kid between them.
“You okay?” he asks quietly.
“Yeah,” I say. “Head hurts. But…yeah.”
“I’ve sent Nikolai down to get some food for you,” Aleksander says.
I nod, fingers picking at the edge of the blanket. My throat still feels dry. “Selene was saying something about a deadline,” I say. “What did she mean by that?”
His jaw tightens. He looks down at Lily for a second, then back at me. “Yeah,” he says. “Things are moving faster than I expected.”
That cold, crawling feeling comes back. “Faster how?”
He exhales slowly, like he’s trying to choose his words. “I can’t let you stay here,” he says.
My spine stiffens. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I’m sending you away,” he says. His voice is calm, too calm. “Somewhere even I don’t know.”
For a second, I just stare at him, the words not sinking in. “Away,” I repeat. “What do you mean away?”
“Out of the city. Out of her reach.” He keeps his voice low, but I can see the strain around his eyes. “You and Lily both. Newnames. New place. People I trust will handle it, but I won’t know where. I can’t know where.”
My chest tightens. “So you just…decided this?”
“Yes,” he says. No apology, just fact. “After tonight, there’s no more time to pretend this is going to calm down. My mother gave me a clock, Bella. She’s not bluffing.”
I think of Irina’s voice in the garden, the way she looked at Lily like she was a piece on a board. My eyes sting.
“So that’s it?” I ask. “You disappear us and…what? You stay here and wait for her to come after you?”
He looks away briefly, then back at me. “If you’re not here, she has nothing to hold over me,” he says. “Nothing clean, anyway. That’s the only leverage that scares me.”
My eyes blur. “You’re talking like you don’t expect to walk away from this.”
He doesn’t answer. And that says enough.
Tears burn hot, slipping free before I can stop them. I wipe at my face, annoyed with myself. “I don’t want to go,” I say. It comes out small and ugly and honest.
His expression shifts, something raw flickering through before he shuts it down. “I know,” he says quietly. “But I can’t keep you here. You saw what happened tonight. Elena walked into a hospital and took you like it was nothing. My mother’s men are already inside this building.” He shakes his head. “This is not protection. This is a waiting room.”
I look at Lily, sleeping between us, thumb near her mouth, oblivious. The idea of taking her somewhere new, alone, whereI don’t know anyone and Aleksander isn’t just down the hall, makes my stomach twist.
“So I just go,” I say, “and you stay and…deal with all of this by yourself?”
“That was always the deal,” he says. “My mess. Not yours.”
