I slow at the threshold. Inside, the room is too bright.
She is propped up in bed, paler than she should be, an IV in her arm, but awake. Her hair is brushed back from her face. The oxygen cannula at her nose makes something in my chest tighten painfully.
When she sees Aleksei, her expression changes immediately, softening.
He goes to her at once, all the hard edges gone, and takes her hand with a gentleness I have only seen in glimpses before. “Mama.”
Her fingers curl weakly around his. “Alyosha.” Her voice is thin, but smiling.
I stop just inside the room, suddenly aware that I may be intruding on something sacred.
Then his mother’s gaze shifts. To me.
And even half-sick, half-drugged, she notices everything.
Her eyes move from my face to Aleksei’s hand still holding hers, then back to me, and something like quiet understanding settles in them.
I have the absurd urge to straighten my clothes like I’m meeting royalty. Instead, I just stand there and try not to look as rattled as I feel.
Aleksei glances at me over his shoulder.
“This is Zatanna,” he says.
Not my assistant. Not a colleague. Just my name.
His mother looks at me for a long, assessing moment. Then, with the faintest smile, “So you’re Zatanna,” she says. “Hello, dear. My name is Daria. Welcome to our house.”
I open my mouth. Nothing comes out.
Not because I’ve forgotten how to speak, but because there is something about the way she says my name that makes me feel suddenly too visible. Not judged exactly. More like recognized, and I’m not sure what she’s recognizing.
Aleksei’s mother, Daria is pale against the hospital sheets, the lines of illness too new on her face, but her eyes are sharp. Softer than his. Warmer. And still much too observant.
I manage, “Hi.”
Brilliant. Absolutely dazzling.
Her mouth curves faintly, as if she can hear exactly how stupid I think I sound. Then she coughs, a small, dry sound that makes Aleksei turn back to her immediately.
He adjusts her pillow, checks the water, murmurs something low in Russian that I don’t understand but somehow know is meant to soothe. The whole room shifts around him. He isn’t the man from the jet or the villa or even the office. He’s quieter here. Tighter. Careful in a way that makes my chest ache.
His mother touches his wrist weakly. “I’m fine,” she says, though clearly, she is not.
He doesn’t argue. He just nods like he’s humoring her.
After a moment, he straightens and says, “I’m going to speak to the doctor again.”
I nod quickly, because apparently, I am now the kind of woman who ends up in hospital rooms with mafia heirs and has no idea what to do with her hands.
“I’ll stay,” I say.
His eyes meet mine for one second. Just one. Then he steps out.
The room goes quiet.
Not awkwardly at first. More like everything is exhausted. The monitors hum softly. The IV drips. Outside the door, footsteps pass in the hall. I move closer to the bed, unsure whether I should sit, stand, vanish into the wall, or somehow transform into someone better suited to this.
His mother watches me the whole time. “You make him nervous,” she says softly.
