Chapter 47 Marlena
White. Everything was white.
White walls, white ceiling, white sheets pulled up to my chest. The kind of sterile white that only existed in hospitals, bright and clean and completely devoid of warmth.
I opened my eyes slowly, squinting against the harsh fluorescent lights overhead. Machines beeped soft and steady around my bed, their rhythms matching the pulse I could feel in my wrists and neck. An IV line ran from my arm to a bag of clear fluid hanging beside me.
My stomach hurt badly, a deep throbbing ache that radiated out from under the thick bandage wrapped around my torso. I tried to move and pain shot through my entire body, making me gasp.
"Don't." A voice came from my right, rough and exhausted. "You'll tear the stitches."
I turned my head slowly and saw Nikolai sitting in a chair pulled close to my bedside. He looked terrible with dark circles under his eyes like bruises and his hair uncombed. He wore the same blood-stained shirt from the villa, though someone had tried to clean the worst of it.
Memories came flooding back. The villa. Viktor's throat cut open. Running to the basement. Finding my mother chained to the wall. The guard's bullet tearing through my side. Telling Nikolai about the baby.
The baby.
My hand moved instinctively to my stomach, pressing gently against the bandage. The ache there was different from the wound, deeper and more hollow. Empty.
A doctor had come earlier, when I was drifting in and out of consciousness. I remembered her kind face, her gentle voice telling me things I didn't want to hear. The bullet had caused internal damage. They'd done surgery to repair what they could.
But the baby didn't make it.
The emptiness in my chest was overwhelming, a hole so big it felt like it might swallow me whole. I hadn't planned for a baby, hadn't wanted one, not under these circumstances. But losing it still hurt in ways I couldn't articulate.
"You've been out for two days," Nikolai said quietly. "The surgery went well. The doctors say you'll make a full recovery."
I didn't respond, just stared at the ceiling.
"The baby didn't make it," I said, my voice flat. "The doctor told me."
Nikolai's face crumpled. "I know. I'm so sorry."
I cut him off. "Don't apologize for that."
Silence fell between us, heavy and suffocating. The machines kept beeping their steady rhythm.
Nikolai reached for my hand where it lay on the white sheets.
I pulled away quickly, jerking my hand back despite the pain it caused in my side. I didn't want him to touch me. I couldn't bear it.
His hand dropped back to his lap and something in his expression broke.
I turned my head to look at him fully, forcing myself to meet those grey eyes. Underneath all my grief was something hotter, sharper. Anger.
"The Kensington merger," I said, my voice cold and small. "It was never real, was it?"
Nikolai flinched. "No."
"You made it up. To make the marriage seem more legitimate."
"Yes."
"Everything was a lie." The words came out bitter. "Every word you said to me from the beginning. Just lies to manipulate me into being your bait."
"Not everything," he said quietly. "Not –"
"I want a divorce." The words fell between us like stones. "Right now. As soon as the paperwork can be filed."
Nikolai's shoulders dropped like heavy stones, his whole body sagging. His face went even paler and his hands gripped the arms of his chair so hard his knuckles turned white.
"Marlena, please –"
"I mean it." I kept my voice steady. "Get the lawyers. File the papers. End this."
"I know I fucked up," he said, his voice rough. "I know I lied to you, used you, hurt you in ways I can't take back. But please, just let me explain –"
"Explain what?" I turned my head away from him, staring at the wall instead. "That you spent five years planning to use me? I found your files, Nikolai. I read the protocol. I know exactly what you did."
"I'm sorry." The words sounded broken. "I'm so fucking sorry. For all of it."
"Sorry doesn't fix this." My voice cracked despite my efforts to keep it cold. "Sorry doesn't bring back the baby. Sorry doesn't erase the lies or the manipulation or the fact that you built our entire relationship on using me as a weapon against my own father."
He said sorry again, and again, the word falling from his lips like a prayer. But I didn't want to hear it anymore.
I closed my eyes tight, shutting him out, letting tears leak from the corners even though I tried to hold them back.
"Please leave," I whispered. "I can't look at you right now."
"Marlena –"
"Leave!" My voice broke completely. "Just go. Please."
I heard him stand, heard his footsteps move toward the door. They stopped there for a long moment, then the door opened and closed softly.
I opened my eyes and stared at the empty chair where he'd been sitting. More tears came and I didn't try to stop them this time, just let them fall as the grief and rage and exhaustion washed over me.
A soft knock came at the door about ten minutes later. A nurse stepped in, young and kind-faced with gentle hands and a warm smile.
"How are you feeling?" she asked in accented English.
"Like I got shot," I said.
She checked my vitals, adjusting the IV drip. "There's someone who wants to see you. Your mother is in the next room. She's been asking for you since she woke up this morning."
My heart stuttered. "She's awake?"
"Yes. Still very weak from the years of sedation, but conscious and aware. Would you like to see her?"
"Yes." The word came out desperate. "Please."
The nurse smiled. "I'll arrange it. We can move your bed to her room so you don't have to walk."
She left and returned with another nurse, both of them working together to unlock the wheels on my hospital bed and maneuver it carefully through the door. The movement jostled my wound but I didn't tell them to stop.
They wheeled me down a short hallway and into the room next door. It was identical to mine except for the person lying in the bed.
Elena.
My mother.
She looked better than she had in the villa basement, cleaned up and dressed in a hospital gown, her hair washed and combed. But she was still painfully thin, her skin still pale, her eyes still carrying that haunted look.
Those eyes found mine as my bed was positioned next to hers, and something sparked in them. Recognition. Awareness. Tears.
"Marlena," she whispered, her voice weak but clearer than it had been. "My baby girl."
The nurses left us alone, closing the door quietly behind them.
I reached out with my good arm, my hand trembling as it found hers. Her fingers were cold and thin, bones wrapped in papery skin, but they squeezed mine with surprising strength.
"Mama," I said, and the word broke something open inside me. "I'm here. You're safe now."
"I thought I'd never see you again," she said, tears running down her hollow cheeks. "Viktor said you were dead. That you and Luka both died years ago."
"We're alive." I held her hand tighter. "Both of us. Luka's in Switzerland too, getting treatment. He's going to be okay."
She sobbed at that, her whole body shaking. "My babies. Both alive."
We cried together, our hands linked between our hospital beds, years of grief and loss pouring out. When the tears finally slowed, I just held her hand and looked at her face, memorizing every line and wrinkle and scar.
She was alive. Against all odds, she'd survived.
And I would keep her safe. No matter what it took, no matter what I had to sacrifice, I wou
ld protect her for the rest of my life.
I promised it silently in my heart, a vow more binding than any contract I'd ever signed.