24. Fia
FIA
“Fia?” calls Luka, his voice ringing through the corridor. “Why did you summon me here?”
By speaking to Luka, I can rule Chloe out of the equation.
I take one final look at the ripped document, trailing my finger over his printed name before closing the bedroom door behind me and meeting him in the kitchen.
“Take a seat,” I say, keeping my voice cordial, like I’m back at work solving cases.
Luka frowns, the chair legs scraping against the floor as he sits opposite me. “Is this about Emil? Why are you calling me here so late?”
“The question is, why did you agree to come round so late?” I say, hitching my eyebrow up at him.
“I thought you were in trouble.”
Hell, maybe I am, being alone with the deadliest snake in all of Washington.
“You remember when I brought up the shipping manifest at breakfast, right?”
“The Vancouver one signed off in my name?” asks Luka, pinching his eyes. “I can see where you’re going with this.”
“Emil thinks you’re innocent, too dumb for your own good.”
“Charming.”
“More focused on getting drunk at the function than being on guard.” I sit back in the chair, tilting my head to one side.
The house is silent, the humming refrigerator the only sound.
Goosebumps raise on my skin when I glance out of the window.
The darkness carries for miles in all directions, and I’m in the middle of the forest, confronting a potential murderer.
The innocence in Luka’s eyes sends shivers running down my spine. Lying about your identity is more terrifying than staring evil dead in the eye.
“You’re not dumb,” I say, watching him closely.
“I’m flattered. You’re kinder than Emil could ever wish to be.”
“Emil doesn’t have a kind bone in his body,” I state. “But at least he’s honest about that and never pretends to be someone he’s not.” I keep staring at Luka waiting for his eyes to switch, my pulse spiking, a hot sweat beading across my forehead.
Emil would kill me for doing this, but confrontation has always been my specialty, no matter how terrifying it can be sometimes. Staring suspects dead in the eye, exposing their wild behaviors, is how you close cases.
“You drink to drown in your sorrows, to make yourself feel better about the crimes you have committed, right under your friend’s nose.”
Luka’s eyes switch, the kindness receding from his face like a tide that will never return.
My heart beats so fast it hums as I stare into the face of evil. The light vanishes from his eyes, replaced by a type of danger that is more petrifying than danger itself.
His features sink into their natural placement, his mouth turning cruel, stretching across his face like a cut that might start bleeding.
I gasp, forcing myself to remain strong, to keep staring into his eyes. But this is a type of evil I’ve never experienced before. He manipulated my perception, using my amnesia to his advantage.
“It’s always been you,” I say, my voice barely audible, softer than a whisper. “I thought it could be, but when I mentioned the idea to Emil?—”
“Emil values loyalty more than anything else, and I have always given him that. He has always been in denial about things, about who he really is, which I have learned to play to my advantage.” Luka narrows his eyes, the color completely gone. “You’re a smart woman, Fia.”
“Oh, please,” I scoff. “Like it takes a genius to figure out the truth.”
“Some people are less in denial than others. And that is why you have always been trouble,” says Luka, slouching back into his seat. The smirk fades on his face, replaced by an even more terrifying expression. “I wanted you dead.”
My throat goes dry, my heart beating like the loudest drum, telling me to get the fuck up and run before I stay here any longer and kill the twins.
Luka’s eyes are two black holes. There is no spirit living inside of this man. Cold, black emptiness exists where his soul should be.
“I had you figured,” I state, mustering up the courage to keep looking at his face. His eyes will haunt me for the rest of my life, but showing weakness in the face of evil always ends in defeat. “You were in the car.”
“No,” says Luka. “But I was the one behind the hit.” Luka folds his arms over his chest, narrowing his eyes down on me.
“You were never meant to survive. Your death was supposed to knock Emil down, leave him devastated, but your husband is right about one thing.
You're a relentless little thing, quite the spitfire.”
“Don’t call me that,” I snap, tensing my jaw as another thought takes precedence. “How long did I know the truth?”
“Oh,” chuckles Luka. “I observed you for quite some time, watching that pretty face of yours look conflicted as you worked up the courage to tell your husband the truth about me leaking data to Alexander. He would never believe you.”
“He would.”
“No, sweetheart, he would not, which is why you kept the information to yourself for an entire month. It was fun watching you, seeing the cogs turn in your head as you weighed up the pros and cons. Ultimately, you were afraid of your husband.”
“But you still planned to kill me.”
“Your love for him outweighed the fear. I knew you had made a decision to tell him.”
“Mind reader as well as a fucking traitor.”
“I don’t need to read minds,” says Luka, suddenly leaning forward. “These two little lines between your brows tell me all I need to know.” He ghosts his fingers over my face, my bones turning to ice.
I shake him off, rising from the table, the chair legs screeching on the floor as I get the fuck away from this psycho.
“You’re a brave woman, Fia, confronting me all alone without your husband around to protect you.
” Luka arches a brow at me pointedly. “You may love your husband, but the fear will never disappear. Growing up in an abusive household taunts you that way. You either carry the fear through the rest of your life, or you become the monster.”
Hatred courses through my veins as I stare at the person I trusted more than Emil.
“We attract what we know,” taunts Luka. “I understand why you fell in love with him, considering the circumstances.” His lip twitches, another smirk cutting across his face like an open wound.
Cold, hard dread fills my stomach. He knows something I don’t.
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Your relationship derived from abuse, Fia.”
“You’re lying.”
“You were snooping around the docks, close to exposing Emil’s Bratva. He had to take action. To prevent you from opening your mouth, ruining everything for him, one of his men kidnapped you.”
A tear pricks my eye, but I refuse to let it fall.
“Emil kept you in his house. You were given two choices: drop the investigation and never speak about it again, or die.”
Dread fills my entire body, tightening my throat, rendering me speechless.
“You were trapped here in Emil’s house for five days, but you defied him as soon as you were released, digging deeper, searching for more answers.
You came across cold case reports of people going missing, connecting puzzle pieces, discovering that Emil was not just a Bratva leader, but a serial killer, murdering innocents to prevent them from getting too close.
” Luka’s black hole eyes gape, becoming wider.
I feel inclined to take his words with a pinch of salt, but all his points can be backed up by facts. I saw the nonchalant way Emil held that knife when I left the bathroom. He brushes off killing like most people would brush off a small mistake, continuing with their day, never looking back.
“You were different to Emil, which made no fucking sense to me,” continues Emil. “I advised him to kill you several times.”
“Fabulous.”
“Can you blame me, when you stuck your nose into our business multiple times? You were in our business the deepest. You analyzed shipping reports like they were pieces of literature, desperate to find the hidden meaning. Nobody had ever dug their nose into our business that much before and lived to tell the tale.”
Sounds like I really do have a thirst for answers, even if I pay the price with my life.
“Emil watched you at work, since you were always the last one to leave the office. He studied you the same, intense way you studied those reports, like you were a puzzle for him to solve.” Luka shakes his head, scoffing. “It was really fucking weird, Fia, and so out of character for him.”
I keep staring at Luka, waiting for him to cut out the bullshit and help jog my memory already.
“You were his main priority, always taking precedence over Bratva operations. He would turn a blind eye to the docks, so I was always standing in for him, cleaning up after his mess, apologizing on his behalf.”
I squint, backtracking a few sentences. “Emil neglected his work at the Bratva to stalk me?” I narrow my eyes, remembering Chloe’s words, how I was apparently looking over my shoulder constantly, fearing for my life. “How long was he stalking me for?”
“A good few months,” says Luka. “The pattern of you running away, him stalking and bringing you back repeated several times until you became curious. You would stay at his place for a while, getting to know one another. Emil was interested in you, which is why he refused to kill you. He was infatuated, obsessed, and you started to become more a part of his business overtime. You discovered enemies. You realized that the Bratva network was more complex than you thought.”
“I knew about Alexander?”
“Not only was he on your radar, you were almost killed by one of his men,” says Luka, his arm slung over the back of the chair, observing me.
“What the fuck does any of this have to do with being married and me being pregnant?”
“The latter is self-explanatory,” laughs Luka. “Emil was always late to meetings, too busy fucking you.”
“But the marriage thing?”