Chapter 19
chapter
nineteen
Luka set a glass of vodka on the coffee table in front of me, the bottle uncapped beside it, as if he anticipated refills.
My hands wouldn’t stop shaking.
He didn’t speak. He crouched in front of me, steadied my hands around the glass, and guided it to my lips. The vodka was so cold it burned, antiseptic and sharp.
Blink. Swallow. Breathe.
I waited for the old Alex—the one who could always manage a joke—to crack some quip about the classic Slavic approach to problem-solving: vodka. But my thoughts were static, my voice gone. What came out instead was a scraped whisper.
“Thank you.”
He nodded once and dropped onto the floor at my feet, knees bent, elbows braced on his thighs—patient. Waiting. He watched me drink, the cut of his eyes refusing to let me look away.
A series of staccato buzzes shattered the quiet. Luka shifted and pulled his phone from his back pocket. He scanned the screen, eyes narrowed, then handed it to me.
“The office is calling you.”
I nearly dropped my drink. He caught my wrist and eased the glass to the table.
Without thinking, I slid my thumb across the screen and lifted the phone to my ear. It was warm from Luka’s pocket.
“Hello, Alex speaking.” My voice was a landfill fire—smoke on the surface, everything underneath still burning.
“Hi, Alex, it’s Sophie from reception. Sorry to bother you.” Her London accent was bright and pinched. “We just…em, wanted to check if you were all right? The fire brigade cleared the building, but you never came back in.”
Luka’s gaze locked on mine, unreadable as a code.
“I—” I drew in a breath, let it out slow, kept my voice bland. “Sorry, the alarm triggered a raging migraine. I’m going to lie down for a few hours, if that’s okay. I’ll catch up on emails tonight and be in early tomorrow.”
“Oh, you poor thing,” she cooed. “Feel better, and we’ll see you in the morning.”
“Thanks, Sophie.” I ended the call.
I stared at the lock screen—Luka’s phone.
“Why did she call you?” I asked, handing it back to his waiting palm.
“She didn’t.”
“I don’t…” I shook my head, as if that might clear it. “What do you mean?”
“I mirrored your mobile this morning. Any call or text you get rings to my device as well.”
Right. He’d said that earlier. When my brain had been too scrambled to think past the word safe. At the time, it had sounded like protection. Now it felt like something else entirely.
I took another drink and stared at him. The glass sweated in my palm, cold as bone. “So you’ve been…what, spying on me?”
His lips twisted. “No. Not spying. Monitoring. There’s a difference.”
“Is there?” My voice rose, thin and brittle. “Because it sounds like you put me on a digital leash.”
He didn’t flinch. “After last night, yes. You received a threat. I wanted to know if anything happened while you were at work. If you were in danger.”
The room was too bright, the edges of everything too sharp. “What did you see?” I hugged my knees to my chest, arms knotted tight around them, bracing for impact. “Were you…listening?”
He shook his head. “You’ve seen too many films. I can follow your calls and texts. And your location, if the device is on you. That’s it.”
I tried to process it—tried to decide if I was angry or grateful or both. “But the fire alarm…how did you—”
“I identified the man who texted you. And you were sitting in his office, not moving, not answering me.” His jaw tightened. “I had to get you out. So I accessed the building’s fire alarm and triggered it.”
I blinked at him, searching for the right emotion to pull to the surface—outrage, gratitude, embarrassment. Instead, I just nodded, jaw clenched hard enough to crack a molar.
“Thank you.” My voice barely carried.
But he heard it.
He leaned closer, his gaze anchoring me, and for a moment he looked almost…gentle. Or as close to it as he got.
“I mean it,” I said—with more resolve this time. “We’ll deal with the wiretapping later. But you got me out of an…uncomfortable situation. I’m grateful.”
He nodded once, then nudged the glass toward me. “What happened?”
The question hovered. I wrapped both hands around the drink, fingers crowding the glass, hoping the vodka would fill in all the gaps that words couldn’t.
“Nothing happened.” The lie scarcely cleared my lips before dissolving. “Richard…” His name caught, just slightly. “He saw me at…at the club this weekend. And he thought he could…” I locked my jaw, but the words still scorched. “Take liberties.”
“And?” Luka’s voice was controlled enough that I could hear the strain beneath it.
“I refused. Obviously.” I took another sip, the ice-cold burn almost punitive.
He watched me, eyes narrowed but unreadable. He didn’t interrupt. Just waited.
“I promise. I refused him.” My voice was steadier, but it cost me. My stomach turned, and for a moment, I thought I might throw up.
He inclined his head. “I don’t doubt you.” There was nothing patronizing in it, but his calm amplified the doubts in my mind.
I pressed the heel of my hand to my brow. “It’s just—fuck—did I do this to myself? By being…so reckless? Did I signal—”
“Don’t.” The word landed flat and final. He exhaled once. “You said no.”
It wasn’t a question, but I answered anyway. “Yes.”
“Then that is all.” He shifted back, forearms braced on his knees. “You do not owe me details while you are still bleeding from them.” His gaze hardened. “But he miscalculated. And I will handle that carefully.”
He stood in a single movement and held out his hand.
“Come.”
For a second, I just looked at it—unyielding. Certain. My pulse rattled in my throat. I slipped my fingers into his. His grip was warm. Steady.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“I need to show you something.”
He led me down the hallway to the last door on the left. A matte-black keypad was set into the frame—a digital cipher lock that didn’t belong in a residential flat. He keyed in eight digits, his hand shielding the panel, and the mag-lock disengaged with a muted click.
The room beyond bore no resemblance to the rest of the apartment.
It felt like a digital cathedral concealed behind domestic walls.
Recessed LED strips washed everything in a midnight blue, making my skin look bloodless.
At the center stood a glass-topped desk with six monitors stacked in a double-decker arc.
Green code streamed down two of them, relentless and alive.
The others displayed live surveillance feeds—grainy, unblinking views of places I didn’t recognize. Corridors. Entrances. Blind corners.
I felt irrationally exposed.
Two server racks hummed in the corner, their perforated panels blinking red and amber in steady sequence. The cables feeding them were bundled and routed with obsessive precision—color-coded, zip-tied, not a single wire out of place.
The air carried a faint tang of ozone and heated plastic—electronics pushed hard, never resting.
He released my hand and gestured toward the mesh-backed chair in front of the desk.
“Sit.”
I did.
“What is all this?” I asked, unable to keep the tremor from my voice.
Luka leaned over my shoulder, his body heat seeping into me. “This,” he said, his fingers flying across the keyboard in a blur of muscle memory as he logged in, “is where I work.”
“When you’re not driving.”
“That’s not work. That’s…supplemental.”
“Income?”
He shot me a sideways look. “In a manner of speaking.” He clicked a few commands. “But that’s not why I brought you here.” More clicks. “This is.”
A collage of windows spilled open across the wall of screens: surveillance footage, social media profiles, bank statements, government filings, police reports, non-disclosure agreements. And photographs—no fewer than ten women.
My gaze darted from screen to screen, trying to assemble meaning from the barrage of data. “What am I looking at?”
“I traced the text messages from last night to Richard Montgomery, CEO of Hallstrom Group.” His jaw tightened. “And a frequent patron of The Ferryman.”
“I thought the club’s records were confidential.”
“They are.” A beat. “I built their firewall.”
My head snapped toward him.
“And I’ve erased your file from their system.”
“Um, thank you?”
He didn’t respond. Just opened another set of windows—police blotters, Richard’s mugshot, news articles in three languages.
“He’s been investigated before. Sexual battery. Stalking.” Luka’s voice lowered, something controlled and dangerous beneath it. “Nothing ever sticks. Charges are always dropped. Complaints withdrawn.”
I stared at the screens, at the dozen smiling faces of women who had no idea how they looked, archived like evidence.
“You weren’t the first.” Luka rested his hand on my shoulder blade, warm and grounding. “But if you want him stopped, I can do that.”
Dread slithered along my spine, cold and reptilian. I didn’t want to imagine what “stop” meant to Luka. I didn’t want to know what he was capable of, even if it was justified. Or what it would make me complicit in.
“You’re not…going to hurt him.” I tried to make it a statement, but it tipped up at the end, leaving it swinging and fragile.
He glanced at me, pale blue eyes catching the monitor glow. “For you, mila, I would.”
I flinched. “No. You can’t.”
“I can.” The certainty in his words dropped the temperature of the room.
“I don’t want to be the reason something bad happens to someone. Even if he’s…” I gestured helplessly at the array of women on the screen—frozen smiles, lives suspended at the wrong moment.
“A predator.” Luka exhaled sharply, a hiss between his teeth.
“Please.” I swallowed. “Don’t make me someone who wants that.”
“I am not an assassin, Alex. Besides…” He tipped his chin toward the monitor, where Richard’s lineup photo rendered him smaller than his reputation. “Death would be a kindness to a man like him.”
My mouth went dry. “So, what then?”
He folded his arms across his chest and cocked his head. “I imagine his life would become…complicated if this information were made public.”