Chapter 27
chapter
twenty-seven
In the short time I’d known him, Luka’s hands on me had meant a lot of things: restraint, lust, liberation. But now, in my own bed, his hands—his arms wrapped around me—felt like comfort. Safety. Home.
We lay together, naked in a tangle of sheets. His chest rose and fell against my back, and everywhere we touched felt like a shield. I shifted, but he pulled me closer. He hadn’t let me out of his reach since the coffee shop that morning.
I pressed my back into his chest and, for a long time, we didn’t move. He’d filled my body as soon as we’d made it to my bed. Now, as cliché as it sounded, he was filling my soul. Or, at least, giving it a place to land.
The silence was thick enough to keep us cocooned, but my mind floated above it, circling the same question over and over. What happens next?
I craned my neck to see his face. His eyes were open, unguarded.
He traced the line of my shoulder with his palm, then the side of my throat. “You’re thinking too much.”
I gave a nervous half-laugh. “Am I that obvious?”
“You never stop.” He brushed his lips along my ear. “Tell me.”
I gripped his forearm, just to anchor myself. “I don’t even know where to begin.”
“It doesn’t matter. Pick one thought and start there.”
Shuffling through the thoughts ricocheting in my head, I picked the lowest-hanging fruit. “Well, I managed to blow up my entire career in under a week. That’s got to be some kind of a record.”
Luka tightened his hold on my waist. “You didn’t lose your career. You lost a job.”
“It’s more than that. I failed the game. I pissed off people in high places—even though they absolutely deserved it. But people in my industry, they talk. They blacklist. No one would dream of hiring me now.”
He went still for a moment, then loosened his grip. “They didn’t fire you because you failed. They fired you because you became expensive.”
“So I’m, what…” The word lodged in my chest. “A risk?”
“Yes.”
“A cost.”
“Yes. One they can’t afford to pay.”
I swallowed. “So what are you suggesting?”
He shifted behind me, his voice quiet at my shoulder. “I’m not suggesting anything. I’m saying that you have damaging information, and they know it.”
“And?”
“They tried to buy your silence, and you refused.”
A beat.
“But now you’re giving it to them for free.”
He might as well have doused me with ice water.
I turned over, facing him. His arm fell across my hip automatically, as if it belonged there. “So, what do I do then?”
“Be as expensive as they fear you are.”
I rolled onto my back, staring at the ceiling. “And what? Go to the press like some attention-seeking…” I refused to finish the thought.
“You know what I do for a living, yes?”
“I’m still fuzzy on that, but I know it’s not driving rideshare.”
“I deal in information. Collecting. Selling. Distributing.”
He shifted closer—not pulling me in, not claiming space—just enough that the mattress dipped beneath his weight. I rolled back toward him, and he took my hands in his, turning my palms upward. Then he rotated them slowly until my fingers closed around his wrists.
He didn’t move. Just let himself be held there, bound by nothing but choice.
“Use me,” he said quietly.
My breath stuttered.
“Unleash me. Let me serve you.”
I went still. “To be clear, you’re talking about exposing everything you found on Richard?”
He nodded. “And anyone you choose. I’m sure the executives who fired you have skeletons they’d prefer stayed hidden.”
I tightened my hold on Luka’s wrists. “And when it’s over? What then?”
He didn’t answer.
“They write a check. They make a donation. Someone ‘steps down for personal reasons.’ And I’m left holding the mess.” My voice dropped. “I don’t want blood on my hands for nothing.”
“You’re right.” His expression tightened. “Men like Richard survive scandals. They don’t survive isolation.”
I felt the weight of that settle between us.
“I don’t just release information,” Luka said. “That’s noise.”
I waited.
“I sequence it. I decide who sees what, and when. I strip away the exits before he knows he needs them. By the time the story breaks, every ally he has will already be distancing themselves. Every favor spent. Every exit closed.” He met my eyes.
“He won’t buy his way out. He won’t have anyone left to sell to. ”
“But where does this leave me? I’m the crazy, dramatic girl on the news that no one believes.”
“You don’t have to martyr yourself, Alex. If you want justice, you take it. If you want peace, you walk away.” He paused, brushing his fingertips over my thumb. The touch was strangely soothing. Grounding. “But if you do nothing, the next woman in that office is less lucky.”
I flinched. Every self-preserving argument collapsed under that single, awful truth.
As I lay there, still holding Luka’s wrists like handcuffs, staring at the bland, spackled ceiling, I imagined the story breaking—Richard’s face in a sidebar, a sprint of anonymous comments, LinkedIn vultures picking the bones clean.
Maybe, somewhere in the footnotes, my name—a warning, or a punchline. Or not at all.
And yet. The alternative was nothing. Letting it slide. Waiting for the next woman to get locked in that same office.
“I don’t even know the first step,” I admitted. “I don’t have a whistle. I don’t have a platform.”
Luka smiled, slow and almost menacing. “That’s my arena.”
I let go of Luka’s wrists and rolled upright, swinging my legs over the side of the bed. The air in the room cooled fast, prickling against my sweat-damp skin.
He straightened, watching me with that unnerving calm. I flexed my hands, then flattened my palms against my thighs.
“What about the money?” I asked.
He blinked, a flicker of hesitation. “What money?”
I studied the whorl of my thumbnail, then met his gaze. “You said you’d make a fortune leaking the dirt on Richard.”
He snorted. “I’m not doing it for the money. I’m doing it for you, mila.” He let the endearment linger, a caress and a challenge. “But if you want the money, it’s yours.”
The room fell quiet enough to hear the blood whooshing in my ears. I reached for the glass of water on the nightstand, tracing a bead of condensation down the rim. After a long drink, I looked at Luka. He didn’t flinch. He didn’t soften the offer, didn’t give me an easy out.
“What would I have to do?” I asked, and my voice was finally steady.
“Say the word.”
I studied him—the calm, the certainty, the way he’d already mapped outcomes I could barely name.
“This version of you scares me more than the mask and leather,” I said.
His mouth curved, just slightly.
“Good,” he replied.
I met his gaze. “Do it.”