Chapter 4
LUKA
I don’t sleep so much as drift through hours that refuse to end.
When my eyes finally close, I don’t find quiet, I find her.
I see Sage in my mind, standing in that narrow strip of alley behind the café, chin lifted, mouth set in a line that should not tempt any sane man.
The scent of coffee and something floral tangles in my thoughts, and I wake more than once with my heart beating too fast and my hand fisted in sheets that feel like restraints rather than comfort.
By the time rain begins to tap the roof, I stop pretending sleep will return.
The phone vibrates on the nightstand at five in the morning, insistent enough to pull me from thought.
It’s a message from Mikhail Volkov, Misha to everyone who matters, my cousin and the man who stands as my second-in-command.
The screen lights with a message. He isn’t talking. Stubborn. Wants to act loyal to his boss.
I call him immediately. Misha answers on the first ring, his voice even. “He’s holding back.”
“Of course he is.” I pace to the window, watching rain track down the glass. “Loyalty looks different when you remind a man how fragile his body is. Break something.”
There is a pause, then the sound of movement in the background. Misha asks, “Where do you want me to start?”
“An arm. He doesn’t need both.”
A muffled crack filters through the line, followed by a guttural cry. Misha exhales slowly. “Still swearing he knows nothing.”
“Then break a leg. One bone for every lie, one for every silence. He’ll speak before he runs out.”
“You want him alive?” Misha questions.
“For now.” I let the quiet stretch, the words pulsing in it. “But if he reaches the end of his bones before he reaches the truth, I’ll take what’s left of him and use it to send a message to his boss.”
Misha’s voice sharpens with approval. “Understood.”
I end the call without another word, leaving Misha to handle the man and carve the answers from him bone by bone.
He will get what we need, he always does.
My cousin was born for this kind of work, the violence that keeps the Bratva sharp.
I trust him to finish what I set in motion.
But when the silence returns, I find my thoughts veering down a path I did not authorize.
Away from broken bones and rival dealings, and back to the girl in the café.
Sage Bellamy.
I tell myself I’m going back to the café to confirm patterns, test proximity and motive, not to chase the heat that lives in my palms where our fingers touched.
Vega waits at the door like a soldier who already understands the assignment, and I leash him without a word, letting the wet morning pull us off the porch and into the gravel drive.
The mountains crouch beneath clouds that settle low enough to touch, and rain draws lines down the windows.
I take the SUV down the wet switchbacks into town, the wipers keeping tempo, and pull to the curb outside Bean & Bloom.
I kill the engine, step into the drizzle with Vega at my heel, and push through the glass door into warmth and cinnamon, the bell giving one bright note as we enter.
I take my corner in Bean & Bloom, and Vega settles at my feet, watching the door the way sentinels watch borders. He doesn’t lift his head when tourists come in with wet jackets and cheerful voices, but when Sage moves behind the counter, his ears tip forward as if they were tuned only to her.
I unraveled her life detail by detail, reshaping it into something sharp and defined in my mind.
Twenty-seven, born and raised in this town, owner of the café her mother built when she was a child.
A sister, younger and vulnerable, with the kind of medical file that swallows savings and sleep.
A father who disappeared when Sage was small, then turned up dead years later.
Paper trails that thin out where the story should have become clear.
She moves through the café as if it were an extension of her body.
Her honey-blonde hair is twisted into a loose knot that allows stray strands to escape.
They might look sweet on someone else, but her blue eyes do not waiver, refusing to give ground.
She is not fragile. Her shoulders carry it.
Her hands shape it. Every movement at the machine, the register, with the customers, and the young employee at her side, hints at a strength that won’t break easily.
She refuses to look at me, though her body gives her away. Her shoulders tighten when my gaze finds her, and her mouth hardens. When she turns to the pastry case, the muscle in her jaw ticks once before she smooths it away. She feels me even when she pretends not to.
Vega betrays me once again without any shame. He rises, stretches, and crosses the floor, ignoring boundaries. He positions himself at her feet and lowers his head against her calf, closing his eyes like a penitent knight. I should whistle him back, but I don’t. Instead, I watch.
Her fingers slide into his coat, and he melts as if the bones have left his body.
She speaks to him in a tone that belongs to quiet kitchens and safe living rooms, then reaches beneath the counter and retrieves a biscuit.
He takes it with care, his teeth gentle, and his tail thumps against the baseboard twice before he goes still again.
The way she looks at him steals something from me that I prefer to keep.
When the crowd thins, I lift a hand and the young employee with the careful braid approaches, her notebook already open.
“What can I get you?” she asks.
“Americano,” I say. I point where I want it placed. “Here.”
She glances toward Sage without meaning to, then nods and moves away. I wait. I can wait all day. Patience is easier to learn when punishment for impatience is paid in blood.
Sage prepares the drink herself. She could hand the task off, but she doesn’t. The hiss from the machine fills the room. She pours, wipes a drip from the saucer with her thumb, then picks up the cup and brings it to my table like a challenge she intends to win.
“Your Americano.”
Our fingers meet at the rim. It’s nothing, yet it’s everything. Heat travels from skin to nerve, and the jolt is clean enough to steal one breath and make the next arrive too hard. Her mouth parts, her body informing her that something just happened that requires a reaction. She withdraws first.
“Thank you,” I reply, and it sounds like civility when it’s not.
“You’re welcome,” she answers, and it sounds like a dismissal when it’s not.
I follow the line of her throat to where tension lives, then allow my eyes to return to hers. Her gaze doesn’t drop or waver. There’s only that stubborn line of a woman who has carried more than she should and learned how to hold it without bending.
“You have a very loyal dog,” she says. The politeness tastes of vinegar. “He keeps returning to the scene of his crime.”
“He has useful instincts.”
“For knocking people down?”
“For choosing people,” I mutter darkly.
Her long lashes lower, then lift. There is the smallest pause before she steps back. Her apron has a faint coffee stain near the pocket. Her hair has worked loose again, and a strand curves along her cheek. I could reach out, tuck it behind her ear, and feel the tremor in her skin. I do nothing.
“Enjoy your drink,” she says. “If you decide to drink it.”
“I’m still deciding,” I tell her.
She turns away and returns to her world.
I let my hand rest near the saucer. Vega abandons her side only when she turns away, padding after her as if she carries the authority of command, before circling back to me and lowering himself at my feet.
Even my dog seems torn, and the thought unsettles me more than I care to admit.
Tourists stream in, shaking rain from their hoods, gratitude on their faces at the promise of warmth.
A trio of local women settles near the front window, the one with the view of slick streets and umbrellas.
The older woman in the corner works on a crossword puzzle in blue pen that clicks in a repetitive pattern.
Men who pretend to be rugged peel bills from money clips and order drinks that require long instructions.
A man I recognize for the wrong reason steps through the door and sheds a jacket that is too clean for any trail.
I saw him yesterday in this same café, not by accident.
He chose a line near the pastry case where he could lean and look lazy while his eyes did work.
He has the smile of a salesman and the stride of someone who can run when he needs to.
I don’t move. It’s unnecessary. Albert is two tables across from me near the door, quiet as a storm held in place by a sky that hasn’t torn open yet.
At six and a half feet, with a shaved head and arms inked in black lines that crawl out from under his collar, he is impossible to miss and yet most people never notice him.
That’s his gift. He grew up in Brighton Beach, raised in the streets until my father’s network took him in.
Violence shaped him into the kind of man who doesn’t need to announce himself, because anyone who has seen him work does the announcing for him.
He rarely speaks, but when he does, there is always a trace of dry humor under the menace, as if he sees the world as one long joke, and only he knows the punchline.