Chapter 6 Luka #2
I remember the day the world cracked beneath my feet with perfect clarity.
The flashing ambulance lights cutting through the Seattle rain, water streaming down the windows of the estate while chaos erupted in the foyer below.
The slack on the left side of his face as the medics rushed him out on a stretcher, his hazel eyes, the ones I inherited, burning with fury at his body's betrayal.
Our men standing frozen because no one feared death the way they feared a kingdom without a king.
In that moment, power slid into my hands not by choice but by necessity.
The mantle of leadership settled across my shoulders with crushing permanence while my father fought for his life in a hospital room surrounded by machines that beeped and hissed.
Misha stood beside me in the hallway, his pale blue eyes filled with questions neither of us had answers for, and told me what I already knew.
The organization needed a pakhan. The enemies circling our territory needed to see strength, not vulnerability.
Leadership could not wait for my father to recover.
I stepped into the role the way a soldier steps onto a battlefield, knowing retreat meant death and hesitation invited destruction.
The transition was brutal and swift. Men who questioned my authority learned quickly that I carried my father's ruthlessness without the years of experience to temper it.
I made examples when necessary, forged alliances through calculated displays of power, and eliminated threats before they fully materialized.
My father recovered slowly, regaining speech but not full mobility.
The wheelchair became his throne, positioned in his study overlooking Elliott Bay, where he could still advise and guide, even if he could no longer enforce.
But the burden of daily operations, making decisions that determined life and death, and navigating the treacherous waters of organized crime remained mine to carry.
Nikolay, my brother and Anya’s twin, rose to meet challenges in ways I had never anticipated.
He took on enforcement responsibilities, handled logistics that required travel I couldn't spare time for, and proved his loyalty even when ambition burned behind his green eyes.
Anya became the face of legitimacy we needed, attending charity functions and cultural events that reminded Seattle's elite the Barinovs were more than shadows and whispers.
But the distance between us grew. The secrets I kept multiplied. The choices I made in dark rooms with dangerous men created walls even family couldn't scale.
“Otets is with Nikolay,” Anya continues softly, her voice pulling me back to the present and the firelight dancing across her face. “But he wants you back in Seattle. He insists Colorado is a distraction.”
“I cannot leave until I know why Bellamy's name has returned,” I counter, my tone firm enough to close the discussion before it fully opens.
Her eyes deepen with understanding and curiosity mixed with concern. “And the girl upstairs? Is she a distraction, too?”
“She's a piece on the board,” I reply coldly, the words coming easily though they taste wrong on my tongue. “Until I know whose move she represents.”
Anya tilts her head, studying me with the same sharp analysis our mother used when she suspected we were hiding something. “You've locked her away, Luka. Do you expect her to trust you after that?”
“Trust isn't what I need from her.”
“Then what is it you need?”
I don't answer. Not to her. Not to myself. The question lingers unanswered and uncomfortable, because I genuinely don't know what I need from Sage Bellamy beyond information she may not possess.
Above us, faint footsteps stir across the floor. Sage is locked behind steel and wood, but restless and uncontained despite the physical barriers. Her presence seeps through the ceiling with a relentless pull, a shadow that follows me even when I cannot see her.
Anya's gaze follows mine upward, tracking the sound before returning to my face with renewed interest. “Who is she really, Luka? Not her name, café, or medical bills. Who is she to you?”
“That is a question I'm trying to answer,” I admit, the honesty slipping out before I can catch it.
My sister leans forward, her elbows resting on her knees, and her dark hair falling forward to frame her face. “Mama used to tell us that the most dangerous people weren't the ones who threatened openly. They were the ones who slipped past your defenses without you noticing until it was too late.”
The mention of our mother tightens something in my chest. She died when Anya and Nikolay were twenty-one, her body consumed by cancer that no amount of money or influence could stop.
I watched her fade over two years, her elegance never wavering even as illness stripped away everything else.
She faced death with the same grace she brought to life, holding our hands and extracting promises we've struggled to keep.
“Mama also taught us to protect what matters,” I counter quietly.
“And does she matter?” Anya presses, her green eyes boring into mine with uncomfortable persistence. “Sage. Does she matter, or is she just another problem to handle?”
I don't answer because I don't have an answer that makes sense.
Sage Bellamy should be nothing more than a lead to follow, a connection to investigate, a potential threat to neutralize, or an innocent bystander to release once her value diminishes.
But something about her presence in the café day after day, the way Vega gravitates to her without prompting, and the fierce protection she shows for her sister despite drowning in debt, creates complications I don't need.
Anya studies my face, reading the silence as confirmation of whatever conclusion she's drawn. She rises gracefully, smoothing her skirt. “Be careful, brat. Sometimes the pieces on the board aren't pawns. Sometimes they are the match that sets the board on fire.”
Her warning sinks deep, settling into the spaces between my ribs where doubt and determination war constantly.
I lean back in the chair, watching flames dance in the hearth and shadows flitter across the stone wall.
The fire burns with the same intensity that drives every decision I make in this life I inherited.
Anya crosses to me, pressing a kiss to my forehead. “Call Otets tomorrow. He worries, even if he'd never admit it.”
“I will,” I promise, though we both know my definition of tomorrow might stretch into days.
She leaves through the front entrance with her driver, her departure marked by the soft click of the door and the crunch of gravel under tires as her car pulls away down the mountain road.
Vega lifts his head from where he's sprawled near the hearth, his eyes tracking my movements as I stand and pace the length of the room.
My thoughts circle back to Sage despite my attempts to redirect them toward more pressing matters.
To the fear in her eyes when I ended the call with her sister.
To the way her hands shook even as she stood her ground and hurled accusations at me.
To the rawness in her voice when she begged for permission to make one phone call.
I've locked up men before. I’ve questioned them in rooms designed for extracting truth through pain and fear.
Watched them break under interrogation that stripped away lies and left only desperate honesty bleeding across concrete floors.
But Sage doesn't break the way those men broke.
She bends under pressure, then snaps back with renewed fury, refusing to crumble completely even when every rational instinct should tell her to submit.
Above me, the footsteps continue back and forth across the bedroom floor.
I wonder if Anya is right. If Sage represents something more dangerous than an enemy with a weapon.
If she's the match that will set everything I've built on fire, reducing years of careful planning and strategic control to ash and smoke.
The thought should trouble me more than it does.
It should send me upstairs to extract answers by whatever means necessary and eliminate the threat before it fully manifests.
But instead, I remain by the fire, wondering if fate has handed me something I cannot control, no matter how tightly I try to grip it.
Because even locked behind a door with steel reinforcements and surveillance that tracks her every movement, Sage Bellamy feels dangerous in ways I'm only beginning to understand.
And I genuinely don't know whether I should extinguish that flame or let it burn.