Chapter 9 Sage #2
For one dangerous heartbeat, I see him the way his mother must have, as someone who might have been different if life had given him another path.
Someone who carries the burden of choices that were never really choices at all.
And that tiny glimpse of humanity threatens to undo every wall I've built to protect myself from feeling anything for this man.
Vega shifts beside my feet, letting out a low whine that breaks the spell holding us both captive.
Luka's eyes lower to him, and I watch as he reaches forward, resting his palm on the dog's head.
The gesture is simple, absentminded, the type you make without thinking when comfort has become instinct over years of practice.
His hand brushes mine when Vega leans toward him for attention, and the contact jolts through me with the force of an electric shock.
He freezes. I do too. My heartbeat drums loud in my ears, drowning out even the crackle of the fire. His eyes meet mine, and in the reflection of firelight dancing in those hazel depths, I see a look dangerously close to desire mixed with confusion.
“You shouldn't look at me with that expression,” he mutters softly.
“What expression?” My voice sounds strangled by the tightness in my throat.
“The one that suggests you want to believe I'm capable of something good.”
I swallow hard, fighting the urge to look away from him. “Maybe I just see a man who's lost more than he's willing to admit to anyone, including himself.”
His jaw tightens, the faintest twitch of muscle that tells me I've struck closer to the truth than he's comfortable with. “You're wrong.”
But I'm not wrong, and we both know it.
He stands abruptly, as if my words burned him, and distance is the only cure.
The warmth that had begun to spread between us shatters as he walks toward the shelves on the far wall, his back rigid with tension.
The fire crackles loudly, filling the space his silence leaves behind with a false sense of comfort.
When he turns again, the vulnerability from moments ago is gone.
His expression is once more carved from ice and authority, the mask firmly back in place.
“Tell me everything you know about your father,” he commands, the shift in his voice so abrupt it leaves me reeling.
The demand throws me completely off balance. “My father?”
“Thomas Bellamy,” he insists, his voice hard again, stripped of any warmth. “Tell me what you know about him.”
I frown, thrown by the abrupt turn this conversation has taken.
My mind scrambles to switch gears from the intimacy of shared grief to this interrogation.
“I already told you there's not much to tell. He died when I was nine. My mother claimed it was a car accident on a mountain road during winter. She never talked about the details.”
“Did she ever mention his brother?” The question comes fast and pointed.
“Brother?” I shake my head, trying to remember anything my mother might have mentioned about extended family. “No. She never talked about his family at all. I assumed they were estranged or something equally unpleasant.”
His eyes narrow, sharp as the edge of broken glass. “Ray Bellamy.” The name leaves his mouth like a blade. “What do you know of him?”
“Nothing.” My voice is too fast and defensive, and I hear it immediately.
I grip my hands together in my lap, fighting to keep my breathing steady and not betray how much his sudden intensity unnerves me.
“I already told you everything. I don't know anyone named Ray.
I've never even heard that name before now.”
Luka studies me for several long, silent seconds.
I can feel the scrutiny crawling over my skin, searching for lies and finding only confused fear.
“He betrayed my family,” he finally declares, each word honed to cut.
“Stole from us. Took information that belonged to the Barinovs and ran to a rival syndicate where he sold it for protection and territory. Men died because of what he did. Good men who bled for this family while he laughed from behind enemy lines.”
He takes a step closer, and I fight the urge to retreat further into the sofa. “You carry his name, Sage. You carry his blood in your veins. That makes you connected to his betrayal whether you knew about it or not.”
The accusation slams into me, stealing the air from my lungs.
I stare at him, stunned by the implications of what he's suggesting.
“That's impossible. That's completely impossible.
I never even heard of this man until you dragged me into whatever nightmare you call a life.
If he's my family, it's not by choice or knowledge or anything I can control.”
“You say you’re innocent, but your family ledger tells another story. Blood doesn't care about choice,” he counters, his voice flat and merciless. “It remembers. It connects and creates debts that span generations.”
Anger sparks inside me, sudden and fierce enough to overcome my fear.
I stand before I can stop myself, the motion jerking Vega awake at my feet.
“You actually think I'm responsible for something that happened years ago?
That I somehow owe you for what my father's alleged brother did?
That's insane. That's completely insane.”
His face remains unreadable, a fortress giving nothing away. “I think coincidence is a lie people tell themselves when they're too afraid to see the truth staring them in the face.”
I know he believes that with absolute conviction.
He thinks I'm here for a reason that has nothing to do with random chance.
That fate, blood, or whatever twisted logic rules his violent world tied me to him for some purpose neither of us understands yet.
And maybe there's a small, terrified part of me that wonders if he's right.
“You're wrong about me,” I insist, my voice trembling, caught between fury and fear.
“I don't belong in your world. I don't know anything about your betrayals or whatever name you think connects us.
I'm nobody. Just a woman who pours coffee, worries about medical bills, and tries to keep her sister alive. That's all I am.”
He doesn’t move toward me, but the distance between us feels meaningless.
His energy fills the room until I’m drowning in it, suffocating under the gravity of his certainty.
“Then convince me,” he replies quietly, and the restraint in his voice is somehow more threatening than any shout could be. “Prove you’re not part of this web.”
“How?” I ask, my voice low, betraying a plea I can’t swallow back.
“Speak when I ask, and don’t withhold anything.”
The answer chills me more than any direct threat could. Because beneath the calm delivery, I hear the promise of what will happen if the truth doesn’t clear my name, and the investigation he’s clearly conducting leads back to me in ways I can’t predict or defend against.
Luka steps closer, stopping only a few feet away from where I stand frozen. The firelight gilds his skin in gold, tracing the sharp angles of his face and making him look both beautiful and terrifying. His voice drops to a murmur that feels almost intimate despite the danger crackling between us.
“You think I’m the enemy, printsessa. You think I’m the worst thing that could happen to you in this situation.
But there are men out there who’d gut me just to find out why a Bellamy is standing in my house.
They’ll come looking for you soon enough.
When they do, you’ll understand why I keep you where I can see you. ”
The silence that follows is unbearable, wrapping around my chest until I struggle to draw breath.
Vega pads to Luka's side, torn between us in his simple animal way.
Luka's hand drops to the dog's head, his touch gentle, a stark divide from the tension radiating through every line of his body.
He looks at me one last time with a shadow lingering in his eyes that could be regret, a warning, or whatever lives between mercy and menace.
“Albert will escort you downstairs. You'll stay where I can find you when I need you.”
He turns away, dismissing me as easily as he summoned me to this room. But before he reaches the door and disappears back into whatever darkness he emerged from, I find my voice again. The question escapes before I can bury it behind wisdom and self-preservation.
“Why tell me about your mother? About your father and what they made you? Why any of it if all I am to you is another name to interrogate?”
He pauses with his hand on the doorframe. “Because I wanted to remember what it felt like to be human for a moment,” he admits quietly, without turning to face me. “Don't mistake that for mercy.”
Then he's gone. The door closes behind him and Vega with a soft click. His footsteps fade down the hall, leaving me alone with the echo of his voice reverberating in my skull.
My thoughts spin in circles I can't escape.
He told me about his mother. About the pain he hides behind that iron control he wields.
He let me see the cracks in his armor, the places where grief and duty collide and create something almost human beneath the monster everyone fears.
And I felt something dangerously close to compassion for a man who holds my life in his hands.
I should hate him for what he's done to me. For every threat delivered in that quiet voice. For every lie he might be telling. For every lock that's kept me trapped in this beautiful prison, while my sister sits at home wondering where I am.
But I don't hate him. Not completely or the way I should.
And that realization terrifies me. Because empathy is a thread, thin and fragile, and once you start to follow it and let it wind around your heart, it can lead you straight into the center of the enemy's den.
It can make you forget that the man who shows you his scars is still the same man who could decide to end your life if the evidence turns against you.
I press my palms to my face, trying to block out the heat of the fire and the echo of his voice, admitting he wanted to feel human.
But it's useless. Luka Barinov is under my skin now, woven into my thoughts in ways I can't untangle.
And as much as I want to deny it, I know the truth as surely as I know my own name.
The real danger isn't being his prisoner.
It's wanting to understand the man who holds the key.