Chapter 11 Sage
SAGE
Morning seeps through the tall cabin windows, pale and gray against the ridge beyond. I sit at the small table near the fireplace, my hands wrapped around a mug of tea gone lukewarm. My body aches softly in the places Luka touched, a quiet echo of the night that still hums beneath my skin.
We didn’t sleep in the same room. He left sometime after midnight, called away by Misha to deal with Bratva business he wouldn’t explain.
I heard the SUV’s engine fade into the dark, and he never came back.
The house has been silent since, too large and too empty, every shadow reminding me that he can disappear whenever he chooses and I can’t.
He told me I wasn’t a prisoner, that this place and his guards were for my protection. But it still feels like captivity when the locks click behind me, and I’m not free to walk out into the morning and breathe air that hasn’t already passed through his control.
I tell myself I should hate him for it. For taking away my choices, for turning my fear into something I can’t untangle from want.
But I don’t. Not completely. The anger sits there, sharp and restless, but so does the memory of his touch, the way it stripped every layer of resistance I thought I had.
I’m angry at myself for wanting to see more of him. For wondering who he is when the mask of the pakhan slips and his voice goes quiet, and when he looks at me like he’s drowning in the same storm he created. And that’s what scares me most.
Vega rests under the table with his head on my foot, warm and heavy, his breath rising and falling in a rhythm that should be soothing but isn’t.
I sense him before I see him. Luka enters without a sound, as if he has spent years training his body to announce nothing. Black trousers, black shirt open at the throat, sleeves pushed to his forearms, and dark wavy hair smoothed back. His hazel eyes skim the room and settle on me.
“Good,” he says quietly. “You are awake.”
I release the mug. “Barely.”
He places a phone on the table and turns the screen toward me.
I see it the moment I notice the grim set of his mouth, and the silent warning that something is terribly wrong.
Fire leaping through the roofline I know like the back of my hand.
The Bean & Bloom sign bowed at a strange angle.
The window collapsed inward. A ladder truck in the street, red lights spinning, water arcing in a white stream.
“Oh my God—Jenny!” The name rips out before thought can stop it.
“She wasn't there,” Luka says immediately. “She left at nine. She's safe. She believes you're in Denver meeting a vendor.”
“You told her that?” The question burns through my throat. It shouldn’t matter, but it does because every word he speaks for me steals another piece of my life.
“Misha did. Under my instruction.”
I swipe to another photograph. Flames inside the second-story window. The copper lights collapsed into a ceiling alive with red-hot sparks. The door blocked by foam and smoke. The red brick turned black.
“No.” The word scrapes out of me, raw and trembling, the only thing I can manage as the world I built burns in front of me.
Another photo. The sign, half-melted, with the letters warped.
“No!” I cry out. My eyes sting and my throat constricts. The floor heaves under my chair as I push to my feet.
“It started after midnight,” Luka states, delivering the words like a diagnosis. “By the time the first truck arrived, the interior was compromised. The building next door has smoke damage. No one was inside and no injuries were reported.”
The relief that no one was inside is too small for the pain that opens across my ribs. I hear a strangled sound rip free and realize it came from me.
“This is your fault,” I hiss. “You dragged me into your war and ruined my life!”
He takes that without moving. I step around the chair and shove at him. My palms slam into his chest, but he absorbs the impact like a wall. I shove again. He stands perfectly still and lets me hit him. My fists curl and I strike once, twice, three times.
“You did this,” I accuse on a sob. “You brought this to my door. Do you understand what that place was? It was my life. It was everything! How could you let this happen?”
He doesn’t offer an apology. Instead, he holds himself completely still. “I will find out who did this,” he promises softly. “And I will end them.”
“That isn’t an answer!” The shout rips out of me. “It’s just you lying to yourself so you don’t have to admit you can’t stop any of this.”
A shadow passes through his eyes, quiet and lethal. “Your café was burned because you are mine to hurt. Ray Bellamy understands leverage. He wouldn’t have done this if I had never set foot in your café. The difference now is that you are not alone.”
The word mine lands like a strike I never saw coming.
Vega noses my leg. I sink to my knees because standing is impossible.
I lean forward, palms pressed to the floor, and the sound that leaves me isn’t delicate.
It’s grief uncontained. It rises from a place I’ve kept barricaded for years.
I cry like a daughter who built her world from flour and espresso, only to wake to ashes.
I cry like a sister who no longer knows how she’ll protect the one person depending on her.
When the tears finally run out, Vega moves closer until his weight centers me. My fingers slip into his fur, holding on to the warmth and the steady pulse of life pressed against me.
“My mother sanded every table herself,” I manage. “She picked the paint color because it looked like the inside of a cream puff. She wanted the town to have a place where people could rest.”
“She made one,” Luka says low.
I nod. “I left recipe cards in a box in the office. The last card had notes about her secret blue velvet frosting. A tiny pinch of baking soda. I don’t even know if I wrote that part down.”
“Someone will find the box,” he says. “We already have two teams on site. They will take everything that survived. They will speak with the fire captain, and I’ll pay to rebuild it.”
“Don’t touch what’s left,” I manage, brushing the wetness from my cheeks. “If there is anything to salvage, I’ll decide what to do.”
His gaze holds mine for a moment. “Very well.”
I climb back into the chair and reach for the mug. The tea is cold, but I take a swallow for no reason except to feel something that matches the ache inside me. Luka moves across from me, his presence heavy and quiet, like he’s holding the room together by force alone.
“Tell me what started it.” My voice is composed, but my hands betray me. They tremble around the mug, a small quake I can’t stop.
Luka leans back slightly, studying me with a detached calm that unnerves me. “A witness saw a man in a dark jacket go into the alley behind the café thirty minutes before the first sign of smoke. He left carrying nothing. Which tells me he didn’t need anything. He was sent to make a point.”
My stomach knots. “A point for who?”
“Ray Bellamy,” Luka replies, quiet but certain.
I blink at him, disbelief pushing through the haze. “Why do you think Ray did this? Why would he burn down the café? I’m no one to him.”
“Because he knows exactly how to strike where it hurts most,” Luka answers, his tone darkening. “And because he wants me to see what happens to anyone close to me.”
“You said he was dead.”
“I believed he was.” Luka’s eyes flick to the fire, the reflection of it briefly sharpening his features before he meets my gaze again.
“Since you came into my world, we’ve started pulling threads.
Locals have seen a man who fits his description.
Our contacts say he’s been moving under a false name out of New Mexico. ”
I stare at him, the mug slipping slightly in my hand. “And that makes you think it’s him?”
Luka nods once. “Our contacts said the man spoke about Colorado. About you. He didn’t name you, not outright, but he described a woman who ran a small business in a mountain town whose bloodline tied to the Bellamys. The moment I heard it, I knew the past had risen from its grave.”
My throat tightens. “So, Ray’s been alive all this time… just hiding?”
“Hiding. Waiting.” Luka’s tone is low, laced with deadly menace.
“Aligning himself with anyone who can give him reach. The Sokolovs have been trying to move into Colorado for years. They want my routes, my docks, and my foothold in the mountains. If Ray has resurfaced under their protection, he’s not just settling old grudges, he’s selling them a way to hurt me. ”
“So, he burns my café to… what? Get your attention?”
Luka’s expression hardens. “To draw me out. To prove he can still touch the Barinovs through you. He’s counting on your grief to make you unpredictable, and on me to make a mistake.”
“And you think this is just the start,” I say quietly.
“It always is,” Luka replies. “Fire is only ever the first warning.”
Misha appears at the doorway, his pale blue eyes moving from my face to Luka. “The chief thinks there was accelerant,” he says. “Too early to confirm. The block is secure. We have people on both ends.”
Luka’s phone rings, slicing through the quiet. He pauses, eyes narrowing before he answers. “Da.”
He listens. His jaw tightens, and he closes his eyes for a breath. “Put the caller through.”
My heart senses the fall before I see the drop. The air tightens, and Misha steps into the room.
Luka extends the phone toward me and puts it on speaker. “It’s for you.”
My hands don’t cooperate, and I nearly drop it. “Hello?”
“Is this Sage Bellamy?” The voice is female, clipped and professional, with a backdrop of beeping monitors and hurried footsteps.
My fingers tighten around the phone until my knuckles ache. “Yes,” I manage.
“I’m calling from St. Agnes Hospital. Your sister, Hope Bellamy, was brought in by ambulance about an hour ago with seizure activity. You’re listed as her emergency contact.”
The words knock the air from my lungs. The room seems to shrink, closing in until I can’t tell where my panic ends and the walls begin. “Yes, I’m her sister,” I whisper.
“There doesn’t appear to be any head trauma to indicate a fall,” the woman continues. “We administered benzodiazepine, and she responded quickly.”
I drag a shaking hand through my hair, gripping the strands at my scalp as if the sting will help me think. “Who called for the ambulance?”
“The name Hannah is listed as the caller.”
I nod even though she can’t see me, my chest tight and airless. “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
“Ask for Nurse Barrow at the desk.”
“Okay,” I breathe, the taste of bile sharp in my throat.
The line clicks off. I stare at the wall, the words looping in my head. Hope. Seizure. Ambulance.
My stomach twists as I lower the phone. “We’re going,” I insist, turning to Luka, my voice breaking on the edge of panic. “Now.”
He looks at Misha, then back at me. “We will take two cars and a blocker. I will call Kolya. We leave in five minutes.”
Misha disappears down the hall, the sound of his boots fading into the quiet.
For a moment, all I hear is the low hum of my pulse racing.
Luka sends a quick message, then moves, shattering the stillness.
I follow him out of the room, the echo of our footsteps trailing down the stairs like a heartbeat I can’t steady.
We step onto the porch. The aspens shimmer below us, gold and trembling, their leaves flashing like coins in the dim morning light. A black SUV idles in the drive, its headlights slicing through the fog. Misha is already in the driver’s seat. Another car waits at the end of the lane.
Luka opens the rear door with that old-world composure that feels both infuriating and disarming.
Vega hops in first, circling once before settling.
I slide into the seat next to him, the leather cool and smelling faintly of cedar and smoke.
Luka takes the passenger seat, back straight, command woven into every quiet breath. The dashboard clock reads 7:40 a.m.
The engine hums to life, and we roll forward, gravel crunching beneath the tires. Vega rests his head in my lap, a quiet, solid comfort. I keep my eyes on the passing trees, trying not to think about everything I’ve lost and what’s waiting at the end of the road.