8. Luka
LUKA
The moment Misha takes Nina out of the room, I feel the actual loss of her.
The room changes. The air thins.
The pain in my shoulder, which I’ve been ignoring with reasonable success, throbs until the entire left side of my body becomes one hard, pulsing ache.
Doctor Mirov says something to me, but I don’t hear it properly.
My eyes stay on the doorway long after Nina disappears through it with her brother’s hand wrapped around her wrist.
There is blood on the floor.
Blood on my skin.
Blood on the torn remains of my shirt.
And still, what I notice most is that she’s gone.
Pathetic. Unacceptable.
I close my eyes for half a second and immediately regret it, because behind my eyelids she’s there too: pale in the medical room lights, hair loose around her face, my blood dried across her hands like accusation.
“Mr. Kazan,” Mirov says.
I open my eyes. “Finish.”
His expression does not change, but I know what he’s thinking. He has treated me long enough to understand that my patience worsens in direct proportion to how much pain I’m pretending not to feel.
“The bullet passed cleanly enough to remove,” he says. “But there’s muscle damage. You will not use the arm for at least two weeks.”
“No.”
He pauses.
I look at him.
He sighs. “One week, if you are determined to be foolish.”
“Better.”
“It’s not better. It’s medically irresponsible.”
“Then write that down.”
He mutters something under his breath and continues stitching.
It hurts more now that Nina’s not watching.
That’s the humiliating truth of it. While she stood in the room, wide-eyed and shaking but refusing to leave, I could sit upright beneath the lights and give her control because she needed to see it.
Because if I had so much as flinched, she would have broken.
Because her fear had filled the room more dangerously than the blood did, and I could not bear to add to it.
Now she’s gone, and the pretense costs more.
The anesthetic dulls the surface, but deeper than that, the wound burns with each pull of the needle. My jaw tightens. My fingers curl around the edge of the mattress. Once, when Mirov cleans too close to torn tissue, my breath leaves through my nose in a sound too sharp to be dignified.
He pretends not to hear it.
A sensible man.
My mother stands near the cabinet with both hands folded in front of her, her face composed in the way I’ve seen too many times.
It’s the expression she wore when my father was brought home bleeding.
It’s the expression she wore when men came to the house at midnight and spoke in low voices.
It’s the expression she wore the first time she understood that I would not escape this life, because by then I’d already chosen to rule it.
“You frightened her,” she says.
I look at her. “The shooting frightened her.”
“You frightened her too.”
I say nothing.
My mother has always had an unfortunate habit of seeing through locked doors.
“She’s not one of them,” Yelena says softly.
“I know.”
“Do you?”
Before I can answer, the door opens.
Misha comes in first. Nina follows behind him.
Whatever conversation they had in the hallway has left marks on both of them.
Misha looks carved out of anger, his mouth set, his eyes hard.
Nina looks sullen, pale beneath the flush that still clings to her cheeks, her arms crossed tightly in front of her as if she is holding herself together by force.
Misha’s hand rests briefly at the back of her neck, protective and familiar, before he lets it fall. Nina steps away from him almost immediately, as if she resents needing the comfort.
I understand enough to know I will not like the rest.
Mirov finishes the final stitch and starts binding my shoulder. “No sudden movements. No lifting. No driving. No alcohol tonight.”
Misha snorts. “Good luck with that.”
Mirov glances at him. “I give medical instructions. Whether my patients follow them is between them and God.”
Nina makes a small sound. My eyes find hers immediately. She notices and looks away.
My mother sees it. Misha, unfortunately, also sees it.
Mirov steps back, satisfied with the bandage. “He needs rest.”
“I can walk,” I say.
“No,” my mother says.
“No,” Mirov says.
“No,” Nina says.
All three of them speak at once. The room stills.
Nina looks annoyed with herself for saying anything.
Misha looks annoyed with everyone.
My mother looks faintly amused, which is never a good sign.
I push myself off the medical bed anyway.
Pain rips through my shoulder so sharply that for one second, I lose the room at the edges. Not visibly. Not enough for anyone but Misha to catch.
He’s beside me before I can hide it, one hand gripping my good arm, his shoulder braced under mine.
“Stubborn bastard,” he mutters.
“Language,” my mother says automatically.
“He was shot,” Misha says.
“And yet,” she says, “I remain his mother.”
Nina’s mouth twitches.
Misha helps me stand. I allow it because refusing would be theatre, and I don’t have the blood left for theatre. The bandage is tight across my shoulder. My arm feels heavy and useless. My skin’s still tacky where blood dried before Mirov cleaned most of it away.
I hate being weak in front of anyone.
In front of Nina, it feels indecent.
We leave the medical room slowly. My mother walks ahead, speaking to one of the staff in a low voice. Mirov follows with his bag, still listing instructions no one intends to follow properly. Nina walks behind me and Misha.
I know the exact distance without turning.
Three steps.
Close enough that I can hear the soft sound of her shoes against the floor.
Far enough that she’s not touching me.
The arrangement pulls something old from memory before I can stop it.
Another hallway. Another night. The Hale house, years ago.
Misha and I younger, bloodless for once, returning from some meeting I barely remember.
Nina had been seven, maybe eight, all dark hair and fierce little eyes, padding after us in socks because she’d decided she was old enough to sit with us.
Misha kept telling her to go to bed.
She kept ignoring him.
I remember her small face tipped up in outrage, demanding to know why boys got to talk about important things after midnight while she had to sleep. She wanted to be included so desperately. Wanted to be old enough, useful enough, allowed enough.
She wanted to be our friend.
No. She wanted to belong to whatever world Misha belonged to, because she loved him and thought that meant the world must be safe if he stood inside it.
I remember carrying her once after she fell asleep on a sofa during a family dinner. She had smelled like sugar and shampoo. Her cheek had rested against my shoulder for less than a minute before she woke, realized it was me, and pretended to still be asleep because she wanted to be carried.
She was so small then.
And now—
Now I know the taste of her.
The thought turns my stomach.
Not because I didn’t want her. That would be a lie, and I’ve had enough lies for one day.
Because I did. Because I do.
Because the wanting is no longer abstract, no longer something I can lock behind age, loyalty, distance, employment, duty, Misha.
It’s become physical fact. My mouth on her.
Her hands in my hair. Her breath breaking in the boardroom.
Her body telling me the truth before either of us had the courage to say it.
I practically saw her grow up.
The thought is not new. It is the wall I built first and highest.
Nina as a child. Nina as Misha’s little sister. Nina sitting cross-legged on the floor while men spoke over her head.
Nina at twelve, rolling her eyes when I gave her earrings because I didn’t know what girls that age actually wanted.
Nina leaving for university.
When did it change?
Not today. That would be easier to condone.
Not in the boardroom. Not when her message appeared on my phone. Not when I lifted her onto the table and let desire win over sense.
It changed before that.
Quietly. Dangerously.
A remark over coffee that made me laugh before I could stop myself.
The way she learned the business faster than men twice her age.
The first time she corrected a board member without raising her voice and left him apologizing to her.
The red lipstick she wore to a winter gala where I spent two hours pretending not to notice her mouth.
The morning she walked into my office, called me impossible, and fixed my entire schedule while senior staff waited outside like frightened schoolboys.
At some point, the girl who wanted to follow us down forbidden hallways became a woman I watched.
And today, she became a woman I touched.
My grip tightens around Misha’s shoulder.
He glances at me. “Pain?”
“No.”
“Liar.”
Nina’s steps falter behind us.
I don’t turn around.
We reach the upstairs floor. My suite occupies the west wing of the estate because I prefer distance, quiet, and exits.
Misha pushes the door open with his foot and helps me inside with the practical roughness of a man who has carried me wounded before and does not intend to make ceremony out of it.
The bedroom is already lit.
Low lamps. Fire in the grate. Heavy curtains drawn against the night. Dark walls, pale sheets, clean lines, old wood. A large bed I have slept in alone for years without thinking much about it.
Until Nina steps inside.
Then I think about it.
Unfortunately.
She pauses just inside the door, still holding her coat, eyes moving around the room despite the guarded set of her face. Curiosity survives shock, then. Good. I would rather see curiosity than the hollow terror she wore in the garage.
Misha steers me toward the bed and drops me onto it with more force than necessary.
Pain tears through my shoulder.
I breathe out hard through my nose.
Nina takes one step forward. “Careful.”
Misha looks at her. “He’s survived worse.”
“That doesn’t mean you have to throw him like luggage.”
Misha rolls his eye.
I sit against the headboard, waiting for the room to stop shifting at the edges. The bandage pulls tight over the wound. My shoulder pulses with each heartbeat. My mother has disappeared to deal with the staff, though I know she is close enough to return the moment she feels needed.
Misha turns to me. “What do you want to eat?”
I open my mouth.
Nina answers first. “Broth, black bread, and tea with lemon. No sugar. And he’ll pretend he doesn’t want the cherry jam but bring it anyway because he’ll eat it if it’s there.”
Silence.
Misha looks at her. I look at her.
Nina realizes what she’s done half a second too late. Color rises in her face, but she lifts her chin as if daring either of us to comment.
“I manage his schedule,” she says. “And his meals. Sometimes. It’s not strange.”
It’s strange. Not because she knows. Because she knows accurately.
Because the answer came without effort, without checking a note, without needing to think.
Misha’s eyes move from Nina to me.
There is a question there now. Not accusation. Not yet.
How much of you does she know? How much of you have you let her see?
I keep my face empty.
Misha’s mouth tightens, but he only says, “I’ll tell the staff.”
“I can—” Nina starts.
“I’ll do it,” he says. The tone leaves no space for argument.
Nina closes her mouth.
He looks at me once. Then at her. Then he leaves.
The door closes behind him.
Nina and I are alone. For the first time since the parking garage.
She stands near the foot of my bed, coat still folded over one arm, hair loose, expression closed in a way that does not suit her.
Whatever Misha told her in the hall has not left her.
It sits in the angle of her shoulders, in the way she avoids the chair near my bed like sitting would mean staying.
I lean back against the pillows and look at her.
She looks back.
Neither of us speaks.
The silence is different this time.
Finally, she says, “You should rest.”
“Is that an order?”
“It’s common sense.”
“I rarely use that.”
“I’ve noticed.”
I let myself look at her for one second longer than I should. “What did Misha say to you?”
Her expression closes at once. “Nothing.”
A poor lie. We both know it.
“Nina.”
“No,” she says. “You don’t get to ignore me all day, bleed on me in a garage, bring me to your giant murder mansion, and then ask questions like you’re entitled to every thought in my head.”
“Murder mansion?”
Her eyes flash. “That’s what you took from that sentence?”
“It’s just a large house.”
“It has a medical room behind a bookshelf.”
“For convenience.”
“For gunshot wounds.”
“For several kinds of wounds.”
“Do you hear yourself when you talk?”
Despite the pain, despite the blood loss, despite the fact that the day has fallen entirely into chaos, something inside me eases.
She’s angry. Anger means she’s not only afraid.
I look at her hands. They’re clean now, but not completely. A faint trace of blood remains near one fingernail.
My blood.
“You should not have seen any of this,” I say.
Something shifts across her face.
“No,” she says quietly. “Probably not.”
“And yet you’re still here.”
Her gaze drops to the floor. Sullen again. Hurt, maybe. Guarded in a way she was not this morning.
I hate not knowing what Misha said to her.
I hate more that I have no right to ask.
But I ask anyway.
“What did he say?” I repeat, softer this time.
She looks up. For a moment, she looks younger than she is. Not childish. Never that. But wounded in a way that reminds me of the girl who hated being left out of rooms she was too young to understand.
Then she says, “Ask him.”
I look toward the closed door, where Misha’s footsteps have already disappeared down the hall, and understand one thing with absolute clarity.
Whatever he said to her, it has placed him between us.
And for the first time in all the years I’ve known him, I’m not sure I’ll let him stay there.
Misha returns ten minutes later with a tray in his hands and suspicion all over his face. He doesn’t do it very gracefully, but not because he’s clumsy.
Misha’s never clumsy. He can take apart a pistol blindfolded, drive through hostile traffic without spilling coffee, and once, when I was seventeen, he caught me by the back of my jacket before I fell off a balcony I had absolutely no business climbing onto.
But domestic things make him look offended.
The tray has a bowl of broth, black bread, a small dish of cherry jam, and tea with lemon. Exactly what I said. Exactly what Luka would have ordered, even though he would have done it with fewer words and more arrogance.
Misha sets the tray on the low table near the bed and looks between us.