13. Nina #3
I look back at the frozen story. Alina’s laughing in the hallway. The man beside her is half blurred, almost nothing to me. But Luka looks at him like he has just found a knife in his own bed.
“She knows him?” I ask.
“It appears so.”
“And that matters because…”
“I don’t know,” he says, frustration creeping into his voice.
I stare at the screen again. The pieces are still not fully clear to me, but I can feel the shape of them beginning to change.
“Could the baby be his?” I ask.
“It’s possible.”
My stomach sinks. “Would she lie about something like that?”
Luka looks at me. His expression is grim. “People lie for money,” he says. “They lie for protection. They lie because someone dangerous told them to.”
I hate how easily he says it.
I hate more that I believe him.
I look down at Alina’s frozen face, her smile bright and careless in the hallway, Roman Karpov half visible beside her.
“So what does this mean?” I ask.
“It means Alina did not come to me by accident.”
The room goes quiet.
Luka starts to sit forward.
I put my hand on his chest immediately. “No.”
His eyes cut to mine. “Nina.”
“You are not getting up.”
“I need to make calls.”
“Later then,” I say.
He takes my phone from my grip. “Well, if I can’t use my phone, neither can you.”
He keeps it on the bed.
I scowl at him.
“I’m still your boss,” he tells me.
I roll my eyes. “I think we’re past that.”
He leans in, and my shameless body reacts immediately, my eyes fluttering close. “Yes, we are,” he says sexily.
Then my phone starts to vibrate against the bed.
Misha.
We both look at the screen.
My entire body goes cold.
Luka’s expression changes by half a degree. “Answer it.”
“No.”
“Nina.”
“No,” I hiss. “Absolutely not.”
The phone keeps ringing.
I stare at it like it is a bomb. Because it is.
A brother-shaped bomb.
If I answer, Misha will know. I don’t know how, but he will. He will hear something in my voice, some microscopic crack in my breathing, and the next thing I know, he will be here with a gun, a lecture, and enough emotional damage to ruin all three of our lives.
The call ends.
I exhale. Then a text appears.
Misha: I’m on my way.
“Shit. Shit, shit, shit.”
Luka watches me with insulting calm. “Problem?”
“My brother is coming.”
“I read.”
“You have to go.”
His brow lifts. “If I don’t?”
I stare at him. “Then my brother will kill you.”
Luka looks almost amused. “He can try.”
“No.” I point at him. “I can’t deal with this right now. This is not the time for you two to test friendship through attempted murder in my living room.”
He sits back against the pillows, looking far too comfortable for a man who is half naked in the apartment of his best friend’s little sister while said best friend is apparently on his way.
“You’re panicking,” he says.
“Yes, Luka, I’m panicking. Because unlike you, I’m not emotionally prepared to explain why you’re in my bed before breakfast.”
His gaze moves over me, slow and shameless. “Technically, after breakfast.”
I grab a pillow and hit his good side with it.
He catches it, laughing under his breath, then winces because apparently even laughter offends his bullet wound.
“See?” I snap. “You can’t even laugh without suffering. Get dressed.”
“You are ordering me out.”
“Yes.”
“After everything.”
“Especially after everything.”
His amusement fades a little. So does mine.
For one second, the joke drops, and we’re looking at each other in my messy bed, both knowing this is not really funny.
Luka reaches for my hand.
I let him take it.
His thumb moves over my knuckles once. “You’re still leaving?”
My throat tightens. “My apartment? No. You are.”
His eyes hold mine. “That’s not what I meant.”
“I know.”
I don’t answer the real question. Not now. Not with Misha on his way and my heart already halfway up my throat.
Luka sees that too. He always sees too much.
Instead of pushing, he gets out of bed carefully, which is how I know the situation is serious. I help him with his shirt, trying very hard not to think about the fact that I’m buttoning the same man I was undressing hours ago.
He gets his trousers on with only mild profanity in Russian, which I pretend not to hear because I’m generous under crisis. I find his coat from the back of the chair and hold it out.
He looks at me.
“What?” I ask.
“You look guilty.”
“I am guilty.”
“No,” he says. “You look like a woman hiding evidence.”
“You are the evidence.”
That makes him smile.
A real one this time, small but there, and it hits me so unexpectedly that I almost forget Misha is on his way to potentially commit a felony.
“Go,” I say, softer now.
Luka steps closer instead. “I will.”
“You’re moving away from the door, dude.”
He reaches me and, for once, does not grab, demand, corner, or overwhelm. His hand comes to my face carefully, his thumb brushing my cheek with a gentleness that makes my chest ache.
Then he bends and kisses me.
A kiss that feels less like winning an argument and more like making a promise neither of us is ready to say out loud.
When he pulls back, I don’t open my eyes immediately.
Because I’m an idiot.
Because I want him to stay.
Because he absolutely cannot.
His forehead rests against mine for half a second, before he turns and leaves.