14. Luka
LUKA
By the time I leave Nina’s apartment, my shirt is buttoned wrong.
I notice it in the elevator reflection.
One side sits higher than the other, the collar crooked beneath my coat, the cuffs uneven because I had dressed with one good hand and far too little sense. I look like a man who has been dragged out of bed in a hurry, which is exactly what happened.
I fix the buttons slowly, jaw tight as the movement pulls at my shoulder. The wound punishes me for every careless thing I did last night. Carrying her. Holding her. Letting her pull me back into her bed when I should have had the discipline to leave after the first time.
I would do it again.
That’s the problem.
The elevator descends quietly, floor numbers blinking down while I stare at my own reflection and fail to recognize the man looking back at me.
My hair is not perfectly in place. There is a faint mark on my jaw where her mouth had been.
My cheek still carries the ghost of her slap, not visible enough for most people to notice, but I feel it.
I deserved that slap. I deserved worse.
I came to her apartment with her resignation in my hand and fury in my blood, and instead of letting her speak, I tore up the letter like the decision belonged to me.
She should have thrown me out. She should have called Misha immediately and let him put a bullet through the part of me that still believes wanting someone gives me the right to keep them.
But she kissed me.
She kissed me like she was angry enough to hurt me and hungry enough to forgive me at the same time.
I close my eyes for one second.
Bad idea.
All I see is her.
Nina in that oversized sweater, hair wild, mouth swollen, eyes too honest for my life.
Nina standing at the foot of the bed with a plate in her hands, telling me to shut up for a minute because she had brought breakfast. Nina scrolling through Alina Karelin’s Instagram while pretending she was doing nothing more serious than stalking a woman she disliked.
Then the video.
Alina laughing, Roman Karpov beside her.
My hand tightens around my phone.
The elevator doors open.
I step into the lobby and the spell breaks.
The building is ordinary in the morning. Someone’s child has left a sticker on the wall near the mailboxes. The concierge is half-asleep behind the desk. A delivery boy waits near the entrance with a stack of paper bags and an expression of deep resentment toward all humanity.
No one looks at me too closely.
I cross the small stretch of pavement toward my car.
The black car waits where I left it, tucked near the curb beneath a goldmohur tree, too sleek and too expensive for Nina’s apartment block.
I unlock it and slide into the driver’s seat carefully.
The second I sit down, the pain in my shoulder flares again. I breathe through it, close the door, and rest my head back for one moment.
One moment only.
My hand tightens on the steering wheel.
Her scent is still on me.
Her shampoo. Her skin. The coffee she forced into my hand this morning. The cheap soap from her bathroom. The fact that my mouth still remembers the softness of hers when she kissed me goodbye like she was trying not to mean it.
Nina Hale is going to be a problem.
No. She already is one.
My phone vibrates before I can start the car.
For one stupid second, I think it might be her.
It is.
Nina: You left your tie.
I look down.
She is right.
My tie is not around my neck. I do not remember taking it off. I remember her hands on my shirt. I remember her mouth against mine. I remember her thighs opening around me on that small bed while she tried to pretend she was not as desperate as I was.
The tie is probably still somewhere in her bedroom.
I type with one hand.
Luka: Keep it.
Her reply comes fast.
Nina: That sounds like evidence.
Luka: Evidence of what?
Nina: Poor decision-making.
I lean back against the seat.
My shoulder hurts, but for the first time in days, that is not the thing holding most of my attention.
Luka: You did not seem unhappy with the decision.
There is a pause.
Longer this time.
Good.
Nina: I was concussed by your audacity.
Luka: That is not a medical condition.
Nina: You are not a doctor.
Luka: I have one on staff.
Nina: Of course you do.
I almost smile.
Almost.
Then another message comes in.
Nina: Misha will be here any minute. You should stop texting me.
I stare at the screen.
The sensible thing is to stop.
I have already been inside her apartment too long. Her brother is coming. She is nervous. I should let her clean, hide the tie, fix her hair, pretend I was never there.
Instead, I type.
Luka: Did you fix your mouth?
Nina: Excuse me?
Luka: It looked kissed when I left.
No reply.
I wait.
Ten seconds.
Twenty.
Then:
Nina: I hate you.
Luka: No, you don’t.
Nina: I might.
Luka: You liked my mouth too much for that.
Another pause.
This one is better.
I imagine her standing in the middle of her bedroom, phone in hand, cheeks hot, trying to decide whether to be offended or honest. I imagine her bed behind her, sheets still ruined, my tie maybe on the floor, her skin still sensitive from my hands.
My cock hardens again.
I curse under my breath and shift in the seat.
Bad idea.
My shoulder objects immediately.
My body does not care.
Nina: You’re very arrogant for a man who just ran away before my brother could murder him.
Luka: I did not run.
Nina: You escaped.
Luka: Strategically withdrew.
Nina: Coward.
Luka: Careful.
Nina: Or what?
I read that twice.
Then I start the car but do not pull away.
Luka: Or I come back upstairs.
The reply comes almost immediately.
Nina: You cannot.
Luka: I can.
Nina: Wrong woman, Mr. Kazan. Do you text all your women this dramatically?
I frown.
Then I realize she is teasing.
Good.
She is getting comfortable enough to bite back.
Luka: No.
Nina: No?
Luka: I do not text women from the car after leaving their beds.
Nina: That sounds fake.
Luka: It is true.
Nina: Then what do you usually do?
Luka: Leave.
Her reply does not come for several seconds.
When it does, it is softer.
Nina: But you’re still here.
I look at her building through the windshield.
Yes.
I am still here.
Like an idiot.
Like a man who should know better.
Luka: Yes.
Nina: Why?
Luka: Because I can still taste you.
There is no reply.
The silence stretches.
Then my phone vibrates.
Nina: You cannot text me that when I have to look normal in five minutes.
Luka: You will not look normal.
Nina: Excuse me?
Luka: Your mouth is swollen. Your hair is a mess. There is a mark on your neck.
Nina: There is not.
Luka: There is.
Nina: Where?
I don’t answer.
Nina: Ugh, you’re so annoying.
Nina: You are a menace, so full of yourself. And that mouth!!!
Luka: You like my mouth and the thing it did to you.
Nina: I said be specific. I liked your mouth in a lot of places.
The phone nearly slips in my hand.
I go still.
That is the first thing she has sent that is not defensive, not joking around the edges, not pretending she is only reacting to me.
Luka: I’ll tell you where it is once you tell me.
Nina: I hate texting with you.
Luka: No, you don’t.
Nina: I like your mouth between my legs. Happy?
I close my eyes for one second.
My hand flexes on the steering wheel.
The car feels too small.
My trousers feel worse.
Luka: Very.
Nina: You are not supposed to say very.
Luka: I am supposed to lie?
Nina: You are supposed to be normal.
Luka: Too late.
Nina: Clearly.
I glance toward the entrance of her building.
No Misha yet.
Not that I have any business watching for him.
I should leave.
I do not.
Luka: Are you wet again?
The dots appear.
Disappear.
Appear again.
Then nothing.
I wait.
Luka: Answer me.
Nina: Maybe.
Luka: That means yes.
Nina: It means maybe.
Luka: Touch yourself and check.
A full minute passes.
I sit there in the car, shoulder aching, cock hard, phone in my hand, waiting like a man with no control over himself.
Finally:
Nina: You are insane.
Luka: Did you?
Nina: Yes.
I inhale slowly.
Luka: And?
Nina: Yes.
That single word goes through me harder than it should.
Luka: Good.
Nina: You are enjoying this too much.
Luka: You are in your bedroom with no underwear touching yourself because I told you to. I am enjoying it exactly enough.
Nina: I did not say I was still touching myself.
Luka: Are you?
A pause.
Nina: Yes.
I grip myself through my trousers and exhale through my teeth. This is getting out of hang.
Luka: I’m leaving.
Nina: Okay.
I can tell she’s disappointed but I have to leave for my own sanity.
I start the engine.
Then I see him.
Misha.
He’s across the street, getting out of a dark sedan that is not his.
My hand stills on the gear shift.
The car is pulled close to the opposite curb, engine still running. Tinted windows. Dark paint. No visible damage except a small dent near the left taillight. The kind of car chosen by men who don’t want to be remembered.
Misha steps out quickly, checking both sides of the street before he briskly walks away.
His shoulders are tense, his jaw locked, and even from inside my car, even through the glass and distance, I can see the distress on him.
Most people would miss it. I don’t.
I have known Misha too long. I know the difference between his temper and his fear.
My frown deepens.
Misha does not frighten easily. He gets angry. He gets violent. He gets overprotective to the point of madness. But fear, real fear, takes something larger.
The sedan waits a few seconds after he closes the door.
Then it pulls away from the curb.
I lift my phone and take a picture of the rear plate through the windshield.
Once. Then again as the car moves.
I take one more photo as it turns at the end of the street, catching the rear window and a partial reflection of the driver in the side mirror.
The car disappears.
Misha crosses toward Nina’s building without looking back.
I remain still.
The sensible thing would be to call him.
But if Misha sees me sitting outside Nina’s building at this hour, dressed in the same clothes I wore yesterday, with my shirt still crooked and her mouth still on mine, there will be no conversation.
I let him enter the building.
Then I look down at the photo again.
Something is wrong. First that video, now this?
Too many pieces are moving at once.
And I don’t believe in coincidence.
I put the car into gear and pull away from the curb before Misha can look out a window and see me.
The drive home takes longer than it should. Morning traffic moves slowly, and every delay makes my pain worse, the kind of deep, pulsing pain that tells me Doctor Mirov would call me an idiot in three languages if he saw me driving.
He would be correct.
That doesn’t matter.
At the estate gates, the guards open before I stop. One of them looks at me through the windshield, notices the state of my shirt, then wisely decides blindness is a survival skill.
I park myself instead of handing the car off.
The moment I step inside, my mother is waiting in the breakfast room.
Yelena Kazan sits by the window with tea, wrapped in a pale shawl, her silver-blonde hair pinned loosely at the back of her head. She looks soft to people who have never known better. I know exactly how sharp she can be when she wants an answer.
Her eyes move over me once.
My face. My shirt. My shoulder.
Then back to my face.
“You look terrible,” she says.
“Good morning, Mama.”
“It was,” she says, “until my son came home looking like he dressed while escaping a jealous husband.”
I take coffee from the sideboard with one hand. “There was no husband.”
“That is not a denial of the rest.”
I drink the coffee. It’s too hot, but I don’t care.
She watches me carefully. “You drove yourself?”
“Yes.”
“With that shoulder?”
“It is my left shoulder.”
“You use both shoulders to drive.”
“I managed.”
She shakes her head. “You’re too stubborn.”
“I already have a doctor.”
“And yet you avoid him.”
“Because he annoys me.”
“He annoys you because he is correct.”
I set the cup down. “Where is Mirov?”
“On his way.”
I look at her.
She lifts her teacup. “Don’t look at me like that. I called him before you entered the house.”
“I’m not a child.”
“No,” she says calmly. “Children listen better.”
Then my phone vibrates again.
Pavel.
Pavel: Security report from garage incident updated. Will send within hour.
I stare at the message.
Pavel Semyonov is efficient. Quiet. Too neat in his habits. He’s been useful since the day I hired him, but useful is not the same as loyal. Useful men are often loyal only until someone pays them to be useful elsewhere.
I attach the photos of the sedan.
Me: Identify this car. Owner, driver, route this morning, cameras around Nina Hale’s block. Quietly.
His reply comes quickly.
Pavel: Understood.
I look at the word for a few seconds.
My mother notices my expression. “What is it?”
“A car I don’t like.”
“Cars have started offending you?”
“Men inside them have.”
She sets her cup down. “Does this involve the girl?”
I look at her.
She does not blink.
Mothers are worse than interrogators. Interrogators need tools. Mothers only need silence.
“It involves many things,” I say.
“And Nina is one of them.”
I don’t answer.
She sighs softly. “Luka.”
“Don’t.”
“I have not said anything.”
“You are about to.”
“Yes,” she says. “You were with her yesterday?”
I look back at her. “You are becoming intrusive.”
“I have always been intrusive. You were simply less interesting before.”
I almost laugh, then stop because the movement hurts. I sit.
Not because she wins.
Because my shoulder is burning, and I need both hands steady if I’m going to deal with what comes next.
My phone buzzes.
Pavel.
Pavel: Plate appears reassigned. Running through contacts. Driver not identified yet.
I type back immediately.
Me: Pull traffic cameras within ten blocks. Private feeds if public ones fail. Find where it came from before her building and where it went after.
Pavel: On it.
I send the stills from Alina’s Instagram next.
Me: Identify everyone in this clip. Focus on the man beside Alina Karelin. Confirm if it is Roman Karpov.
There is a pause before Pavel answers.
Pavel: Understood.
Something big is forming.
I can feel it the way I feel a storm before rain reaches the windows.
They made one mistake.
Nina found the thread.
And now I’m going to pull until something breaks.