20. Luka #2
That irritates him. He wanted a reaction. Men who come to hint at betrayal want anger, not dismissal. Anger makes them feel important.
Kirill steps half a pace closer. “Some people understand the value of flexibility.”
“And some men mistake a leash for support.”
His face tightens.
Nina looks up at me, and I feel her catch the meaning even if she doesn’t know the full story.
Oleg speaks for the first time. “Business changes quickly.”
I look at him. “Not for everyone.”
The silence after that is brief and unpleasant.
Kirill recovers first. “We’ll see.”
“Yes,” I say. “We will.”
I move to pass them.
Kirill’s eyes go to Nina again. “Enjoy your evening, Miss…”
He waits for her to fill the space, but she doesn’t.
Good girl.
I turn my head slowly. “Don’t.”
Kirill’s smile disappears.
He lifts his hands in a small gesture of surrender. “No offense meant.”
“Then none should be taken,” Oleg says, voice flat.
I look at him. “You should teach him silence. It would improve his survival rate.”
Nina makes a very small sound beside me, almost a breath, almost a laugh, but she swallows it quickly.
Kirill’s face darkens.
I don’t give him another second.
I guide Nina past them and continue toward the exit. Behind us, Kirill says something low to Oleg, but I don’t turn back.
“Who are they?” Nina asks curiously.
“Cockroaches,” I say simply. “They don’t matter.”
She nods. “People rarely do in your life.”
I look at her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
She doesn’t reply.
The photographers at the entrance call my name as we step outside. I ignore them. Sergei is already at the car, checking the handle, undercarriage, and rear wheel wells with methodical efficiency.
Nina watches the check without making a joke, and that tells me enough about where her mind is.
I open the passenger door once Sergei nods. She gets in, gathering the skirt of her dress carefully, her face turned away from the cameras.
I close the door and walk around to the driver’s side.
I get into the car.
Nina does not look at me.
I start the engine and pull away from the entrance, the security car sliding into position behind us. The venue lights recede in the mirror. Cameras flash against the rear window until we turn through the gates and join the main road.
For the first few minutes, I give her silence.
She uses it like a wall.
Her hands are folded in her lap, fingers resting over the small purse where Roman may have put something. I saw the way her hand kept moving toward it after the dance. She thinks I didn’t notice.
Well, I noticed. I notice too much where she’s concerned, and still not enough to keep Roman away from her for three fucking minutes.
“You’re very quiet.”
She doesn’t turn to me. “You accused me of lying in the middle of a gala.”
“I did.”
“That’s your apology?”
“No. That is me admitting the first part.”
She exhales, still looking outside. “Then continue.”
“I was angry.”
“I noticed.”
“I didn’t handle it well.”
That makes her turn her head.
Her face is calm, but her eyes are not. She looks hurt, and that’s harder to deal with than anger.
“You didn’t even ask me properly,” she says. “You decided I was hiding something and then started speaking to me like I was one of your employees who made a mistake.”
I grip the wheel tighter, then force my hand to relax. “You are my employee.”
Her expression closes.
I correct myself immediately. “That came out wrong.”
“You know what the problem is?” she asks, voice quiet now. “You want this both ways. You want me close to you, but the second you feel out of control, you treat me like staff again. Or worse, like a problem to solve.”
I keep my eyes on the road because looking at her while she says this would make it harder to think clearly.
“I’m used to solving problems,” I say.
“I’m not a problem.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
I don’t answer fast enough.
She laughs softly, but there is no humor in it. “That’s what I thought.”
The car is quiet for a few seconds.
Traffic slows near a signal. I stop behind a line of cars, the red light washing across the windshield.
“I don’t trust easily,” I say.
“I know that.”
“No,” I say, looking at her now. “You know I’m controlling. You know I’m careful. That’s not the same thing.”
Her anger shifts slightly, but she says nothing.
I look back at the light. “There are people who have sat at my table, called me brother, smiled at my mother, taken my money, sworn loyalty, and still sold pieces of me the moment it benefited them. After a while, you stop asking whether people will betray you and start asking what it will cost them to do it.”
Nina’s face changes, though it’s not pity. “I’m not them.”
“I know.”
“You keep saying that after you already act like I am.”
That’s fair. Painfully fair.
The light turns green.
I drive. “I’m trying.”
She looks out of the window again. “I know.”
“You don’t sound convinced.”
“I’m not fully convinced.”
At least she’s honest.
“What did you want me to do?” I ask.
She turns back. “Trust me for longer than five seconds.”
“That’s not simple for me.”
“It isn’t simple for me either,” she says.
“You think I’m comfortable with this? I spent months watching women come in and out of your life.
I spent yesterday thinking one of them was pregnant with your child.
I slept with you anyway. I came to this gala with you even though I knew people would look at me.
And then the moment something happened, you acted like I had failed some test I didn’t even know I was taking. ”
I say nothing. There’s nothing useful to say yet.
She’s right.
“I can handle anger, Luka. I can handle you being difficult. I can even handle you being bossy when there’s a reason. What I can’t handle is feeling like the second I don’t explain myself perfectly, you put me on the other side of the room from you.”
That image sits in my head.
My phone vibrates in the console.
I glance down.
A text from Sergei.
Everything okay? You slowed down.
I look at the speedometer.
Shit, he’s right.
I’ve dropped almost twenty below the limit without noticing.
For a second, I don’t understand how it happened. Then Nina shifts beside me, quiet in the passenger seat, still turned partly toward the window, and I realize I’ve slowed because I’m dragging out the drive.
Because once I reach her apartment, she will get out, go upstairs, close the door, and I’ll stand in the hallway pretending that walking away from her is a choice I make easily.
I’m a grown man with enemies, responsibilities, a wounded shoulder, and a security team following two cars behind me, and I’m driving like a teenager who does not want to drop a girl home after a date.
Nina sees me glance at the phone. “What?”
“Nothing.”
I signal left.
Nina’s head turns. “This isn’t the way to my apartment.”
“I know.”
“Then where are you going?”
I take the turn. The security car follows.
Nina looks from the road to my face. “Luka.”
I say nothing.
At the next intersection, I turn right.
The security car follows again.
My phone vibrates almost immediately.
I ignore it.
Nina’s eyes narrow. “Are you avoiding your own security?”
“Yes.”
She stares at me. “Why?”
Because I want ten minutes without men in earpieces behind us.
Because I’m tired of being watched. Because I don’t want to let go of her just yet.
I say, “Because they’re irritating me.”
“That is such a ‘you’ answer.”
“It’s an honest one.”
“It’s not a complete one.”
“No.”
I take another turn, this one sharper, into a quieter road lined with shuttered shops and parked cars. Sergei’s car tries to follow, but traffic slips between us at the wrong moment.
I accelerate just enough to make the gap useful.
Nina grips the edge of her seat. “Luka, what are you doing?”
I look at her once.
Then back at the road.
“Losing the security,” I say.