Luka
The man says, “Misha Hale.”
For a second, I don’t move.
I hear the name. I understand the name. My mind receives it clearly, but something in me refuses to accept it in the same way the body rejects poison.
Misha.
The man I have trusted longer than almost anyone alive.
The man who stood beside me through deals, funerals, fights, and the kind of nights that separate friends from useful acquaintances.
The man whose little sister is standing somewhere above this room in my house, recovering from a head injury because someone broke into her apartment and struck her from behind.
The man tied to the chair starts crying harder.
“Please,” he says. “That’s what I was told. That’s the name. I swear. I swear on my mother.”
I step closer.
Pavel says, “Boss.”
I barely hear him.
My hand closes around the front of the prisoner’s shirt, and I drag his upper body forward as far as the restraints allow.
“Say that again,” I say.
The man’s face crumples. “Please.”
“Say it again.”
“Misha Hale,” the man says. “He paid through the handler. I never met him. I only got the name after the second job. They said it came from him.”
The rage hits so hard that for a moment I lose the room.
Not visibly, not in a way the prisoner can understand, but inside, the control I have spent my life building goes thin and useless.
I think of Misha in my bedroom after the attack, throwing me onto the bed with rough care, shouting at me because Nina was nearly shot.
I think of him at her apartment, asking to stay, looking hunted. I think of the car with the false registration. I think of his location turned off.
I think of the missing calls.
None of it fits. All of it fits.
That’s what makes it unbearable.
A small sound comes from behind me. A gasp.
I turn.
Nina’s standing halfway down the stairs, one hand on the railing, face pale, eyes fixed on the man tied to the chair.
For one stupid second, I forget the prisoner.
All I see is her.
Her bruised face. Her loose sweater. Her bare feet in the slippers my mother bought. The shock in her eyes as her brother’s name hangs in the room between us.
“Nina,” I say.
The prisoner moves.
I register it half a second late because my attention is on her.
He throws his weight sideways, chair and all, slamming hard into Pavel’s knee.
Pavel stumbles. The chair hits the floor, one wooden arm cracking against the concrete.
The man twists with a desperate animal sound, pulling one hand free from the broken restraint, then scrambles up with the chair still half attached to his other arm.
Pavel reaches for him.
The prisoner drives his shoulder into Pavel’s stomach and shoves him back.
Then he runs toward the stairs. Toward Nina.
She screams.
Everything becomes simple.
I draw my gun and fire once.
The shot cracks through the room.
The prisoner drops before he reaches the first step.
His body hits the floor hard, face turned toward the stairs, one hand still reaching.
Nina stops screaming.
Pavel straightens slowly, one hand against his side.
Two guards come rushing in through the lower door, weapons drawn, but there’s nothing left for them to do. The prisoner is dead on the floor. The blood spreads quickly beneath him, dark against the concrete.
I look at Nina.
She’s staring at the body. Then at the gun in my hand. Then at me.
Her face changes in a way I will not forget.
Shock first. Then horror. Then something worse. Not fear exactly.
Disgust.
I lower the gun. “He was coming toward you.” My voice sounds normal. Too normal.
Nina does not answer.
She looks at me as if I’m someone, she has always known was dangerous but has only now truly understood.
I want to explain. I want to tell her there was no time, that he had already hurt her once, that he was moving toward the stairs, that I would make the same choice again if the alternative was letting him reach her.
“Don’t be shocked,” I murmur. “You’ve seen me kill before.”
Her eyes flash. I know she remembers the garage, and I hate myself more for reminding her of it. But she needs to remember, she needs to know who Luka Kazan is.
I put the gun back into its holster. “Take her upstairs.”
Nina flinches at the command.
I hate myself for it immediately.
“No,” she says. Her voice is thin but clear.
“Nina,” I warn.
“No,” she says again. “Don’t order me around after that.”
Pavel looks between us and says nothing.
The guards stay still.
I cannot do this in front of them. I cannot look at her and see that expression on her face while the dead man lies between us and Misha’s name is still fresh in the air.
So I do the worst thing.
I leave.
I turn away from her, walk past Pavel, and go through the lower exit before I say something that will make it worse.
Behind me, Nina says my name once.
I don’t stop.
For the next two days, I avoid her.
There is no better word for it.
I could call it giving her space. I could call it letting her recover. I could call it protecting her from the uglier parts of the investigation, but I have lied enough to other people and don’t feel like lying to myself.
I avoid her because I remember the way she looked at me after I shot him.
I avoid her because every time I think about walking into her room, I imagine her taking a step back.
I avoid her because the dead man said Misha’s name, and I don’t know how to speak to her about that without taking something else from her.
I send food, medicine, updates that are too careful to mean much. I hear from Yelena that Nina is physically improving, that the headache is less severe, that she is eating, that she asks about Misha and gets angry when no one gives her anything useful.
I know she is angry with me.
Good.
Anger is better than fear.
I tell myself that until it starts sounding like an excuse.
Meanwhile, the evidence begins to build in the exact direction I don’t want it to go. Now that we’ve got a name, my men are looking closely into it. Even if it’s Misha Hale, my brother, not by blood but in every way that matters.
The first report comes from the garage access logs.
Pavel brings it to me in the study late the next morning, face controlled, tablet in hand.
Pavel says, “We recovered a deeper access record from the old server backup.”
I say, “And?”
Pavel says, “The temporary maintenance credential was created from an executive-floor terminal, as we already knew. But the terminal was unlocked using an internal keycard before the login.”
I look up.
Pavel hesitates.
That is enough.
“Whose card?”
Pavel says, “Misha Hale’s.”
For a moment, I say nothing.
Pavel continues carefully, “It may have been cloned. It may have been taken. The record only shows the credential ID, not the hand holding it.”
Sergei says, “Could be planted.”
Pavel nods. “Yes.”
I look at the tablet.
Misha’s internal credential number sits on the screen with a timestamp beside it.
How did we miss it before? I know exactly how. No one would ever suspect Misha, and he took advantage of that.
I say, “Where was Misha during the all-hands?”
Pavel says, “Marked as remote.”
“By whom?” I ask.
Pavel says, “Calendar entry came from his account.”
I look at him.
Pavel adds, “That can also be manipulated.”
Everything can be manipulated.
That’s the problem. The second report comes that afternoon.
Alina.
Pavel has a still image from a traffic camera outside a private clinic, three weeks before she came into my office. Alina is visible in sunglasses and a pale coat, stepping into a car.
A man is beside her. Not Roman.
Misha.
The image is grainy, but it’s him.
Same height. Same build. Same coat I’ve seen him wear a dozen times. Head turned slightly toward Alina as if he is speaking to her.
Pavel says, “There are two more sightings. One near a hotel restaurant. One at a side entrance to the old Aurelia building.”
I take the tablet from him and look at the images one by one. It’s the same car I saw standing outside Nina’s apartment building. So, it was Alina driving the car that day.
By the second evening, I’m in the lower office with Pavel, Sergei, and two analysts working through phone records, access logs, building footage, and every transaction channel connected to the dead man.
I have slept badly in a chair. I have not gone upstairs except once to stand outside Nina’s door like an idiot and then leave before knocking.
Yelena finds me near midnight and says, “You’re being cruel.”
I look at my mother.
She says, “Not by killing that man. By hiding from her afterward.”
“She needed space.”
My mother shakes her head. “You needed an excuse.”
I say nothing.
My mother says, “Luka.”
I say, “She looked at me like I was a monster.”
Yelena’s face softens, but she does not let me off. “Then show her something else.”
I don’t answer.
The next morning, Nina comes to the study before I find the courage to go to her.
I hear the commotion before I see her.
A guard outside says, “Miss Hale, he’s in a meeting.”
Nina says, “Move.”
The guard says, “I cannot allow—”
Nina says, “I have a concussion, not a contagious disease. Move.”
Another voice, Sergei this time, says, “Ms. Hale, please wait.”
The door opens.
Nina walks in wearing black leggings, an oversized sweater, and the pale slippers my mother bought. Her hair is tied back badly. Her face is still a little bruised, but her eyes are clear and furious.
Sergei follows her in with the expression of a man who knows he has failed and hopes I will appreciate the circumstances.
I say, “Let her in.”
Sergei stops. “Boss—”
“I said let her in.”
The men step back.
Nina looks at them, then at me. “That was generous.”
I say, “Leave us.”
Pavel remains near the side table with the files.
I look at him. “You too.”
Pavel says, “Boss, the documents—”
“Outside,” I say.
Nina says, “No. Let him stay.”
I look at her.
She does not look away. “I’m tired of conversations happening in rooms I’m not allowed to enter,” Nina says. “If Pavel knows everything, he can stand there while I ask questions.”
Pavel’s expression stays neutral.
I say, “Fine.”