Luka #2
Sergei and the others leave. Pavel remains by the table, quiet, tablet tucked under one arm.
Nina closes the door herself. That small act tells me more than her face does. She wants control of at least one exit.
I say, “You should be resting.”
Nina says, “I’m leaving.”
I stand. “No.”
Her eyes flash. “Am I your prisoner too?”
The room goes still.
Pavel looks down.
I don’t answer fast enough.
That is the mistake.
Nina’s face changes. “Wow,” Nina says quietly.
I swallow hard. “You are not my prisoner.”
“You said no before you said anything else.”
“Because you are not safe outside this house.”
“I’m not safe inside it either if the man who attacked me was being held in your basement and nobody thought to tell me.”
I say, “He could not reach you.”
“That is not the point.”
I know that. I hate that I know that.
I say, “Sit down.”
She gives me a look.
I correct myself. “Please.”
“I don’t want to sit.”
“You are pale.”
“I’m angry.”
“Both can be true.”
For a second, I think she will refuse out of principle. Then her hand moves briefly to the side of her head, and she hates that I see it. She walks to the chair opposite my desk and sits down with all the dignity a concussed woman in slippers can manage.
I stay standing because sitting feels impossible.
Nina says, “You have been avoiding me.”
“Yes,” I say.
At least that answer is honest.
Her mouth tightens. “Why?”
I look at her bruised face and tell her the truth I can manage. “Because of the way you looked at me after I shot him.”
She goes quiet. Then Nina says, “I watched someone die.”
“I know.”
“You did it right in front of me.”
“He was running toward you.”
“I know that too,” she says, voice sharper now. “Do you think that makes it easy to watch?”
“No.”
“Then why did you disappear?”
Because I’m a coward in ways no one would believe. Because I can face bullets more easily than her disgust. Because every violent thing in my life has been easier to justify when she did not have to see it.
“I handled it badly.”
Nina lets out a tired laugh. “That’s one way to put it.”
“I’m sorry.”
She looks down at her hands. “I don’t even know what I want you to be sorry for.”
She looks back up. “I want to talk about Misha.”
Pavel shifts slightly by the table.
I say, “All right.”
“He didn’t do this,” Nina says.
I say nothing.
She leans forward. “He didn’t.”
“Nina—”
“No,” she says. “Don’t say my name like I’m being emotional and you’re being rational. My brother loves me. He loves you. Whatever is going on, whatever that man said, Misha would never arrange for people to shoot at you or break into my apartment.”
I say, “The prisoner said he was paid through a handler using Misha’s name.”
“That could be a lie.”
“Yes,” I say.
“It could be planted.”
“Yes.”
“He could have been told to say it.”
“Yes,” I say. “Then what do you say about this?”
I turn my laptop toward her.
For a moment, she does not look down.
I think part of her already knows she will hate whatever is on the screen.
Then she lowers her gaze.
The footage is grainy, black and white, taken from the interior camera of Alina’s apartment building. The timestamp sits in the corner. The angle is poor, positioned high above a stairwell landing, but the picture is clear enough.
A door opens at the top of the frame.
Alina appears first.
She’s not dressed like a woman wandering around by accident. She has a coat pulled tight around her, a scarf over her hair, and one hand pressed protectively against the small bag at her side. She looks over her shoulder before stepping into the stairwell.
Then Misha appears behind her.
Nina stops breathing.
I watch her face instead of the screen because I’ve already watched the footage too many times.
Misha reaches for Alina’s arm, not roughly, but firmly enough that she does not move until he does. He checks the landing below, then guides her down the stairs. Alina stumbles once. Misha catches her immediately, says something the camera cannot hear, and keeps her moving.
They disappear from the frame.
The video jumps to another camera angle on the lower floor.
Misha and Alina appear again, moving faster now.
She looks frightened. He looks focused. There is no visible struggle, but there is no question that he is leading her out.
He knows where the cameras are. He keeps his head low, turns his face at the right moments, and uses the service stairwell instead of the elevator.
Pavel says nothing.
Nina leans one hand on the edge of my desk. Her fingers are trembling.
I say, “We found this footage from her apartment.”
Nina’s face is blank now. Not calm. Blank. Shock has wiped everything else away.
I say the rest because there is no kind way to deliver it. “He took her.”
Nina stares at the screen.
The footage loops back to the first frame, and Misha appears again behind Alina, same coat, same posture, same controlled urgency.
Nina whispers, “No.”
I don’t answer.
She shakes her head once, slowly, as if the movement might change what she is seeing. “No. That’s not—” Her voice breaks before she can finish.
I move around the desk, but she lifts a hand without looking at me.
“Don’t,” Nina says.
I stop.
Her eyes are wet, but furious. “You make it sound like kidnapping.”
“I’m saying what the footage shows.”
“No,” Nina says. “You’re saying what you already think.”
Pavel says, “The rear entrance camera shows them entering a gray car registered under a false company.”
“How convenient,” she says.
Pavel keeps his voice level. “I’m reporting the evidence.”
“You keep saying that,” Nina says.
Pavel says, “Because that’s what I’m doing.”
She freezes the video on the frame where Misha’s face is turned partly toward the camera.
Her hand lifts toward the screen but does not touch it. “He looks scared,” Nina says.
I look at the image.
He does look tense. He looks focused. He looks like a man moving under pressure.
Nina says, “He came to my apartment because he was scared. I told you that. He was jumpy, he kept checking the window, he wouldn’t explain anything, and now you have footage of him with Alina and everyone is acting like that automatically means he betrayed you.”
I say, “I’m not acting like anything automatically.”
She turns to me. “Yes, you are.”
I hold her gaze.
She says, “You already believe it.”
“I believe he is involved,” I say.
She makes a frustrated sound at the back of her throat.
“But that’s not all,” I say. I proceed to tell her what they found in the garage. Pavel looks at me as if I’m giving away too much information, and maybe I am. But she needs to know. She needs to understand what’s at stake.
Pavel shifts slightly by the table.
I look at him. “Leave us.”
Pavel says, “Boss—”
I say, “Now.”
Pavel’s eyes move to Nina, then back to me. “I will be outside.”
He leaves, closing the door behind him.
Nina and I are alone with the laptop still turned toward her, Misha’s face frozen on the screen between us.
I say, “You think I want this.”
She laughs once, and the sound is bitter. “I don’t know what you want anymore.”
I step away from the desk because if I stay too close, I will reach for her, and she does not want my hands right now.
I say, “I want your brother alive.”
Nina says, “Do you?”
“Yes,” I say.
“You shot a man in front of me two days ago,” Nina says.
The sentence cuts through the room.
She looks like she regrets saying it, but she does not take it back.
“He was running toward you.”
“I know,” Nina says. “I know that. I understand it in my head, Luka, but I still watched you do it.”
I say nothing.
She looks away first. Her voice lowers. “And now every piece of evidence points to my brother, and you’re standing there with that same look on your face.”
“What look?” I ask.