Chapter 8 – Lukyan
Sofia’s belongings arrive at the estate the next afternoon.
I’m on the balcony outside my bedroom, sipping vodka straight from the bottle, when the truck pulls through the gates.
I wasn’t waiting for it.
At least, that’s what I tell myself.
The vehicle rolls to a stop in front of the house, and a moment later, the front doors open.
Sofia practically appears out of nowhere.
I find myself watching.
She hurries down the steps before the driver has even finished parking.
From this distance, I can’t hear what she’s saying, but I can see the excitement written all over her.
It changes her completely. The guarded expression she’s worn since the wedding disappears, replaced by something younger and brighter.
She looks genuinely happy.
The movers begin unloading boxes and luggage.
There are several suitcases.
A few storage containers.
Enough possessions to suggest she actually lived somewhere before being dropped into my life.
Sofia barely glances at any of it.
Instead, she heads directly for one particular box.
My eyes narrow.
Interesting.
The movers are still unloading when she crouches beside it and opens it.
Even from here, I know immediately what’s inside.
Books.
Of course.
The woman treats books the way most people treat family.
A small smile touches my mouth before I can stop it.
She begins removing them one by one, checking their condition as though she’s greeting old friends.
Then she does something incredibly stupid.
She lifts the entire box.
My jaw tightens immediately.
The thing is obviously heavy.
I can see the effort in the way her shoulders tense and her arms strain beneath the weight.
One of the men reaches for it.
Another says something.
Sofia shakes her head.
Stubborn.
The box wobbles slightly as she adjusts her grip and starts carrying it toward the house.
I push away from the balcony railing.
What the hell is she doing?
The movers are literally standing right there.
She disappears through the front doors.
I turn and stride back into my room.
A minute later, I’m downstairs.
I tell myself it’s because I need to speak with Ben. Not because I’m checking on my wife. Definitely not that.
The lie lasts all of ten seconds.
By the time I enter the foyer, I see her heading toward the staircase with the box. It’s obviously too heavy for her.
Her arms are wrapped around it awkwardly. The cardboard is digging into her sweater, and she’s moving carefully, concentrating on every step.
The stubborn woman is actually trying to carry it herself.
I walk straight toward her.
She notices me immediately.
Her eyes widen slightly.
Then she adjusts her grip and keeps walking.
As if I don’t exist.
My jaw tightens.
When I reach her, I simply take hold of the box.
She startles. “What are you doing?”
I pull it from her arms.
She immediately reaches for it again. “I’ve got it.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I can carry it.”
I give her a look.
The argument dies before it fully begins.
She releases the box with obvious reluctance.
The moment the weight settles into my arms, I realize just how heavy it actually is.
Jesus Christ.
“What’s in this?” I ask, like I haven’t been watching her from my balcony.
She grins. “My books.”
“Where do you want this to go?” I pretend like her grin didn’t just set my blood on fire.
“The library.”
I nod and start toward the staircase.
Behind me, she hurries to keep up.
“The library is all the way on the third floor,” she says. “You don’t have to do this.”
I continue climbing.
“It’s heavy.”
“I noticed.”
“You probably have important things to do. I don’t want to bother you.”
I glance over my shoulder. “You’re my wife, Sofia. You’re not bothering me.”
The words leave my mouth before I think about them. Her footsteps falter. I catch the look of surprise that flashes across her face.
I turn away before I can examine that thought too closely and continue upstairs.
The rest of the climb passes in silence.
When we reach the library, she moves ahead of me and leads me toward an empty section of shelving near the far wall.
I stop.
I don’t remember that space being empty. She probably made room for them. While waiting for her books to arrive.
I set the box down carefully.
The second I straighten, she drops to her knees beside it and opens the flaps.
The transformation is immediate. Her eyes sparkle. She lifts the first book from the box with almost ridiculous care. Like she’s greeting an old friend.
I’ve seen beautiful women before. Plenty of them. But there’s something strangely captivating about watching Sofia surrounded by the things she loves.
The excitement in her eyes. The relief. The comfort.
For a moment, she forgets herself. Forgets me. Forgets everything except the books.
And somehow that makes it impossible to look away.
“Thank you,” she says quietly.
The words pull me from whatever strange place my thoughts had wandered.
I clear my throat. “No big deal.”
“It was still nice.”
I nod once. Unsure what to do with that. Unsure why her smile lingers in my head longer than it should.
I should do the next logical thing and step back, leave her alone. I almost do, until my attention shifts to what she’s doing.
Sofia begins arranging her books.
Not randomly. Not alphabetically. Not by author. Not by genre. At least not entirely. I watch as she pulls out a thick hardcover and places it on the second shelf. Then another goes three spaces to the left. A third is placed beside it. A fourth goes somewhere completely different.
My brow furrows. There’s no obvious logic to it. Yet Sofia never hesitates. She doesn’t pause to think. Every book goes exactly where she intends.
She steps back. Studies the shelf. Moves one book two positions over. Nods to herself. Then continues.
Interesting.
I lean against the nearest shelf and watch. The longer I observe, the more convinced I become that there’s a pattern.
A subtle one.
Something beneath the surface. Not enough for me to identify immediately, but enough to recognize that it exists. Sofia arranges them like she’s solving a puzzle. Or building one.
My mind immediately starts looking for structure. Publication dates. Authors. Languages. Genres. Colors.
Nothing fits.
And yet the placement is too deliberate to be meaningless.
“You’ve done this before?”
She glances up. “Done what?”
“Whatever this is.”
Her gaze follows mine to the shelf. A smile touches her lips. “Oh.” She returns another book to its place. “I always organize them this way.”
“What way?”
She shrugs. “The right way.”
I stare at her. “There’s no clear order.”
“To you.” She chuckles. “But the pattern is clear to me.”
Interesting choice of words.
I glance at the shelves again. “Who taught you?”
The question seems to catch her off guard. She looks up from the book in her hands. “My father.” She turns back to the shelf, unaware of my sudden focus. “He used to organize all our books like this when I was little. Every shelf in our apartment looked like this.”
I watch her carefully. “You understood it?”
She laughs. “Not at first.”
The sound is lighter than I’ve ever heard from her.
“When I was little, I thought he was making things difficult on purpose.” She slides another book into place. “Then he started teaching me.”
“Teaching you what?”
“How to see it.”
I go very still.
Sofia doesn’t notice.
Or if she does, she doesn’t attach any significance to it.
“My father loved puzzles.” She smiles faintly at the memory. “Everything became a game with him. Books. Stories. Numbers. Patterns.” Her fingers trail across a row of worn hardcovers. “He always said people miss things because they only look for obvious answers.”
Something cold settles in my chest.
Sofia continues speaking, completely unaware of what is happening inside my head. “Eventually, I just got used to it. Now I can’t organize books any other way.” She laughs again. “It’s probably strange.”
I don’t answer immediately.
Because all I can hear is Karl’s voice.
He said Sofia’s father died because of the code. Now Sofia was talking about patterns, all hidden in books.
Is there a correlation here?
Clues can be found anywhere, and this feels suspiciously like one.
I study the shelves again. The placement. The spacing. The sequence.
Suddenly, I find myself wondering whether her father arranged all the books this way, or only certain ones. Whether the habit was innocent. Or whether he had been teaching her something without ever telling her what it was.
Sofia places the final book on the shelf and steps back.
A pleased smile spreads across her face as she admires the result.
To her, this is nostalgia. A childhood memory. A way of keeping a piece of her father close.
To me, it might be the first meaningful lead I’ve had since Karl disappeared.
The realization sits heavily in my mind. Because it gives me questions.
And questions are often more dangerous.
I become acutely aware of how little I actually know about Sofia.
I know she loves books.
I know she was seven when her father died.
I know she was raised by an uncle.
I know she hates being controlled.
Beyond that?
Nothing.
The woman standing in front of me is still largely a mystery.
And I’m beginning to suspect that mystery may be far more important than I originally believed.
I straighten. “I need to get back to work.”
She looks over her shoulder and smiles.
The expression is warm. Easy.
A smile given without suspicion.
“Okay.” Then, after a brief pause, she adds, “I’ll talk to you later.”
The simple certainty of it catches me off guard.
As though she expects there to be a later.
As though conversation between us is becoming normal.
I find myself nodding before I can stop it. “Later.”
I leave the library.
The smile disappears from my face the second the door closes behind me.
My mind is already racing.
By the time I reach the staircase, I’m moving quickly.
A guard straightens when he sees me approaching.
“Tell Ben I want him in my office. Now.”
“Yes, sir.”
I continue walking without slowing. Ben appears in the doorway of my office only moments later.
Before he can even step fully into the room, I bark out the order.
“I want everything we can get on Sofia. Run a complete background check. Dig into her family, her past, her associates—everything. I want to know what she breathes.”
Ben nods once, recognizing the tone that permits no questions, and vanishes to set the wheels in motion.
Over the next few days, the anger settles into something colder in my blood. I find myself watching Sofia, my perspective shifting in quiet, subtle ways.
Details I had previously dismissed begin to pull at my attention. I notice the rhythm of her daily routines, the quiet nature of her habits, and the sharp, guarded way she interacts with her surroundings.
By the time the week draws to a close, a reluctant truth settles in. Sofia is no longer just a piece on a board or a neat variable in a larger plan.
There is something about her that refuses to fit into my calculations—a stubborn anomaly I can’t quite account for. And that uncertainty is beginning to bleed into the way I approach her, shifting the ground beneath both of our feet.