“And where’s that? You’ve never actually said.”
His jaw shifted against my skull, as if he was weighing the value of honesty against whatever poisons still seeped through his veins.
“You never guessed,” he whispered.
I answered him with silence, letting him come to me in his own time.
Finally, he let out a breath. “Technically, it doesn’t exist anymore. But on the current version of the map…” He trailed off, foreign syllables curling on his tongue. “Croatia.”
“And before?”
He was quiet for a long time, fingers tracing my spine, one bone at a time—like counting beads on a rosary.
“Before,” he said, “it was Yugoslavia. Not that it matters. When a country dies, the map just gets redrawn by people who never bled for it.” His voice stayed even, but an old weariness threaded through it. “The flags changed. The borders moved. The names on the buildings switched overnight. One morning you woke up Yugoslav, the next you were Croatian, and the next…” He sighed. “No one knew what the hell they were.”
He raked his hand up my back again, slowly. Not sexual. Steadying.
“Do you know what happens to a country when it breaks apart?” he asked.
I shook my head.
“They erase you. Not violently. Bureaucratically.” His mouth brushed my hair. “Birth certificates disappear. Bank accounts freeze. Property deeds mean nothing. Your father’s name isn’t on any government record anymore, so legally, he never existed. And you—” He swallowed. “You become whatever the new state decides you are. A statistic. An inconvenience.”
“Did you…” I pressed my lips together. “Did you fight in the war?”
He laughed, but the sound was flat. “I’m not that old.” A pause, the air charged. “My father fought. Died in it. My brother too, later. Landmines don’t give a shit about truces.”
My stomach hollowed out. “God, Luka. How old were you?”
“Twelve.” He said it like he was ordering a drink, the syllable cold and neat. “Old enough to know not to cry about it.”
I wanted to say something, anything, but nothing in my arsenal could touch the wound he’d handed me. “I’m so sorry,” I said anyway, and immediately hated the smallness of it.
He shook his head. “Don’t be. It’s the price of independence, apparently.” The bitterness cut like a blade.
I tried to picture him at twelve—gaunt, half-grown, already learning to calculate rooms, exits, threats. No wonder he controlled everything. It was the only thing he’d ever been able to do.
“What about the rest of your family?” I asked, softer.
“It was only my mother and me left.” The words were blunt, final. “I wanted to work, but she insisted I stay in school. Apparently, she thought I was bright. That I had a future.” He barked a laugh, but there was no mirth in it.
“She must have been proud of you,” I said, and I meant it—not as comfort, but as the only thing left worth saying. My hand, still caught in his, squeezed tight enough to blanch knuckles.
He went quiet, thumb skating my wrist. “Jobs were scarce,” he said finally. “And widows from the wrong side don’t getsympathy.” His lips hovered at my hairline, as if measuring out the next confession by the taste of my skin. “She did what she had to do. Any way she could.”
He waited for me to flinch. I didn’t. There was no shame in Luka’s voice—just the iron calm of someone who’d long ago made peace with the math of survival.
“She kept a roof over us. Food on the table. Paid my tuition in cash. Even saved enough for the papers and train fare out.”
“Where did you go?”
“We didn’t.”
Luka cinched his body tighter around me, like I was drifting and he meant to keep me moored.
“She had a…client. A fixer. Said he could get us out—passports, visas, everything. He took her savings upfront. Every kuna.” His voice hollowed out. “He told her to meet him at the train station.”
A cold certainty filled my chest before he even said it.