“I…” My voice wavered. “Can I ask you something first?”
His brows lifted slightly. “Of course.”
I drew in a breath. “Last night…you didn’t use a different number to text me, did you?”
He blinked. “No.”
The word plunked like a stone dropped in the water—heavy, rippling outward.
“Oh,” I breathed. My stomach twisted.
He narrowed his eyes. “Alex.”
I looked down, then up at him, fear tightening my throat. “The club—it was confidential, right? I mean…truly confidential?”
A long, dangerous silence.
“Why,” he said, voice dark and lethal, “are you asking me that?”
The air in that alcove was charged—ozone after the first strike of lightning. “Someone texted me last night.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know. It was an unknown number. But…”
His expression didn’t change. “But?”
“But whoever it was…he was there. At the club. And he?—”
“Give me your mobile,” Luka commanded, hand upturned.
“I’m sure it’s just?—”
“Mobile. Now.”
I fished it out of my satchel, unlocked it, opened the message thread, and placed it in his hand.
He took the phone without a word, his thumb gliding across the screen as he scrolled. His expression didn’t shift at first—just sharpened, the way a blade does when it hits the whetstone.
Then his jaw tightened.
When he finally looked up, his eyes were different—flat and cold as winter glass. “This wasn’t me.”
“I know,” I said quickly, though my stomach dipped. The back of my neck prickled. I’d seen Luka possessive and intense before, but not like this. This was something else—controlled, contained, dangerous.
He unlocked his own phone and tapped through a series of screens, then held both phones side by side as he scanned.
“Withheld number,” he muttered. “UK carrier. Standard SIM. No VoIP masking.”
He looked at me, his focus absolute.
“He didn’t use software,” Luka said. “Didn’t spoof it. He just hid his caller ID like a fucking amateur.”
My pulse stuttered. “So you can trace him?”
“From here, I can trace the source type. Not the identity.” His thumb flicked across both screens again. “I can do more from my office.”
“Where’s that?”