Luka smiled, slow and almost menacing. “That’s my arena.”
I let go of Luka’s wrists and rolled upright, swinging my legs over the side of the bed. The air in the room cooled fast, prickling against my sweat-damp skin.
He straightened, watching me with that unnerving calm. I flexed my hands, then flattened my palms against my thighs.
“What about the money?” I asked.
He blinked, a flicker of hesitation. “What money?”
I studied the whorl of my thumbnail, then met his gaze. “You said you’d make a fortune leaking the dirt on Richard.”
He snorted. “I’m not doing it for the money. I’m doing it for you,mila.” He let the endearment linger, a caress and a challenge. “But if you want the money, it’s yours.”
The room fell quiet enough to hear the blood whooshing in my ears. I reached for the glass of water on the nightstand, tracing a bead of condensation down the rim. After a long drink, I looked at Luka. He didn’t flinch. He didn’t soften the offer, didn’t give me an easy out.
“What would I have to do?” I asked, and my voice was finally steady.
“Say the word.”
I studied him—the calm, the certainty, the way he’d already mapped outcomes I could barely name.
“This version of you scares me more than the mask and leather,” I said.
His mouth curved, just slightly.
“Good,” he replied.
I met his gaze. “Do it.”
chapter
twenty-eight
Luka had commandeered my kitchen table and turned it into his personal nerve center. His laptop had sprouted two extra monitors. Cables snaked across the blue and white tiles to a mobile hotspot. Three burner phones sat upturned on a tea towel, each periodically vibrating and flashing.
I placed a fresh mug of coffee, bold and opaque, beside him. It rattled with every keystroke as his fingers blurred across the keyboard.
He didn’t look up. “It’s all in motion.”
He clicked, highlighted, and killed a window so smoothly I almost missed the flicker of satisfaction on his face.
“Just like that?” I asked.
“Not just like that.” Luka’s voice was dry, amused. “It actually took a lot of work, thank you. And a few favors I’ll have to repay.”
A day’s worth of empty takeout containers littered the kitchen counter. The first cup of coffee I’d brought him that morning sat abandoned near the sink, cold.
One of the burner phones buzzed. He glanced at it, jaw tightening, before he flipped it over and muted the vibration.
“Problem?” I asked.
“Adjustment,” he replied with a few deliberate keystrokes.
I sat in the chair caddy-cornered from him and drew my knees to my chest. I fingered the cuff of my jeans, the denim soft, well-worn, and just beginning to fray. “So, what happens now?”
Luka leaned back and stretched, rolling his shoulders and neck. “We wait.” He flexed his fingers once, as if prying them loose from the keyboard.
I let the silence ride, but under the whir of the laptop fans, my nerves were working faster than Luka’s complex lines of code. I watched him, still not used to his presence in my house—his broad silhouette at the table, his legs tucked under the chair like he might bolt at any second.