11
SAGE
Morning seeps through the tall cabin windows, pale and gray against the ridge beyond. I sit at the small table near the fireplace, my hands wrapped around a mug of tea gone lukewarm. My body aches softly in the places Luka touched, a quiet echo of the night that still hums beneath my skin.
We didn’t sleep in the same room. He left sometime after midnight, called away by Misha to deal with Bratva business he wouldn’t explain. I heard the SUV’s engine fade into the dark, and he never came back. The house has been silent since, too large and too empty, every shadow reminding me that he can disappear whenever he chooses and I can’t.
He told me I wasn’t a prisoner, that this place and his guards were for my protection. But it still feels like captivity when the locks click behind me, and I’m not free to walk out into the morning and breathe air that hasn’t already passed through his control.
I tell myself I should hate him for it. For taking away my choices, for turning my fear into something I can’t untangle from want. But I don’t. Not completely. The anger sits there, sharp andrestless, but so does the memory of his touch, the way it stripped every layer of resistance I thought I had.
I’m angry at myself for wanting to see more of him. For wondering who he is when the mask of thepakhanslips and his voice goes quiet, and when he looks at me like he’s drowning in the same storm he created. And that’s what scares me most.
Vega rests under the table with his head on my foot, warm and heavy, his breath rising and falling in a rhythm that should be soothing but isn’t.
I sense him before I see him. Luka enters without a sound, as if he has spent years training his body to announce nothing. Black trousers, black shirt open at the throat, sleeves pushed to his forearms, and dark wavy hair smoothed back. His hazel eyes skim the room and settle on me.
“Good,” he says quietly. “You are awake.”
I release the mug. “Barely.”
He places a phone on the table and turns the screen toward me. I see it the moment I notice the grim set of his mouth, and the silent warning that something is terribly wrong. Fire leaping through the roofline I know like the back of my hand. The Bean & Bloom sign bowed at a strange angle. The window collapsed inward. A ladder truck in the street, red lights spinning, water arcing in a white stream.
“Oh my God—Jenny!” The name rips out before thought can stop it.
“She wasn't there,” Luka says immediately. “She left at nine. She's safe. She believes you're in Denver meeting a vendor.”
“You told her that?” The question burns through my throat. It shouldn’t matter, but it does because every word he speaks for me steals another piece of my life.
“Misha did. Under my instruction.”
I swipe to another photograph. Flames inside the second-story window. The copper lights collapsed into a ceiling alive with red-hot sparks. The door blocked by foam and smoke. The red brick turned black.
“No.” The word scrapes out of me, raw and trembling, the only thing I can manage as the world I built burns in front of me.
Another photo. The sign, half-melted, with the letters warped.
“No!” I cry out. My eyes sting and my throat constricts. The floor heaves under my chair as I push to my feet.
“It started after midnight,” Luka states, delivering the words like a diagnosis. “By the time the first truck arrived, the interior was compromised. The building next door has smoke damage. No one was inside and no injuries were reported.”
The relief that no one was inside is too small for the pain that opens across my ribs. I hear a strangled sound rip free and realize it came from me.
“This is your fault,” I hiss. “You dragged me into your war and ruined my life!”
He takes that without moving. I step around the chair and shove at him. My palms slam into his chest, but he absorbs the impact like a wall. I shove again. He stands perfectly still and lets me hit him. My fists curl and I strike once, twice, three times.
“You did this,” I accuse on a sob. “You brought this to my door. Do you understand what that place was? It was my life. It waseverything! How could you let this happen?”
He doesn’t offer an apology. Instead, he holds himself completely still. “I will find out who did this,” he promises softly. “And I will end them.”
“That isn’t an answer!” The shout rips out of me. “It’s just you lying to yourself so you don’t have to admit you can’t stop any of this.”
A shadow passes through his eyes, quiet and lethal. “Your café was burned because you are mine to hurt. Ray Bellamy understands leverage. He wouldn’t have done this if I had never set foot in your café. The difference now is that you are not alone.”
The wordminelands like a strike I never saw coming. Vega noses my leg. I sink to my knees because standing is impossible. I lean forward, palms pressed to the floor, and the sound that leaves me isn’t delicate. It’s grief uncontained. It rises from a place I’ve kept barricaded for years. I cry like a daughter who built her world from flour and espresso, only to wake to ashes. I cry like a sister who no longer knows how she’ll protect the one person depending on her.
When the tears finally run out, Vega moves closer until his weight centers me. My fingers slip into his fur, holding on to the warmth and the steady pulse of life pressed against me.
