“My mother never told us,” I murmur. “She told us he was difficult, and that he loved us, but he made choices she couldn’t live with. Then one day he was gone. She once said the accident took him before he could fix anything. She never—” I swallow against the sour rush at the back of my throat. “She never even hinted that he was connected to your world.”
“Your mother was an only child,” Luka notes. “She tried to build a fence and pretend the world on the other side no longer existed. Ray broke through that fence a long time ago.”
“How do you know he broke through?” I question, my eyes narrowing suspiciously.
“Because I know men like your uncle. I have hunted them and fed them to the dark.” His eyes don’t leave mine, hard and steady in the lamplight.
The floor tilts. I reach for the table to steady myself. “Don't tell me any more.”
“I will not dress it in soft language,” he responds. “I will not pretend Ray wants anything other than leverage. He wants to hold you up and show you to men who trade lives the way they trade properties. He wants to claim that your blood gives him rights.”
I can hear Hope's laugh in my mind, high and clear, from years ago, when we were both younger, our mother was healthy, and Sunday mornings were about pancakes, not medicine schedules. I shut my eyes, and it fades back into silence. Hope was always the bright spot in our family who could make my mother smile even on the worst days. She would dance around the kitchen in her pajamas, singing off-key to the radio while I tried to do homework at the table.
“Hope,” I whisper, opening my eyes again. “I should be with her.”
“You’re the reason she is safer where she is,” Luka counters.
“I can protect her,” I insist, even as my voice shakes. “Don’t act like she’s only safe because of you.”
“Do you want me to lie?” Luka counters, his voice dangerously calm. “Do you want me to tell you that you can sit beside her bed and hold her hand and everything outside the hospital will stayquiet and polite because you are good, work hard, and love her? I will not insult you or her like that.”
“You enjoy doing this,” I accuse, the words biting, driven by panic. “You like pushing until the center caves in.” I turn away before he can answer, pacing a short line across the floor, my pulse thrumming too loud in my ears.
He tilts his head slightly. “I like truth,” he clarifies. “There is more blood in a lie than most people see. It always spills later.”
“Then tell me everything,” I insist. “Don’t just show me pictures. I want records, names, and dates. If you expect me to accept that my father belonged to your world, then I refuse to do it blindly.”
His mouth curves without becoming a smile. “You will not get everything,” he informs me. “You will get what does not put other lives at risk.”
Anger flashes through me. My hands ball at my sides before I force them open again. “I’m not asking you to hand me your crown,” I snap, the words cold enough to sting. “I’m asking you to let me face what’s mine to bear.”
He studies, head tilted slightly, his eyes tracing my face as if searching for what I’ll do next. The pause stretches until I have to look away, my breath uneven.
Finally, he exhales, low and decisive. “You will get enough,” he says at last.
My chin lifts. “Enough for what?”
“For you to stop fighting the wrong enemy.”
The floorboards give a tiny groan under my feet as I cross back to the table. The folder waits, heavy with someone else's memories.I slide the photographs into a neat pile and put them inside. My hands have finally stopped shaking. When I look up, Luka's eyes are on my face, not my hands. He’s watching for the next break, and I hate that he’s so good at finding it.
I think about the first time I met him, the day Vega knocked into me at Bean & Bloom and sent lattes flying through the air. I thought he was just another wealthy tourist passing through. I didn’t expect him to show up the next day or sit at the corner table for the rest of the week watching me work. I certainly didn’t expect him to upend my entire existence, drag me into a world I didn’t know existed, and reveal truths about my father that I never wanted to know.
“You left a man with Hope,” I confirm. “Who is he?”
“Albert,” Luka answers. “He understands what happens when orders are not followed.”
I remember Albert's flat, calm gaze, broad shoulders, shaved head, and dark eyes that miss nothing. His tattoos peek out from his collar, dark lines that suggest a history I don’t want to know about. The knot in my chest loosens a degree. “Is she scared of him?”
“He is careful with the people I tell him to be careful with.”
“Did you tell him to be careful with my sister?”
“Yes.”
I pour more hot water into my cup, the steam rising between my hands. The first sip scalds my tongue, but I welcome the burn. It gives shape to the ache buried too deep to reach.
“You keep telling me Ray wants to use me,” I press. “How.”
