Luka steps from the shadows between buildings, the lamplight playing across the hard planes of his face and highlighting the immaculate line of his suit. He doesn't look surprised to see me stumbling out of the alley like a startled deer. He looks like he has been waiting, patient as stone, for exactly this moment.
“Who was he?” His voice cuts through the night air, low and lethal, threaded with menace that sends a jolt through my chest.
My heart hammers against my ribs. “Who?”
“The man you were chatting with today.” He advances with steps that are steady and purposeful, each one bringing him closer to where I stand frozen near the brick wall. “What did he want?”
I retreat instinctively, my back brushing the cold brick. “He asked about coffee and property investment.”
His eyes narrow, hazel flecked with emerald that gleam dangerously in the lamplight. “Coincidence doesn't exist.”
Fire flares in my chest, sparking anger past the fear that wants to keep me silent and compliant. “You didn't even apologize when your dog ran me over, but you act like I'm plotting against you?”
For the first time since I've met him, his expression falters. Something almost human moves across his face, there and gone like breath on glass. Regret, maybe, or something deeper and more complex that I don't have time to analyze before it hardens again into the cold mask he hides behind.
“Remember that,” he declares, his voice flat and final. “Coincidence doesn't exist.”
The words float between us in the cold mountain air, laden with meaning I don't understand but can feel settling into my bones. The night closes in around us, full of dark corners and secrets and the growing certainty that my quiet life in Aspen Ridge has just become much more dangerous.
My heart pulses in my throat, my keys digging into my palm hard enough to leave marks, and yet I can't look away from him. And worse, I can't ignore the way part of me doesn't want to.
4
LUKA
I don’t sleep so much as drift through hours that refuse to end. When my eyes finally close, I don’t find quiet, I findher. I see Sage in my mind, standing in that narrow strip of alley behind the café, chin lifted, mouth set in a line that should not tempt any sane man. The scent of coffee and something floral tangles in my thoughts, and I wake more than once with my heart beating too fast and my hand fisted in sheets that feel like restraints rather than comfort.
By the time rain begins to tap the roof, I stop pretending sleep will return. The phone vibrates on the nightstand at five in the morning, insistent enough to pull me from thought. It’s a message from Mikhail Volkov, Misha to everyone who matters, my cousin and the man who stands as my second-in-command.
The screen lights with a message.He isn’t talking. Stubborn. Wants to act loyal to his boss.
I call him immediately. Misha answers on the first ring, his voice even. “He’s holding back.”
“Of course he is.” I pace to the window, watching rain track down the glass. “Loyalty looks different when you remind a man how fragile his body is. Break something.”
There is a pause, then the sound of movement in the background. Misha asks, “Where do you want me to start?”
“An arm. He doesn’t need both.”
A muffled crack filters through the line, followed by a guttural cry. Misha exhales slowly. “Still swearing he knows nothing.”
“Then break a leg. One bone for every lie, one for every silence. He’ll speak before he runs out.”
“You want him alive?” Misha questions.
“For now.” I let the quiet stretch, the words pulsing in it. “But if he reaches the end of his bones before he reaches the truth, I’ll take what’s left of him and use it to send a message to his boss.”
Misha’s voice sharpens with approval. “Understood.”
I end the call without another word, leaving Misha to handle the man and carve the answers from him bone by bone. He will get what we need, he always does. My cousin was born for this kind of work, the violence that keeps the Bratva sharp. I trust him to finish what I set in motion. But when the silence returns, I find my thoughts veering down a path I did not authorize. Away from broken bones and rival dealings, and back to the girl in the café.
Sage Bellamy.
I tell myself I’m going back to the café to confirm patterns, test proximity and motive, not to chase the heat that lives in my palms where our fingers touched. Vega waits at the door like a soldier who already understands the assignment, and I leashhim without a word, letting the wet morning pull us off the porch and into the gravel drive.
The mountains crouch beneath clouds that settle low enough to touch, and rain draws lines down the windows. I take the SUV down the wet switchbacks into town, the wipers keeping tempo, and pull to the curb outside Bean & Bloom. I kill the engine, step into the drizzle with Vega at my heel, and push through the glass door into warmth and cinnamon, the bell giving one bright note as we enter.
I take my corner in Bean & Bloom, and Vega settles at my feet, watching the door the way sentinels watch borders. He doesn’t lift his head when tourists come in with wet jackets and cheerful voices, but when Sage moves behind the counter, his ears tip forward as if they were tuned only to her.
