Page 247 of Sexting His Assistant

She freezes the video on the frame where Misha’s face is turned partly toward the camera.

Her hand lifts toward the screen but does not touch it. “He looks scared,” Nina says.

I look at the image.

He does look tense. He looks focused. He looks like a man moving under pressure.

Nina says, “He came to my apartment because he was scared. I told you that. He was jumpy, he kept checking the window, he wouldn’t explain anything, and now you have footage of him with Alina and everyone is acting like that automatically means he betrayed you.”

I say, “I’m not acting like anything automatically.”

She turns to me. “Yes, you are.”

I hold her gaze.

She says, “You already believe it.”

“I believe he is involved,” I say.

She makes a frustrated sound at the back of her throat.

“But that’s not all,” I say. I proceed to tell her what they found in the garage. Pavel looks at me as if I’m giving away too much information, and maybe I am. But she needs to know. She needs to understand what’s at stake.

Pavel shifts slightly by the table.

I look at him. “Leave us.”

Pavel says, “Boss⁠—”

I say, “Now.”

Pavel’s eyes move to Nina, then back to me. “I will be outside.”

He leaves, closing the door behind him.

Nina and I are alone with the laptop still turned toward her, Misha’s face frozen on the screen between us.

I say, “You think I want this.”

She laughs once, and the sound is bitter. “I don’t know what you want anymore.”

I step away from the desk because if I stay too close, I will reach for her, and she does not want my hands right now.

I say, “I want your brother alive.”

Nina says, “Do you?”

“Yes,” I say.

“You shot a man in front of me two days ago,” Nina says.

The sentence cuts through the room.

She looks like she regrets saying it, but she does not take it back.

“He was running toward you.”

“I know,” Nina says. “I know that. I understand it in my head, Luka, but I still watched you do it.”