Page 59 of Sexting His Assistant

And he’s right. The blood on him proves it.

Misha looks at the wound again, and something in his expression shifts. Misha doesn’t soften easily in rooms like this. But the fury changes shape, forced to make space for the truth.

Luka took the bullet for me.

“He did,” I say quietly.

Both men look at me.

I hate that. I hate the weight of their attention, hate the ache in my throat, hate the way my voice trembles even though I’m trying so hard not to fall apart in front of them.

Misha’s arm tightens around my shoulders, his fingers pressing hard into my coat as if the thought has struck him at the same time it strikes me.

Luka says nothing.

Then Misha turns me toward the door. “Come,” he says.

I look up at him. “What?”

“Out.”

“I’m fine.”

“I did not ask if you were fine.” His voice isn’t loud, but it has that edge in it, the one I remember from childhood. The one that means he’s done negotiating with the world.

I glance back at Luka.

He’s already looking at me.

There’s blood on his chest. Blood on his arm. Blood on the white sheet beneath him. But his eyes are clear, fixed on mine with an intensity that makes it impossible to tell whether he wants me to stay or go.

For one stupid second, I want him to say something.

But he doesn’t.

Misha’s hand closes gently around my wrist, and this time I let him lead me out.

The hallway outside feels too warm after the medical room. Too quiet. The estate stretches around us in polished marble and dark wood, beautiful and enormous and full of shadows I no longer know how to ignore.

Misha does not stop until we are far enough away that Luka cannot hear us.

Then he turns to me. At my loose hair. My pale face. The dried blood on my hands. The shake I cannot quite control.

His expression changes, and for a moment he isn’t Luka Kazan’s oldest friend or a man who knows too much about violence.

He is just my brother.

“Misha,” I say softly.

His jaw works once.

Then he says, “You have to leave your job.”

8

LUKA

The moment Misha takes Nina out of the room, I feel the actual loss of her.