Page 53 of Luka

And maybe that’s what she wants to hear. But for some reason, I don’t want her to know that about me. That I’m so removed from compassion there’s nothing someone could say to keep their life.

“Why would you not just threaten me?” I ask instead. “You could’ve told me who your father was and all the things he’d do to me if I hurt you.”

“And what would you have done?”

“I don’t know, but it seems like a better strategy than winning my good graces.”

She doesn’t respond to that.

“If you thought I was taking you out here just to kill you, why would you get in my car willingly?” I ask, twisting my body more toward her. “I get that you were more afraid of the other guys than you were of me, but why would you not try to get away from me too? You could’ve tried to get to a phone or?—”

“Did you know,” Lucia begins, cutting me off. “That this is the first lake I’ve ever seen?”

I close my mouth and try to follow her gaze but don’t understand her point.

“Your apartment is the first apartment I’ve ever been in. Arseni brought me to my first motel. The bar you found me at tonight was the first I’ve ever seen outside of pictures… As a prisoner who has been tied up for the majority of the last two days, I’ve still experienced more of the world than I have in my entire life.”

My head tilts as I study Lucia’s neutral expression. What she’s saying means something to her, I can tell, but her tone is even and her face shows nothing.

She turns to me. “In nineteen years, I left my family’s estate for the first time days ago. If I go back now, I’ll never step foot off the property again.”

“And you’d rather die than go back?”

“No,” she says, her voice finally betraying her emotion. Her chest shakes as she breathes. “I’d rather fight toreallylive.”

My stomach turns at the plea in her eyes, and I have to look away. Her earlier words come back, asking me to let her jump. That was just her fishing for a chance to get away.

“Luka…”

“Stop.” I pull my arm away when she goes to touch me, my skin crawling.

Why is this bothering me?

Why don’t I want her to beg?

“I cannevergo back to my papá,” Lucia says, her words thick with emotion. “And the men who are after me would do things neither of us could imagine, so I can’t run for help. I wouldn’tdareask law enforcement.”

“I believe you,” I say, shifting in my seat, still not looking at her.

I can’t just let her go. Ican’t.

She knows too much. If shedidget captured, if shedidtalk…

“Luka,please.”

I close my eyes and breathe.

Why is this hard? This shouldn’t behard.

“If I were to let you go,” I find myself saying, making my own ears grate, “How could I be certain you wouldn’t say something about me the moment you were caught?”

I open my eyes at the silence and look over at Lucia’s horror-stricken face.

“Let me go?” she asks.

When I’m slow to answer, she stammers. “Theywouldfind me. They know this city. Idon’t. I don’t knowanything. I just told you I’d never been in a motel before today, and you expect me to?—”

“If you aren’t asking me to let you go, what are you asking me to do?”

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