Page 52 of Luka

Her voice trembles, and I realize she’s looking away so I won’t see her tears.

My lips dip into a frown. “What happened?” She doesn’t respond right away, so I prod. “Who were you running from?”

“He played me,” she whispers before clearing her throat. When she speaks again, it’s even but pained. “For almost two months, he’s been convincing me he was in love with me when all he really wanted to do was use me as a pawn.”

Lucia turns to me, her hand combing hair disheveled from the hat she tossed into the backseat. The tears in her eyes hold my gaze.

“You know those cartel guys your brother told you about?” she asks.

I nod.

“Well,” she huffs out a laugh. “His gut was spot on. They were cartel, but not the one I thought Mario belonged to, and not the one I was born into. They were from the Mendoza Cartel, my family’s rivals. By the way they were talking, Mario was taking me to them the entire time.”

Oh.

Oh.

“I assume Arseni told you about me and my family,” she says. I blink to refocus on her and note her eyes not meeting mine. Her face looks flushed.

I open my mouth to confirm, but Lucia cuts me off.

“I’m aware that you don’t care about any of this,” she says, facing forward and sitting up straighter. Her guard raising is like an invisible but palpable shield between us. I’m certain if I reached out, I could touch it. “You probably even think it’s funny. But since I’m about to die, I figured I’d give you the satisfaction of telling you I understand that you were right. I’m afuckingidiot, and maybe I deserve this. Maybe…” She closes her eyes at her cracking voice and regains her composure. “Maybe you’ll spare me a painful death and allow me to just jump off that cliff so my family can recover my body.”

My eyes follow hers to the same drop I watched Arseni take. It didn’t occur to me until now that she believes I brought her out here so I could kill her, even though that’s the only logical sense that this makes. This is where I brought Piper. It isn’t as if I can just take the kidnapped girl back to my place and pretend thehighly dangerousmen searching for her don’t exist.

But I didn’t bring her here to kill her. I brought her here because I didn’t knowwhatto do. I still don’t.

Ihadplanned to kill her, if I could get that lucky. If I had intercepted her before she got to the bar, I would have disposed of her as quickly as I could and prayed it never got back to me or Arseni. There was little hope for that, but it was the plan.

When I ran into her, I was stunned, and when she kissed me, my brain had iced over. I could feel the danger behind me, Lucia was practically buzzing with it, but that buzz felt so much like electricity against my lips that I’d almost been delusional about what was happening. I was no longer sure what I was there to do, and when I put her in my car, all my plans seemed wrong somehow.

I drum my fingers on the wheel, laying my head back against my seat. I don’t answer her for a while. I’m too busy considering her words.

“You know what’s funny?” I ask, pausing my drumming and laying my hand in my lap. “I’ve been agonizing over the shit you said to me earlier about me using my warped views of the world to justify mydefects. And now you’re telling me I was right all along, but I don’t know, Peach…” I shake my head slowly as I sigh. “You are not anidiot, and I don’t think this is funny.”

Her arms slowly uncross, her hands tucking beneath her thighs as silence bathes the car. It doesn’t feel awkward to me, and I don’t take my eyes off her. It’s strange. I know it the moment I recognize it, but the betrayal she feels soaks into my skin, and instead of recoiling, it brings me closer. I realizethat’swhy I brought her here. Not to die but to feel at peace like I would because I canfeelher betrayal as if it is my own.

And it’s painful. It stings. It draws my eyes to her hands, up her arms, her bruised neck, her face, and I feel as though there’s something removed from her now. She looks different. More revealed.Prettier.

Beautiful.

“I should’ve chosen you,” she says, her voice low as she stares straight ahead.

My brows pinch together as I wait for her to continue.

“All this time, I haven’t even been thinking of you by your name. I ruled you out from the start thinking that Arseni was the only empathetic one. When really, I had a better chance humanizing myself with you if I hadn’t said all that stuff.” Her eyes clench shut, and she breathes deeply through her nose. “Please, just tell me… Would it have made a difference?”

“Would what have made a difference?”

“If I had chosen you? If I hadn’t…” Her lips move as she stumbles on her words. “If I had spoken kindly to you?”

Would it have made a difference?

I’m quiet for several moments. Not because I don’t know the answer or because I don’t understand the question.

She wants to know if she could’ve convinced me to let her live.If only she’d beenniceto me.Chosenme.

No.

---