Page 56 of Ruthless

Just...this.

I must have crossed some threshold between waking and sleeping, because suddenly I was back in Bosnia. The mortar shells screamed overhead, their whistle-whine cutting through the night. Ana clutched my hand, her tiny fingers ice-cold with fear. We huddled in the crawl space Papa had built, pressed so close together I could feel her heart hammering againstmine.

"Don't make a sound," I whispered to her, squeezing her hand three times. Our secret code: I. Love. You.

The soldiers' boots thundered above us. Each footfall shook our hiding place, raining dust that stuck to our sweat-slick skin. Ana's breath hitched as the first gunshots cracked through the air. Three rapid-fire bursts. Mama's scream, a high note sliced off mid-pitch. Papa's rage-filled shout dissolving into wet gurgling. Then silence. A silence so complete it screamed in my ears.

Ana trembled against me, silent tears tracking through the grime on her face. I wanted to comfort her, but fear had frozen my voice. All I could do was hold her hand tighter.

Then the footsteps approached our hiding spot. A board creaked directly overhead. “Ovdje,” said a heavily accented voice. “Otvori to. Hajde!”Here. Open it. Hurry!

Ana whimpered, the sound barely audible, but in the silence, it might as well have been a scream.

The panel above us ripped away. Light flooded our sanctuary. A face peered down at us. A man. Just a man, with eyes as empty as a winter sky.

"Ana, run!" I screamed, trying to push her toward the back of the crawl space, toward the hidden exit Papa had shown us.

But strong hands reached down, grabbing for us. I kicked and bit and clawed, but I was so small. So weak. The hands closed around Ana's ankle, dragging her away from me. I held onto her hand as long as I could, my nails digging into her skin, leaving crescent moons of blood.

"Luka!" she screamed, my name tearing from her throat. "LUKA!"

Our fingers slipped apart. She disappeared into the light above.

"ANA!" I bolted upright, heart racing, skin slick with cold sweat. The nightmare clung to me stubbornly, my sister's scream still echoing in my ears.

"Luka?"

Vincent's voice cut through the fog of terror, anchoring me to reality. His hand found mine in the darkness, fingers intertwining. Warm. Present. Alive.

"It's okay," he murmured, his voice thick with sleep but steady. "You're safe. It was just a dream."

I jerked away automatically, still half-trapped in the nightmare. "Don't. I could hurt you."

"You won't," he said with quiet certainty, refusing to let go of my hand. "Look at me, Luka. You're here, in the Acropolis. With me."

I forced myself to meet his eyes, finding them clear and alert despite having just woken. No fear, no wariness. Just calm understanding. The nightmare receded slightly, reality seeping back in around the edges.

"It was Ana," I admitted, the words scraping my throat raw. "I couldn't save her."

Vincent nodded. "Tell me about her?"

I frowned. No one ever asked about Ana. She was my secret, my private ghost. "Why?"

"Because she matters to you," he said simply. "And I want to know."

Something cracked open inside me, a door I'd kept locked for decades. "We were twins. One soul in two bodies. But she was always braver than me. Always the first to climb the tallest tree, to jump into the deepest part of the river. But she was kind, too. And smart as a whip."

"She sounds remarkable," Vincent said softly.

"She was." The past tense burned like acid on my tongue. "She was supposed to be my responsibility. I was born eight minutes earlier. Eight lousy minutes, and somehow that made me the protector."

"You were children," Vincent reminded me gently. "No child should have to bear that burden."

"But I did," I said, the familiar weight of guilt settling on my chest. "And I failed."

Vincent was quiet for a moment, then asked, "What happened to her, Luka?"

The question hung in the air between us. I'd never told anyone the whole truth. Not even Jane, who knew more about me than almost anyone else alive.

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