Page 97 of Lethal Torture
I’ve read Luke’s résumé. I knew about Miami, and Myanmar, and his distinguished service record prior to the jobs he’s taken for Mak. But somehow I’d never thought about what all that meant, in reality. Even after seeing the scars on his body, touching the puckered flesh, it hadn’t really sunk in what those scars actually represented.
“After Miami,” Darya goes on, “Luke spent a lot of time with us in London while Ofelia was recuperating. He’d turn up at the hospital for his own treatment, then come and play board games with the kids, carry Masha around on his shoulders. Honestly, at the time, he felt almost like family. I know Roman certainly saw him that way. He wanted Luke to stay, become part of his operation.”
“I’d have thought Luke would jump at that. He clearly gets on well with Roman.”
She shakes her head. “Luke turned him down. Roman kept upping the money he was offering, but Luke held firm. He told Roman it wasn’t about the money for him. Said he didn’t leave one army to become part of someone else’s, which is why he was private contracting for Mak.” She smiles. “Roman bitched and moaned about it, but secretly, I know he also really respected it, too. To be honest, I think that’s why they’ve stayed such good friends. Luke is one of the very few men Roman actually sees as an equal. And you might be the only woman he sees that way.” She shoots me a sly wink. “Even if you did spend a night together, back in the day.”
Oh, God.
I take a very big mouthful of my drink.
“Please don’t worry.” Darya touches my hand, smiling reassuringly. “I know how young you both were.”
“I’d say it didn’t mean anything.” I look at her. “But if I’m honest, it did. Roman remains one of the only men in our world who hasn’t tried to destroy me. I’ve never taken that for granted. I still don’t.” I meet her eyes. “And despite what happened between us on that first night—which, if he never told you himself, was very little anyway—there’s never been anything more than friendship between us. I hope you know that.”
“I do.” She squeezes my hand, holding my eyes long enough for me to know she means it.
The night is growing late, and the evening chill is starting to settle into damp. Instead of going inside, though, Darya lights a candle in the center of the table and draws a shawl over her shoulders, shooting me a rather guilty look. “I’m not ready to let go of tonight yet. I’m enjoying your company far too much.”
“Me, too.” To my surprise, I find myself blinking back tears. “It’s strange.” My voice is husky with emotion. “If you think about it, we barely know one another.”
“Maybe not.” Darya stares into the candle. “But if you will forgive the familiarity, some part of me has always felt like I understood you, even before I knew how much we have in common. Partly because I know Roman trusts you, and I know how rare that is for him. I was glad when he told me Luke was going to work for you. I think...” She stops, gathering her thoughts.
Then she turns to face me and starts again. “I know how it feels to be alone,” she says quietly. “And to feel like you come from a place so dark that nobody can ever really understand it. It took me a long time to trust Roman. It took me even longer to truly believe he was capable of facing the monsters that were chasing me. And maybe, it took me even longer than that to believe I wasn’t too... damaged for him to love.”
I’m so taken aback I can only stare at her. “You?”I’m unable to keep the incredulity from my voice. “You thoughtyouwere too damaged for Roman to love?”
She nods slowly. “You have to understand: I’d been alone for a long time. Just me and Papa, running from one country to another, always looking over our shoulders for the Orlov tattoo. Those men murdered my mother. They tortured me and my brother until we were both nearly insane. I wonder, sometimes, if Alexei will ever recover from what they did to him.” Her face is sad. “I couldn’t imagine anyone, even Roman, taking on that kind of war. Especially when he had three children to protect. It killed me that I was putting them in danger by being in his house.” She gives me a small smile. “But the truth is, Zin, that Roman was more capable than I could possibly have imagined. And as dark as all my fears were, the day came when I was more afraid of losing him than I was of anything we might face together.”
Headlights are winding up the road, toward Abby’s house next door.Ofelia and Masha, I think,coming home.Somethingabout the easy domesticity of life here catches me off guard, makes me emotional in a way I wasn’t prepared for. It’s a life that feels both dangerously tempting and yet still utterly impossible for me.
“I guess I just don’t know where to go from here,” I whisper, staring down at the table, surprised by the sudden rush of emotion. “I’ve already made Luke cross lines he swore he never would. You and I know what our world is, Darya. You know what it does to good men like Luke. I don’t want to be the reason he loses himself in the darkness.”
“If I can venture a piece of advice?” She covers my hand with her own.
I give a choked laugh. “Sure. I’ll take whatever you’ve got.”
“Luke is similar to Roman, in that his actions speak much louder than his words. He chose to walk into your world, and even after all hell broke loose in that shipping yard, he chose to stay. Why don’t you just let that be enough, for now?”
“But I feel like it’s an unworkable situation,” I say, frowning. “And if this thing between us is going to continue, I can hardly keep paying him—”
“So wait for him to talk to you about it.” Darya sits back in her seat, smiling at me. “And if he doesn’t, then bring it up yourself. In time. For now, well.” She raises her glass to me. “Maybe just settle for searingly hot sex for a while? Come on,” she says as I start to laugh. “There’s got to be worse things. You should definitely wear those lounging pajamas, by the way. There’s no way he will be able to resist tearing them off you. And you need to know that I’m going to be calling you to hear all about it.” She gives me a wicked wink. “I’ve always thought Luke had... errmm... hidden talents, shall we say. Something about how verystillhe is.”
Oh, you have no idea.
“My staff have started calling him Captain McTasty,” I admit, which sends her off into peals of laughter.
“Captain McTasty!” she gasps. “Oh, I like that. I’m so going to call him that next time I see him.”
She lifts the bottle of Disaronno as the sound of car doors closing and laughter comes from across the field next door. “I’m sure this makes me the worst mother in the world,” she says conspiratorially as she refills our glasses. “But I plan to have another one of these, and to hell with the hangover tomorrow.”
24
ZINAIDA
Luke is waitingby the hangar when my car pulls onto the tarmac.
I drink in the sight of him through the tinted window, his huge hands thrust into his pockets, laughing with the security team. The high, bright sunshine catches the chestnut ends of his hair, which looks even more disheveled than usual, and the burnished hue to his skin suggests he spent most of his time here outside. Even clad in his perfectly tailored suit, he still looks like he just stepped out of the water.
