She Played Sweet for Her Boyfriend, He Learned Who She Really Was novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Where My Gun Goes

Luka lies to his father and drives Nika and Pavel to the family's lake cabin, sets his terms, and Mara calls with a price on both their heads.

Luka drove, because he would not let me.

He took the first turn with his right hand and held his bleeding arm against his ribs with the left.

Pavel Orlin sat in the back with his bag on his knees and said nothing at all.

I tore the hem off my dress and wound it around Luka's arm while he took the second corner.

"Tighter," he said.

"It's tight."

"You said tighter was bad."

"I said tighter than this is bad," I said. "Keep your eyes on the road."

He kept them there.

His phone rang when we reached the expressway. The name on the screen was Papa.

Luka looked at it for three rings.

Then he put it on speaker and set it on his knee.

"Luka." Viktor's voice filled the car, mild and warm. "The driver says the laundromat is empty. Where are you?"

"On the road," Luka said. "Orlin ran. The harbor crew got to the stairs before me, Papa. Four of them."

"The harbor crew." A pause. "Were you hurt?"

"My arm. It's nothing."

"Come home, son. Let the men do this."

"I'm going to find him first."

"Luka." The voice stayed soft. "You are bleeding. I can hear it in how you breathe. Is Nika with you?"

Luka's eyes cut to me and away.

"She's home," he said. "I dropped her off. She's asleep."

"Good. That girl should be kept far from this." I heard a glass set down. "She is so gentle. Be careful with her, Luka."

"I always am."

"I know. Go and find our friend. Call me in the morning."

The line closed.

Nobody spoke for a mile.

Pavel Orlin let out a long, whistling breath behind us.

"He didn't even ask who shot at you," I said.

"No."

"He sounded very calm."

"He always sounds calm." Luka gripped the wheel. "Don't."

"I didn't say anything."

"You were about to."

I said nothing, and I thought about how Viktor had said the harbor crew without any surprise at all.

Luka held out his good hand without looking at me.

"Phone."

I gave it to him.

He turned it off, opened the window, and held it out in the wind for a moment.

Then he drew it back in and put it in his jacket pocket.

"You can have it later," he said. "Maybe."

"It's only a phone."

"Then it won't matter."

"You've never taken my phone before."

"I've never had a reason."

It was a lie, and a small one, and we both knew it. He had checked my phone every month for twenty months.

I let it stand.

The cabin was ninety minutes north, at the end of a gravel road, on the edge of a lake.

I had never been there. Luka had told me once that it belonged to his mother, and then he had changed the subject.

He parked beside a pine tree and sat for a while with the engine off.

"Nobody knows about this place," he said. "My father. Me. My mother, before she died. That's all."

"Then we're safe."

"Then we're less unsafe." He turned the key in the cabin lock with his good hand. "Inside."

Pavel went in first, limping on his bad hip.

The cabin was one big room with a stone fireplace and a kitchen along one wall, and two doors at the back.

It smelled of cold ash and cedar.

Luka lit one lamp, closed the curtains, and went through the first-aid cabinet by the sink.

"Sit," I told him. "I'll do it."

"You'll sit," he said. "You'll sit there, where I can see you."

He pointed at a wooden chair beside the fireplace.

I sat.

He put the first-aid box on the table and stood in front of me with his arms folded.

He took a very long time to look at me.

"Here are my terms," he said.

"All right."

"You stay where I can see you until this is finished. You don't leave the cabin, and you don't go into a room alone."

"All right."

"And no more lies. Not one. I ask, you answer."

I held his eyes.

I had thought about that, in the car, and I hadn't been able to find the answer that was both true and safe.

"I'll give you mine," I said.

His mouth went tight. "Go ahead."

"You don't take my gun."

"Your gun."

I opened my purse and put the pistol on my knee, pointing at the floor.

He looked at it. A muscle moved in his jaw.

"You walked into my father's table with that?"

"No. I took it off one of his men on the stairs."

"That's very funny," he said, though it was not.

"I mean it, Luka. I need it in reach."

"I'm not going to point it at you. I'm not going to hand it to you either."

He thought about it for a long time.

Then he said, "Fine. For now."

I put the pistol back in the purse.

"Now," Luka said, and sat down heavily across from me, wincing. "Start at the beginning. Who are you?"

I took a breath to begin.

A phone began to ring.

It wasn't mine. Mine was in his pocket.

It was buzzing from the lining of my purse, a small flat sound that came and went.

Luka looked at my purse. Then at me.

"That's a second phone," he said quietly.

I took it out and read the screen. It said MARA.

"It's my friend," I said.

"Answer it."

I answered it, and he leaned in to hear.

"Nika." Mara's voice was quick and dry. "Tell me you are nowhere near a Draganov."

"I'm sitting across from one," I said.

There was a silence on the line.

"Then you both listen," said Mara.

"Viktor has put a price on Pavel Orlin's head. He has put one on yours too."

"His men on the stairs woke up and described a girl with a braid. It went out nine minutes ago."

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