Page 73 of Luca
"I have to go," I say finally, pulling back. "Luca will notice if I'm gone too long."
"Will I see you again?"
"I don't know. But if things go badly, if you hear anything about trouble for our family, you run. Do you understand? You disappear completely. Start fresh and be someone new."
She nods, wiping her eyes. "What will you tell him? If he confronts you?"
"I'll figure something out. I always do. Now go back inside."
It's a lie, and we both know it. But sometimes lies are kinder than the truth.
Sofia ducks back inside the hostel entrance while I start the walk back toward the hotel district. The streets are quieter now, most of the late-night revelers having found their destinations.
I make it maybe two blocks before I hear footsteps behind me.
I don't turn around. Don't run. There's no point.
"Going somewhere, Sofia?" Luca's voice cuts through the night air like a blade.
Chapter 28: Luca
She thinks I'm asleep.
I've been lying perfectly still for the past twenty minutes, listening to her breathing change from the deep rhythm of sleep to the careful, controlled pattern of someone trying not to wake their bedmate.
When she slips out of bed, her movements are too practiced, too quiet. This isn't a woman getting up for water or to use the bathroom. This is someone who's trying to sneak out.
I wait until I hear the soft click of the bathroom door, then the rustle of clothes being pulled from somewhere they shouldn't be. Not from the closet where her expensive dresses hang. From somewhere else entirely.
When the bathroom door opens again, I catch a glimpse through barely cracked eyelids. Worn jeans, scuffed boots, that same jacket from this afternoon. She moves like a shadow toward the suite door, and I wait two minutes before following.
The service corridors are dimly lit at this hour, but I know these routes now. I've had Paolo map every entrance and exit in this hotel. She navigates them like someone familiar with avoiding security cameras, slipping through blind spots with expertise.
I follow at a distance as she emerges onto the Prague streets. She moves with purpose through the late-night crowds, no hesitation, no checking street signs. This isn't alate-night stroll for someone who can’t sleep. This is someone going exactly where they need to be.
The hostel district again.
My jaw clenches as we approach the same neighborhood where she met that tattooed bastard this afternoon. Paolo's team confirmed the man has been drinking heavily all night with friends at a bar three blocks away, but maybe they arranged to meet somewhere else.
Maybe—
She stops on the sidewalk. I duck into a doorway as she approaches the entrance of the same hostel she visited earlier. But instead of going inside, she waits. Looking around, checking the shadows.
That's when I see her.
Another woman emerges from beside the building. Same height, same build, same way of moving. But her hair is different—shorter, darker. And when she turns toward the light from the street lamp, everything finally clicks into place.
It's Sofia's face.
Exactly Sofia's face.
The woman I've been living with, sleeping with, steps forward and the two identical faces catch the light. They're talking urgently, their body language familiar.
Sisters.
No, not sisters…twins.
Everything—every inconsistency, every moment where she seemed like a stranger, every skill she shouldn't have, every lie that didn't quite fit—suddenly makes perfect, terrible sense.
