Chapter 2: Family Brunch with the Devil
The morning sun streamed through the grand windows of the dining room, casting long, warm rectangles of light across the polished oak floor. Vanja pushed a piece of smoked salmon around her plate with a fork, the metallic clink the only protest she allowed herself. The scent of fresh coffee and baked pastries usually comforted her, but today it felt cloying, thick.
“You’re picking at your food, søtnos,” her mother said, her voice gentle. “Not hungry after all the celebrating?”
Before Vanja could formulate a lie, her father’s booming voice cut through the domestic calm from the doorway to the sunroom. “Vanja! Come here, come meet someone!”
She looked up, a piece of toast halfway to her mouth. And then she saw him.
Standing beside her father, looking as if he belonged amidst the family portraits and inherited silver, was Luka. He was dressed differently now—a crisp, light linen shirt, dark trousers, the picture of respectable youth. But his eyes were the same. They found hers instantly, a predator recognizing its quarry in a new, unexpected field.
Her feet felt leaden as she rose from the table, the cheerful yellow of her sundress suddenly feeling like a ridiculous costume. The hum of the morning, the safe, mundane sounds of her family home, receded into a dull buzz in her ears.
Zoran Jakobsen beamed, his arm sweeping out in a generous gesture. “Vanja, this is Luka. The Barišić heir! Son of my very good friend, Dragan.”
Luka offered a polished, effortless smile. It didn’t reach his eyes.
“Luka,” her father continued, clapping the young man on the shoulder with a familiarity that made Vanja’s stomach twist. “You know my daughter, of course.”
“Of course, Zoran,” Luka said, his voice a smooth, pleasant baritone. A complete contrast to the guttural Croatian he’d used in the penthouse. “Who doesn’t?”
His gaze slid back to her, and in that moment, she saw the calculation behind the charm. He was taking in the scene—the wealthy, doting father, the lavish home, her own pristine reputation. What could he possibly offer a girl who had it all? Money? She had that. Protection? From what? The thought was a mockery. He was the threat.
He was thinking of all the leverage points, the soft underbelly of her perfect life. He was forgetting about the football club in Dortmund that her father adored, forgetting the sentimental stories about Frankfurt, the city of Zoran’s birth. All of it was just data to him.
And then Vanja smiled. It was a reflex, a shield she had perfected for the cameras. She turned her head slightly towards her father, the long, dark blond hair swinging over her shoulder, and whispered in Serbian, a language of home and secrets, “He seems very… serious, tata.”
Zoran laughed, a great, hearty sound that echoed in the sunlit room. “Serious! You hear that, Luka? My champion thinks you are too serious!”
Luka’s smile tightened at the edges, just for a fraction of a second. His eyes, however, remained locked on Vanja, and in their depths, the game was acknowledged. He had found his way into her fortress. The chase was no longer across a crowded room. It was here, at her breakfast table.
The world shrank to the space between them, the sunlit room and her father’s cheerful presence dissolving into a blurred periphery. All that remained was the direct, unbroken line of his gaze, a current of pure, unnerving focus that pinned her in place. It was a tangible force, that look, stripping away the polite veneer of the morning and laying bare the promise he had made in the haze of the penthouse.
Her breath hitched, a tiny, almost imperceptible catch in her throat that she was certain he saw. His eyes, a cool, assessing grey, held no trace of the social smile still fixed on his lips. They were the same eyes that had raked over her sweat-slicked body, that had murmured a threat in a language of secrets. Now, in the brutal clarity of daylight, they simply stated a fact: I am here.
And then, as if a switch had been flipped, the moment shattered. Luka’s gaze softened, the intensity draining away as he turned his head to laugh at something her father said. The connection broke, leaving Vanja standing there, her skin prickling with the aftershock. The hum of the house rushed back in, loud and dissonant. He had marked her, and he had let her go, for now. The game was indeed here.
The game was indeed here.
“Don’t be rude, Vanja,” her father chided lightly, his good mood impervious to the tension crackling in the air between them. “Luka’s father and I have finalised the partnership. He’ll be joining us for the summer, learning the business.”
The floor seemed to tilt beneath Vanja’s feet. A summer? Here? Her mind raced, scrambling for any escape route, any excuse that wouldn’t sound like the panic it was.
“That’s… great, Dad,” she managed, the words tasting like ash. “But my training schedule is insane. I’ll basically be living at the track.”
Luka finally spoke, his voice a soft, deliberate counterpoint to her fraying nerves. “I would not want to be a distraction,” he said, his eyes lingering on the slight tremble in her hand. “Perhaps I could watch you train sometime. I am curious to see that famous speed for myself.”
The unspoken end of his sentence hung in the sunlit room: when you are not running from me.
“Anyone for more coffee?” her mother called from the dining table, her voice a dissonant note of normalcy.
“I will get it,” Luka offered smoothly, turning with a practiced, polite grace.
As he moved past her, his shoulder brushed against hers. It was not an accident. The contact was brief, a whisper of linen against her bare arm, but it sent a jolt of pure, undiluted alarm through her system. His hand, seemingly to steady himself, pressed against the small of her back for a fraction of a second too long.
The touch was possessive, intimate, and utterly violating. It was a brand, a claim laid in the heart of her home, under her father’s oblivious gaze. Every nerve ending screamed. He pulled his hand away as if nothing had happened, continuing his path toward the coffee service as a frozen silence swallowed Vanja whole.
The ghost of his touch burned on her skin, a brand that felt more real than the morning sun. She could still feel the precise pressure of his fingers, a mockery of intimacy that made her want to peel her own skin off.
“I… I need to go,” she heard herself say, the sound distant and thin. “Training. Now.”
Her father’s affable confusion was a backdrop to her retreat. “Right now? You haven’t finished your—”
But she was already moving, her legs carrying her on autopilot away from the dining room, away from him. The polished hallway floor felt unsteady, a ship’s deck in a storm she alone could feel.
She didn’t stop until the heavy door of her bedroom clicked shut behind her, the lock engaging with a solid, comforting thud. She leaned back against the wood, her chest heaving as she stared at the familiar sanctuary of her room—the trophies, the posters, the unmade bed.
It all looked alien now, tainted. He was in her house. He had touched her in her home.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket, a frantic vibration against her thigh. She fumbled for it, her hands shaking so badly she almost dropped it. The screen showed a notification from her tracking app, the one linked to the tiny GPS device she kept in her running kit.
A new, unknown location was saved. Home.
He had been close enough to her bag, to her things, to plant something. Or he had someone who did. The bastard wasn’t just playing mind games; he was laying a physical trail.
A cold, sharp clarity cut through the panic. This wasn’t a social dilemma. This was an infestation.
She pushed off from the door, her breath steadying into something purposeful. She walked to her closet and pulled out an old, worn backpack, the one she used for hiking. Methodically, she began to empty the contents of her current gym bag into it.
She left the tracked bag behind, a decoy for a hunt she now knew was real. She changed into running clothes, the familiar fabric a second skin, a uniform for the fight she hadn’t asked for.
Luka thought he was a hunter studying his prey. He’d forgotten what prey does when it’s cornered. It doesn’t just run. It fights.
She pulled her hair back into a tight, severe ponytail and looked at her reflection. The fear was still there, a live wire in her gut, but it was now fused with a colder, harder substance. He wanted to see her famous speed?
Let him try and keep up.