Page 135 of Inked Adonis

“Already on it. I’m on my way upstairs now.”

An image flashes through my mind: Nova curled in the corner of our bedroom, tears tracking down her face because I earned her trust just to crush it like everyone else in her life has. Unlike her father or her brothers, I did it to protect her.

But that argument won’t mean shit to her.

Not when the alternative was sitting her down and explaining the realities of my world. I could have told her that my life exists under a perpetual shadow of threats and enemies. That being with me means those shadows loom over her too.

I could have done that... and watched her walk away.

So I did the only thing I could to keep her safe while keeping her mine. It was selfish, but I’ve never pretended to be anything else.

Myles stays silent as the elevator climbs. Floor after floor, that familiar ding echoes through the phone. I’m on the other side of the globe, but my chest tightens with each ascending level. I hold my breath, straining to hear Nova’s voice through the connection.

I don’t need much. Just a word. A whimper, even. Some proof that she’s there and this was all worth it.

That little bit of her would untangle some of the restlessness in my chest. Just knowing she’s okay and in my house would be… well, not enough. I’ll never have enough of her.

But at least I’d be able to breathe.

But it isn’t Nova’s voice I hear through the line.

“Where’s Nova?” Myles asks.

It’s Frederik who answers. “She’s resting in her room like Samuil told her to. She was pretty banged up.”

Banged up?

“What the fuck is he talking about?” I put the call on speaker and cue up the security footage. I’ve done my best not to look at it since I left, afraid I’d lose hours watching Nova sit on the couch with the dogs.

Now, I scrub back through the footage to this morning, stopping when I see Nova fill the screen.

But—

“Fucking hell.”

She barely looks like Nova. She’s bandaged and bruised and limping along with the aid of a fucking crutch.

“What in the hell happened to her?” Air rushes out of my lungs like crushed cans. “Put Frederik on the phone.”

“I’ll check her room,” Myles mumbles before he hands off the phone.

“She told me she spoke to you,” Frederik explains, voice pitching high in confusion. “She said she told you about the dog attack…?”

“She was fuckingattacked?”

Nova was attacked, and I wasn’t there. I haven’t been there.

“You didn’t know?” asks Frederik.

“Stop asking me what I know and fucking tell me whatyouknow,” I snarl. “Now.”

He runs through Nova’s dog attack and recovery, though he says he has no clue where exactly she recovered. Then he talks methrough this morning: Nova’s arrival and how she went to take a nap after, supposedly, talking to me on the phone.

A color guard of red flags is waving in my head.

Something is wrong.

“She isn’t here!” Myles roars in the background. I hear Frederik drop the phone as Myles confronts him. “Where the fuck did she go, Frederik? You were on guard!”

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