Page 107 of Inked Adonis

I turn back to my apartment, trying to remember those days when just walking through the door felt like a sigh of relief.

Nothing significant has changed. The clean but unfolded clothes are where I left them. The books, too, and the TV remote, and the plants, and the hair ties marooned on every flat surface.

It’s a snapshot of my life, perfectly preserved. I keep waiting to feel like it’smineagain. I’m back. I should be able to press “play” and pick up where I left off.

But I don’t know how.

Sam took that from me, too.

I clean for hours, and even when there’s nothing left to do, I keep walking. Sitting still feels like death.

So I pace. I pace like a caged animal, touching everything as if to mark it as mine again.

That’smyhairbrush. That’smycouch.

The alien feeling doesn’t go away. Each item I brush past only reminds me of what I left behind.

Seven steps from window to door. Nine from kitchen to bedroom. I count them over and over, but they don’t ground me like they used to. These walls that once felt like shelter now feel like they’re closing in.

I return to my bedroom and sink onto my bed, gripping the edges of the mattress for dear life. It hits me slow, the truth. Not a lightning strike. Not an epiphany. More like blood bubbling up out of a fatal wound: slow, inevitable, and impossible to stop.

I love him.

I love the way his eyes soften when he looks at me. The gentle way he handles the dogs. How his touch can be both devastating and tender.

But I also see the darkness in him. The rage that turns his eyes to steel. The casual way he wields power, like it’s his birthright. The violence that lurks beneath every careful movement.

My father taught me that love shouldn’t hurt. But he taught me that through pain, so I learned the opposite lesson instead: that love and pain are two sides of the same coin. You can’t have one without the other.

I curl into myself, pressing my face into my pillow. It doesn’t smell like Sam’s cologne. Nothing here smells like him anymore.

One foot in front of the other.

But this time, those words mean something different. They mean walking away from the man I love because loving him might destroy me. Because sometimes love isn’t enough to overcome the darkness.

Because I refuse to become another casualty of a Litvinov man’s war with the world.

I let the tears come, grieving for what could have been. For the version of Sam that exists in my dreams—the one who could choose love over power, peace over violence. The one who doesn’t exist in reality.

Tomorrow, I’ll start rebuilding my life. One foot in front of the other, until the distance between us can’t be crossed.

But tonight, I let myself remember his touch, his smile, his warmth. I let myself love him, knowing it’s the last time I’ll allow such weakness.

Because yes, I love Samuil Litvinov.

But I’ve spent too many years putting myself back together to let another man tear me apart.

37

SAMUIL

I let the dogs loose from their leashes in the elevator. Like me, and despite a six-mile run, they’re still vibrating with unspent energy when the doors part. Rufus darts into the apartment with his nose pressed to the floor.

Some small part of me thinks Nova might be back. That same small part was sure she’d show up to walk the dogs this morning.

But it was wrong then. It’s wrong now, too. Just like this morning, just like last night, Nova still isn’t here.

Instead, I find Myles standing on the other side of the island. He raises a steaming mug of coffee in greeting to me and bends down to scratch Rufus and Ruby.

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