Page 120 of Inked Adonis

“Do I get to know why?”

“It’s better if you don’t.”

I stare down at my shoes. “I can’t believe this is happening again already.”

“I’ll call you this time,” he promises. “I won’t go completely dark, but… I have to go.”

“And I’m just supposed to stay here and wait? When will you be back?”

He doesn’t say a word.

His silence fills my lungs like smoke, choking off everything I want to scream at him. We’d been so close this morning – his fingers in my hair, his lips on my neck, his promises against my skin. Now he might as well be in Moscow already.

In between the soft, tender moments we had this morning, there’s always going to be this dark, twisted flip side. A revolving door of almost-happiness followed by inevitable goodbye.

I wrap my arms around myself, fighting the chill that settles over me. The dogs press against my legs, seeking comfort or offering it, I’m not sure which. But their warmth can’t touch the ice spreading through my chest as I watch Sam turn back to his laptop.

Just like that, I’m dismissed. Cast aside for whatever Bratva business demands his attention now.

I can’t believe this is happening again. So soon. Too soon.

It hasn’t been a day since he knelt in front of me and gave a grand speech about being my equal. Not my captor, not my warden, myequal.

And here he is now, stashing me away in the dark again. Ignoring my questions again. Keeping me out of sight, out of mind, out of his fucking way.

Again.

I can’t live like this.

“I guess it’s a good thing I didn’t unpack, then,” I say. He doesn’t try to stop me as I make my way to the door. “If you’re not going to be here, there’s no reason for me to be, either. I’m going back to my apartment.”

Here’s another lesson I’m learning: It’s not first cuts that are the deepest. It’s the ones that slice you open in the same spot, again and again and again.

At a certain point, you just don’t have any more blood left to spill.

41

SAMUIL

Death has its own scent.

Seven of my men discovered that yesterday in Moscow. They drew their last breaths in front of computer screens while someone carved “You will pay”into their chests.

I didn’t need the photos or the frantic calls—I could smell it on the data breach that followed, on the way the Andropovs slithered into our systems like the serpents they are.

I should be halfway to Moscow by now. Instead, I’m following Nova through our penthouse, watching her shove the dogs’ things into a suitcase that’s never leaving this building. The storm outside rattles the windows, city lights blurred by sheets of rain. A fitting backdrop for this particular shitshow.

“You can’t go back, Nova.” My voice is granite. Immovable. “It isn’t safe.”

She keeps packing, the muscles in her back tight under her thin shirt. The need to touch her, to physically stop her, pulses through my hands.

But I know better.

You don’t grab a spooked animal.

“It’ll just be while you’re away,” she calls over her shoulder, voice deliberately light. Too light. “I’d be alone here, so there’s no difference, really.”

I plant myself in the doorway, blocking her escape route. “The difference is twenty-thousand dollars per week in security.” Thunder crashes outside, punctuating my point. “The difference is that your apartment building might as well be made of fucking tissue paper for all the protection it offers.”

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