Page 132 of Inked Adonis

I switch the phone off and stuff it in my pocket.

“Everything okay back there, miss?” asks the driver.

That’s a loaded question. Physical pain has nothing on the emotional kind. My fractured arm throbs beneath its bandages, my savaged ankle screams, but it’s the sick knot in my stomach that’s truly unbearable.

“I’m fine,” I tell the driver. “Just take me to the address I gave you.”

He eyes me in the rearview mirror. I know what he sees: a woman who looks like she went three rounds with a meat grinder and lost. The German Shepherd did quite a number on me. But these injuries might actually help sell my story to the Andropovs.

Poor little thing, they’ll think. So desperate she dragged herself here straight from the hospital.

The cab turns onto Wacker Drive and Andropov headquarters looms ahead. Sixty stories of black glass and razor edges. The building doesn’t just occupy space in Chicago’s skyline, it threatens it. Even the pigeons avoid landing on its knife-sharp ledges.

Of course my father’s “friends” would operate out of a literal tower of evil.

I make the driver stop a block away. No sense in giving him more connection to this mess than necessary. When he offers to help me out of the car, my heart cracks a little. There are still good people in this world.

I’m just not one of them anymore.

I slide him a hundred for a thirty dollar fare. “I’ve got it from here. But thank you. Really.”

I know too much about this world to think I’m not being recorded from a dozen different angles right now. But it’s okay. No matter what anyone thinks, the truth will come out.

I touch the server in my bag. The intel on it is useless—corrupted code and dead ends that will take the Andropovs weeks to unravel. By then, I’ll have explained everything to Sam. He’ll understand why I had to do this.

He has to understand. Because if he doesn’t...

A gust of winter wind knifes through my thin sweater. I square my shoulders and limp toward the revolving doors. Time to get this over with.

I look back to the road before I duck through the entrance. The black SUV that was tailing my taxi across the city is idling on the other side of the street now. Could be my father’s men making sure I follow through. Could be Andropov’s people tracking their mark.

Could be Samuil’s men, about to witness my betrayal in 4K.

Which means changing course is not an option.

Not that it ever was. The second my father threatened Grams, my part in this little drama was a guarantee.

The lobby is a cathedral of corporate menace, all gleaming black marble and precision angles designed to remind you just how small you are. The security desk stretches wide as an altar.

I see the neat row of receptionists along the back wall, just like my father said I would. They sit behind what I’m sure is bulletproof glass, typing away. The clicking of their keyboards echoes off the hard surfaces of the lobby.

The petite receptionist doesn’t look up from her computer as I approach her desk. “Can I help you?”

“I need to deliver this to Paul Andropov.” I read the words off the mental script in my mind, saying and doing exactly as my father instructed.

She looks up at me for the first time. Her expression doesn’t change one bit as she takes stock of my bandages and bruises. I doubt I’m the first banged-up person she’s had stumble into this lobby looking for Mr. Andropov.

I place the tote bag on the marble countertop. “It’s important.”

All at once, her face smooths out. There’s no doubt now that she’s been expecting me. “Your name?”

“Nova Pierce.”

I should’ve given her a fake one—not that it really matters. One brief look around the room reveals the glowing red lights of security cameras in every corner and behind every receptionist.

She nods like my name is some kind of password. “You can leave the package here. I’ll see that he gets it.”

I slide the entire tote bag under the small gap in the glass, saying goodbye to my yellow sweater in the process. The woman accepts it with a nod and then promptly goes back to her computer screen.

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