Page 136 of Inked Adonis

“I-I left. But she said— Nova said she was going to sleep. I thought— She told me she’d stay put!”

My mind splits between planning exactly how I’ll make Frederik suffer for this failure and calculating where Nova would run.

“Myles!” I shout his name loudly enough he must hear me, because he scoops his phone off the floor. “Check her apartment. She probably went there to?—”

My phone buzzes in my hand, and I pull back to see Ilya’s name on the screen. The instinct to dismiss his bullshit with a swipe rises to the surface, but then…

I pause.

Ilya almost never calls me. Especially when he knows I’m out of the country.

A grim, icy certainty wraps around my chest. I hang up on Myles and accept my brother’s call.

“What the fuck have you done?” I growl.

Ilya just cackles. “There you go again, jumping to conclusions. These rash judgments are what keep getting you into trouble, brother.”

My heartbeat is thudding faster and faster. Cold sweat beads on my forehead and that dread snaking its way through my gut is getting heavy.

I never should have left her. I should’ve put her on that plane with me. She should be next to me right now, not?—

“Where is she?”

“That’s what you should’ve been asking the last few months. ‘Where is she? Where has she been? Who is she working for?’”

A wordless growl rips out of my chest. I’m beyond words. My hands are shaking.

“Oh, relax,” Ilya sighs. “I just emailed you a video update. You’ll see your little traitor is alive and well.”

I log into my email and click on the attachment. The video buffers and then focuses on an image of Nova.

She’s outside her father’s house, already in bandages and with the crutch. I guess that answers the question of where she went after her attack.

The video speeds up, tailing her father’s car through traffic until he pulls outside of my apartment building. Half an hour later, according to the timestamp, she comes back out with a bag on her shoulder and gets into a cab.

The cab heads to the South Loop, and I stiffen. I don’t ease as she climbs out of the cab and heads directly into Andropov Headquarters with her tote bag.

Five minutes later, she reappears without the bag. And the video cuts off.

Fuck.

“Should I take your stony silence as proof that you finished the clip?” Ilya muses. “Tough watch. How are you feeling?”

As if I’d ever fucking tell him.

“Do you have her?”

“Of course I do.” He chuckles, disgustingly pleased with himself. “I, unlike you, know how to handle a crisis. I don’t let spies roam free, even if I am fucking them.”

I can’t let myself think about what he’s doing to her. How terrified she is.

Mostly because I can’t stop wondering if she’s been lying to me this whole time.

“I don’t have time for your fucking games, Ilya,” I hiss. “Tell me where you’re keeping her!”

“If I tell you, you’ll come to rescue her, and she’ll manipulate you into believing she’s innocent, just like she did before. I should handle this interrogation myself.”

Nova, being interrogated by Ilya. The image sends ice through my veins. I’ve seen what’s left of people after my brother finishes with them.

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