Page 142 of Inked Adonis

But inwardly, I’m regretting not keeping at least one of them alive for questioning.

I give my men a jerk of the chin. “Search the place, but be alert. There might be more rats hiding in the woodwork.”

But there aren’t.

The dealership is silent now. Utterly empty. Still, I cling to hope that Nova will be here. That she’s alive.

“Nova?”

My echo, faraway and hollow, is the only response.

“Sam!” Myles calls from down the hall. “Over here.”

I jog towards him, stopping in the doorway of a small room, empty except for a cot in the corner and a small table. A drained water bottle rests on the table alongside a sandwich covered in flies.

She was here.

I feel the certainty of it in my chest, as sure as the next thud of my heart.

I circle the bed and come to a stop. At the end of the mattress, crumpled in a heap on the floor, is a red sweatshirt. I pick it up gingerly, shaking out the wrinkled cotton.

Printed across the chest: “Paws and Enjoy the Little Things.”

I bring it to my nose and inhale her honey-vanilla scent.

But only for a moment. I tear it away from my face before I look weak, before Ifeelweak. She’s already done enough to me. Worked her way so deeply into my heart that it’s like she was always there.

And look what it’s cost me.

Even still, I can’t bring myself to drop the sweatshirt. I can’t force myself to leave it behind. I don’t want any part of Nova left in this hellhole.

“So she was here,” Myles surmises.

“But she’s not anymore.” Fury burns through my veins, searing me from the inside out. “Ilya must have taken her.”

Myles shakes his head. “Not personally. I have eyes on him. He’s in the city, meeting with Leonid as we speak. Nova isn’t with him.”

I spin and kick the metal bed frame as hard as I can. It goes clattering into the wall and my foot roars with pain, but I don’t give any mind to either thing. The bed is worthless and the pain is grounding—I welcome them both.

“Then where thefuckis she?”

I’m seething. Boiling. I could rip this place apart brick by brick and it wouldn’t be enough.

Myles reaches a hand towards me, but stops just out of reach. Like even he is afraid to touch me right now. “We’ll find her, brother. Everyone is on this job right now. She won’t escape.”

What if there is no escape?

What if she’s already gone?

I poke around the corners of my mind, trying to decide if I can believe that. And… no. If Nova was dead, Ilya would’ve lorded it over me. He’d already be presenting her broken body in a slideshow to our father, patiently waiting for his treat and a pat on the head.

If she was dead, I’d know it. I’d feel it.

Myles’s phone rings, shattering through the silence in the room. “It’s Dmitri.”

He strides away from me to take the call from one of his men in the city. His voice stays hushed.

I tighten my fist around Nova’s sweatshirt and wait, trying to force myself to think about this rationally.

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