Page 38 of Inked Adonis

I should be worried about my life, not my dignity.

But I’ve always been a good multitasker.

“I just want to go home,” I whimper.

Myles gives me a tight, sympathetic smile. “For the next two weeks, thisisyour home.”

His words fall like a guillotine blade, severing the last thread of hope I’d been clinging to.

Welcome to Penthouse Prison, Nova.

Hope you survive the stay.

13

NOVA

I wake up with a bang.

Literally.

As in, I sit up so fast that I tumble out of bed and whack my head on the nightstand.

Except it isn’tmynightstand. There’s no cracked veneer from where I squeezed it through the narrow doorways of my ancient apartment building. It’s also missing my vital selection of half-filled water glasses, ranging from a few hours old to origin unknown.

This strange nightstand is glossy, dark wood, topped only with a sleek, digital alarm clock. The harsh red numbers flash useless zeroes at me. Given the dark sky I can see through floor-to-ceiling windows to my left, I know two things for certain.

One: it’s late.

Two: what happened this afternoon wasn’t a midnight-snack-cake-fueled nightmare.

I look around for clues, because I’d really like to knowmorethan two things for certain. The room is criminally sparse, but that seems to be the look the designer was going for. Everything is low, horizontal lines and minimalism. It must be the room Myles offered to show me to.

Not that I remember being shown anywhere.

Apparently, I skipped the hyperventilating and throwing up and went straight to passing out.

Great. Just great.

Using the edge of the bed to lift myself to shaky legs, I check my body over for obvious signs of microchipping or a missing liver.

But there’s nothing. Nothingyet, I should say. I don’t know what these freaks are into.

The plush white carpet muffles my footsteps as I creep toward the door, though I doubt anything in this penthouse happens without Samuil knowing about it. The man probably has cameras in the air vents and motion sensors in the baseboards.

I expect to find my door locked—surrounded by booby traps or barbed wire or whatever rich psychopaths use for home security these days.

But it opens with suspicious ease. No resistance. No alarms.

I’m not stupid enough to think that means freedom, though.

This is just another one of his games.

I ease down a hallway until I hear the rumble of voices. One of them belongs to the devil himself—deep and commanding, familiar in a way that makes me want to shrivel up with shame.

“... the fuck does that mean?” Samuil’s growl sends an unwanted shiver down my spine.

“It means what I said: I get it now.” That’s Myles, his right-hand man with the all-American smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Which means I also get why it might be tough to keep her here. We have alternatives.”

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