Page 94 of Inked Adonis

At this point, I’m not sure which answer would keep me safer. Should I tell him the truth, which is that this thing with Samuil will not and cannot go anywhere? That he’ll get bored with me and move on, and I’ll be devastated and shuffle back to my side of the city?

Or do I tell him it’s true love? That Sam and I are family, and he’s going to protect me?

Turns out it doesn’t matter.

Ilya has come to his own conclusions.

“If you are living with my brother, you are part of the family,” he declares. “Whether you like it or not.”

Right now, I don’t like it. Not one bit.

I shove to my feet. “I’m leaving.”

I mean it to be a statement, but the unspoken question mark hovers in the air.

Am I trapped now?

Will he let me leave?

Is Samuil going to come back from his trip to find my bones littering his apartment?

I half-expect Ilya to lock me in a cage. I wouldn’t be surprised if a trap door whooshed open, and I fell down a bloody chute to some dungeon where I’ll grow allergic to sunshine and live off of rats.

But Ilya simply walks over to the door and pulls it open for me. “It was lovely seeing you, Nova. I do hope you’ll take care of yourself.”

Now, why the hell does that sound like a threat?

I’m stepping through the door, one foot in the hallway, the other still in his office, when he speaks again. “I suspect I’ll see you again soon,” he adds. “My father is expected to make a visit to the city. He’ll want to meet our family’s newest member.”

Ah. It sounded like a threat because itwasone.

I feel his eyes lingering on me as I hightail it to the elevator and cut through the main lobby.

When I finally step into the sunlight, there’s a moment of relief. A brief second where I think,Damn, girl, you just dodged a bullet.

But the fear curdling in the pit of my stomach doesn’t subside.

Because as long as I’m with Samuil, there will always be more bullets coming my way.

33

SAMUIL

I stand at the end of my bed, stunned into a reverent silence.

I was gone for so long. Ten days of shoveling shit and tying up loose ends in the frigid cold of Moscow might as well have been ten years. So long that I almost forgot what would be waiting for me when I came home.

Or rather,whowould be waiting.

I say “almost,” because, between permanently evicting a mole and his two cohorts from the planet, I had time each and every one of those ten nights to miss Nova.

Afterward, I had even more time to think about what a mindfuck it was to miss anyone at all. It’s been a long time since that concept factored into any of my equations. Even before Katerina and I called our doomed marriage quits.

But standing here, the sight of Nova sprawled in the center of my bed, wearing nothing but a white camisole and panties, there’s no denying it.

I missed her.

It’s all I can do not to climb into bed beside her and do something stupid, like tell her exactly that. But I stink of secrets and airplanes and vodka.

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