Page 99 of Inked Adonis

I roll my eyes. The devil only knows how long he spent workshopping lines until he got to that one. I bet he rehearsed it in the fucking mirror. “This proves nothing. She hired Nova to walk her dog. This isn’t new?—”

“Just watch,” Ilya insists. “You’ll see.”

Leonid hasn’t taken his eyes off the screen, so I grudgingly turn my attention back to the footage.

Katerina walks alongside Nova through the park, her mouth moving around words we can’t hear. I imagine it’s not a heartfelt speech full of apologies and talk of generous quarterly bonuses.

Then again, Katerina isn’t wearing her usual scowl. And while Nova doesn’t exactly look thrilled with the situation, she isn’t upset. She isn’t running away. She’s… listening?

Why didn’t Nova mention this to me?

Because you were out of the country for a week and a half, you fucking fool,comes the immediate reply in my head.Because you abandoned her to go play cloak-and-dagger games on the other side of the world.

Because she doesn’t think she can trust you.

Because she doesn’t think she can love you.

I scowl and kill those thoughts dead. I’m sure there was nothing to this. Nothing but a random run-in at the park. Forgettable. Nothing to write home abo?—

“Here it is!” Ilya jabs a finger at the screen, and now, I really do wish I’d sawed it off at the knuckle earlier.

If only so he couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment Katerina presses a black phone into Nova’s hand and walks away.

Nova’s not going to keep the phone, I think to myself.She’s going to drop it. Throw it. Perform an exorcism on it, burn it, and smear the ashes on her face. Anything but keep it.

But Ilya wouldn’t be showing this video if Nova had done any of those things.

No, Nova does the one thing I can’t explain.

She slips the phone into her pocket, glances around to see if anyone’s watching, and then continues her walk.

Ilya presses another button and the footage is swapped out for a typed list of locations around the city—my penthouse, this office building, Katerina’s greystone in the city.

But as the list goes on, my hand clenches under the table.

Andropov Headquarters. Restaurants and clubs owned by the Andropovs. Even Paul Andropov’s private residence in Barrington.

Before I can ask, Ilya launches into a gleeful explanation. “This is the list of places Samuil’s little girlfriend has visited in the last week.”

There’s an explanation.

Or he’s full of fucking shit.

He has to be. I vetted Nova myself. As did Myles. If there was anything to find there, we would have found it.

But I know how this video looks. Which is why I turn to my father just as he slowly pushes himself to standing.

I brace myself for the explosion I know is coming, but I’m still taken off-guard when he opens his mouth in a roar and throws all of his weight into the table.

The marble slab slides a few inches towards me, pinching my chest and pinning me in my seat. But there’s no real damage done, which is why he comes flying around the table towards me. His hands curl and flex as though he’s already got my throat within his grip.

“I put you in charge, and this is how you repay my loyalty?” He closes the distance between us like this might actually come to blows, though I know it never will.

Leonid Litvinov is good at a great many things, and one of them is knowing his own limitations.

If he put a hand on me, he wouldn’t get it back.

Luckily for him, Ilya grabs him from behind and makes a show of holding him back before my father has to reveal to everyone that he’s still a little bit afraid of his eldest son.

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